Discovering Rajasthan with N73

As always, xBhp.com strives to do things differently. Rajsthan trips had been done before too. This one though, as in all xBhp trips, had a reason behind it and the prime nature of being shared on the xBhp.com website forums and blogs. At xBhp we believe to share information ( route, pictures and experiences ) with the bikers at large rather than keep it a low key affair and a personal trip. When we travel, we make sure to update as much as possible so that the virtual online community also travels with us. Once again, after The Great Indian Roadtrip's success xBhp has successfully completed Discover Rajasthan trip which was supported by Nokia. The trip was for 9 days and 2400kms.

The route followed was :
Delhi->Bikaner->Jaisalmer->Jodhpur->
Udaipur->Chittorgarh->Jaipur->Delhi

After the GIR it was understood that we missed some great shots and moments because we had those bulky Digital SLRs with us. Taking them out, switching them on, clicking and then keeping back safely took a lot of time, will power and most importantly for the kind of photography, the moment was usually gone. There was a need of another camera which would do the trick in these kind of moments without sacrificing the pocket and would take minimal space. Point and shoot cameras were a good option, but spending just on another camera and lugging it around did not quite seem smart. Then I saw some reviews of N73’s imaging capabilities on the net. With its Auto Focus and Carl Zeiss optics it looked promising. Incidentally, i relate very well to Carl Zeiss lenses because the first camera that i used ( before the DSLRs ) was a Sony Cybershot 1.3 MP with a Cark Zeiss lens and 3x optical zoom. The quality from the Sony cam was astounding. But here, right now, when I think of the N73, it has 3.2 MP ( ! ) more than two times that of my Cybershot. But of course I know that you cannot compare a mobile cam’s quality with a dedicated Digital Camera ( forget a DSLR ) but the purpose was to see that if it would be do the trick of the perfect convergence device which is also light on the pocket. So I approached NOKIA with this idea and we got two N73 phones to test out. We chose Rajsthan because of its timeless beauty and golden hues. Of course the fantastic roads too! Our competing route was Himachal, but Bunny would have killed me if I had gone without him to his dream location ( he had got married this week and of course wont be available to us so soon now :D ). So it was me and Kulpreet for now. Armed with two N73s and two Canon DSLRs we will figure out just how much can the N73 satisfy the need to be ‘the one’ :

* a phone
* a camcorder ( mp4 : CIF ( Common Intermediate Format ) resolution of 352×288 for viewing on TV or PC. Recording time : dependent on the memory card
* a digital still camera ( 3.2 MP ) carl zeiss optics, flash
* music player ( i have found the phone to have excellent external speaker quality and loudness, but of course tinny sound without any bass speakers )
* organizer
* internet ( GPRS, internet browser )
* backup device ( backup files from PC )

Storage capacity : one N73 is a music edition ( 2GD MiniSD ) and other is standard ( 128 MB MINI SD )

I also kept in mind the need to have everything in one location and in a ready format to upload to the internet for sharing ( MP4 videos on the phone fulfill that ). The MINIDV camcirders that we also have need to be first digitized on the laptop and then timeline cropped and them exported after compression ( phew ). But again you wont get the broadcast quality like the MINIDV camcorders.

Trip Details

Dates : 17th March - 25th March

Riders : Sundeep Gajjar ( Sunny ), Kulpreet Singh ( kulpreet )

Bikes : 2 Karizmas.

Theme : Tour Rajasthan and discover the potential of the N73 as an imaging and a convergence device.

Updates / Blogs / Pictures : Everything here : Discover Rajasthan Home and Blog

Direct blog link : http://www.xbhp.com/roadtrips/rajasthan07/blog

So, where does the N73 stand?

Both Sundeep Gajjar ( Sunny ) and Kulpreet Singh are computer graphic designers. Sunny has been doing semi-professional photography for 1 and a half years with Canon DSLRs. The N73 was up for a major criticism from these two and of course the xBhp.com community to whom the images were being posted in the blogs. The initial look of the N73 means business and is not to stylish much to the chagrin of those who would like to show off. However it is not an archaic design in any sense whatsover. The screen is very sharp and the colors vivid. It features a CMOS 3.1 MP sensor for the pictures and can take MP4 videos in 352px x 288px res. The main feature we were interested was the auto focus and the Carl Zeiss lens. Ok, now these were the facts, and we are not an enclopedia, go and Google if you want more info on this phone.

User Interface : I personally think that NOKIA user interfaces are usually very intuitive. The N73 was no different. Though I found the interface to be sluggish. But things should improve in this department as the hardware catches up with the software.

As a Digital Still Camera : 3.2 Megapixels doesnt sound a lot today, but consider that we are talking about a phone which has the expectaions of a Digital Camera. It is sure hard to please the users and it's even hard to please us. So the first the time we took a picture on the trip, it was the Gurgaon DLF tower along one of the recently opened flyways. The picture looks very nice on the phone screen. We transferred it using Bluetooth on the laptop, our first reaction was "What the..!". The picture looked that good. However, when we viewed the picture in full size there is visible smear and loss of details which put us off a little. But again we reminded ourselves that it's phone andt then a camera. Being graphic designers we always do a bit of legitimate PP ( post processing ) on any image ( one of the few advantages of having digital images ). PP includes Auto Levels and level 1 sharpening. Extreme cases require shadow and higlighting filters. Thats it. Be it a N73 picture or a Canon SLR picture I always do that to get the best results. Kind of a digital darkroom procedure. The image when scaled down ( even from the default max resolution of 2048 x 1536 pixels to 1280 x 800 ) gives quite sharp and satisfactory results. Some pictures that we took along the way cannot be guessed to be taken with a phone camera. At least not on the first glance. This is how the DLF picture came to be. The colors seemed to be correct although a little too vivid, but I am not complaining about that - its after all a point and shoot. The zoom on the phone is not worth using at all, not that it doesnt work, but because it is digital and the final output is very pixelated. Some of the pictures like this made us very happy about the future of imaging phones. At this juncture of mobile phone imaging technology, there is absolutely no point in comparing the quality and result of the N73 and a Canon 350D SLR which we also had on the trip. However, we surely can see the future phones having incredible quality, megapixels and maybe even true interchangeble lenses. The night quality of the camera was not too thrilling. In low light it of no use to people like us who would want to make wallpapers out of our shots or put it up at learge on the net for appreciation. However, if its MMS or general photos the white LED flash just does the job. The resultant image is dark, and has lots of noise. Overlook its night imaging quality and it's a briliant camera phone, err phone camera. You also cannot expect to capture a passing moment in time usually because by the time the camera loads up in the phone that camel will be gone. Or like in our case on the Rajasthan roadtrip we failed to capture a dust devil passing in front of our eyes. It would have been a great shot if it just would have loaded faster...

As a Digital Camcorder : We did not use too much of video recording but the video and sound quality was acceptable to view on a PC but not for video editing on a PC. However, by all means one can practise being a Speilsberg and get their basic camera movements right, or plot a dummy sequence before actually using the real cameras. It was of course very handy to record anything that might come up and leaves you wishing of a camcorder.

As an entertaintment device : You got an excellent loudspeaker quality and volume. Coupled with a 2GB mini SD card and you have 4 iPod nanos along with a phone. Not o forget that excellent FM reciever there...

As a smartphone : The greatest strength that the phone perhaps has that it's Symbian platform allows you to download virtually unlimited number of applications ( games, editors etc ) for the phone.

So what now? I would love to test out the Nokia N95's 5 Mp cam and the GPS built into it. N73 turned out to be a great phone camera. I would say that day is not far when we will be calling such devices as camera phones and not the other way round. There fore, dont chuck that DSLR os yours yet, however if you are a very avid photographer and are largely on the move, get yourself one of the N73s or N95s and you wont regret that candid image plus you can boast that wallpaper on your desktop was taken by a mobile phone!

Read the blog with lots of pictures here.