Nokia Asha 300, A Cinematic Sunday

Mobile Photography: A day out with a vintage Nokia Asha 300, with images cropped to the 2.7:1 cinematic image aspect ratio.

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I am not into movie-making here, just the fun of having a few images cropped to the 2.4:1 cinematic image aspect ratio and a visual storyboard of a Sunday outing with the Nokia Asha 300, the camera phone I have been regularly using for the past few months.

The 2.4:1 cinematic image aspect ratio, or anamorphic format, is a cinematography technique that shoots a widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film or other visual recording media with a non-widescreen native aspect ratio.

When projected, the 'distorted' images are again stretched through an anamorphic projection lens to recreate the original aspect ratio on the viewing screen.

Nokia Asha 300

While we do have mobile devices that are starting to use the 21:9 format, these images are not. They were shot on the Nokia Asha 300 at its native 4:3 image aspect ratio, post-processed, and cropped to the 2.4:1 image aspect on Olympus Viewer 3 (OV3). Final print sharpening was done on Google NIK Sharpener Pro3.

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Nokia Asha 300, Extended Exposures

Mobile Photography: Image making with a vintage candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, steady hands for extended time exposures.

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I do a variety of photography genres for this blog using an assortment of digital and film cameras and lenses that I have in my collection. The range of paraphernalia includes, interestingly, a circa 2011 candy-bar Nokia Asha 300 feature phone with a fixed-focus 5MP rear-facing camera, which is a kind of favorite of mine right now.

What I like most about the 5MP camera on the Nokia 300 are images that are tone-perfect, bright daylight images that are sharp, crisp, clear, and never fail to impress.

As I carry the camera around almost everywhere I go, the urge to capture images that are constant, lingering, and sometimes repetitive, especially for low-light or night shots. For these shots, I try to hold the camera steady for a while longer so that the extended exposure time the camera is capable of is fully utilized.

Nokia Asha 300

No, I won't even term these images as long-exposure shots, even if they really are. To me, these are just images from an extended exposure photography outing with a handheld candy-bar feature phone camera, the Nokia Asha 300. Images were post-processed on Olympus Workspace and print sharpened on Google NIK Sharpener Pro3.

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Nokia Asha 300, A Bright Sunny Day

Mobile Photography: Image making with a vintage candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, a look across a maritime construction yard, and the bay at sunset.

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As I mentioned in my earlier post, I was quite disappointed with the early images from the consumer-grade smartphone, and I am quite reluctant to use the camera further, for a while at least. Having said that, and because of the need for another camera to keep up with my Mobile Photography posts, I went for a dig back and managed to salvage a stack of images captured with the Nokia Asha 300 feature phone, which I was using quite a while back.

The stack of images includes this set of views taken on an outstation trip to a huge oil and gas fabrication facility. It was a very bright and sunny day, and we were looking across the ground from the 7th-floor rooftop of the administration building.

Later in the evening, the golden hour was another joyous moment as I enjoyed the sunset from the hotel balcony, looking over to the cove and the island across the bay, which became a perfect stage for the setting. It looks like the Nokia Asha 300 is just as capable of capturing the essence of the scene as well.

What is most interesting to me is that the fixed focus F2.4 5MP camera on the Nokia Asha 300 is very capable of doing a very good job with images in bright daylight situations. For images, otherwise, the cable connectivity of the phone is an easy path for connectivity and uploads to post-processing apps, an idea to look forward to.

Together with the interest in analog and film cameras, and now a bit with the digital past (maybe only momentarily), it should be fun to see how things play out and add to the strength of this blog.

Nokia Asha 300

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Nokia Asha 300, Serene Serenades

Mobile Photography: Image making with a vintage candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, serene serenades on an early morning walk in the park.

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I have to admit that using the camera on the Nokia Asha 300, a vintage candy-bar feature phone, is equally as difficult and exasperating to use as it is rewarding. When using the camera, exasperation comes in the form of a 2.4-inch resistive touchscreen that is a complete washout in any form of bright external light, and images that take ages to record.

Out in the bright light, there is nothing that you can do or see with the almost blank screen. The only way to grab a few shots is to do it with the camera held at arm's length and shoot away. A bit of a hipster style, but with the camera held at eye level or slightly higher, guesstimate framing can yield a few good images.

Nokia Asha 300

The Nokia Asha 300, introduced in late 2011, the first phone to have Angry Birds pre-installed, is one of the slimmest feature phones around, measures 112.8 x 49.5 x 12.7 mm, and weighs 85 grams including the battery. The phone has 140MB of internal storage, which can store up to a maximum of 112 JPEG images. The camera does not come with a flash.

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Nokia Asha 300, Squares on Instagram

Mobile Photography: Image making with a vintage candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, square cropped images for publishing on Instagram.

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I was a regular on Instagram until only recently, and from when I started a few months ago until I left, I have always posted images that have been cropped to the 1:1 image aspect ratio. As with the images posted here, these are cropped off the original 4:3 images as captured on the Nokia Asha 300, which is a regular camera that I used for my Mobile Photography posts.

Though captured only in 2985x1980 pixels, images from the Nokia Asha 300 are clear, sharp, and crisp, and take only a couple of minor tweaks in post-processing to make them presentable.

The square format, as you know it, was how Instagram posted submitted images when it first started. Changes to the multiple format submission, where images can be in landscape or portrait, came later. The new options are to provide a more creative approach with images and stories people are sharing. Instagram images that are shared on Facebook are now shown in their submitted format.

Nokia Asha 300

The recommended size for images to be uploaded to Instagram is a minimum resolution of 1080×1080 pixels. This will also make the images usable on other platforms, and as more and more screens become higher in their pixel density, you will be future-proofing your images from being too small.

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Nokia Asha 300, A New Morning

Mobile Photography: Image-making with a Nokia Asha 300, a beautiful favorite, always handy and always on the ready.

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Still, one of my favorites, the candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, is small enough to slip in your shirt or pants pocket and goes wherever you go, comes with a single 5MP image sensor that is nothing to shout about, yet capable of capturing gorgeous images such as these.

Using the Nokia Asha 300 is straightforward and simple. With nothing to adjust, all you have to do is point and shoot, and wait for ages for the image to record before you're ready for the next shot.

Nokia Asha 300

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Nokia Asha 300, Noise, Speed, and All

Mobile Photography: Image making with a vintage candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, catching the essence of the night traffic.

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My previous post, the Evening Groove, got me excited about the possibility of using the Nokia Asha 300 again as the camera for my Mobile Photography posts. Images from the point-and-shoot 5MP rear-facing camera of the candy-bar feature phone are very much more than what I was getting on my current mobile.

A totally unexpected exposure for me, with challenges and opportunities to look forward to.

The Nokia Asha 300, a 2011 vintage feature phone, comes with a 240x360 pixel 2.4-inch non-adjustable resistive touchscreen, just big enough to be used as a framing screen rather than for viewing composition details.

Image resolution from the fixed focus F2.4 lens is 2592 x 1944 pixels. The phone has 140MB of internal storage, which can store up to a maximum of 112 JPEG images, and the camera does not come with a flash.

Nokia Asha 300

Admittedly, the night shoot session turned out rather well for me. With the camera's noise, limited ISO, and shutter speed capabilities, I was quite happy to see how the images turned out. And again, with the aid of a few edits in post-processing, I couldn't ask for more.

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Nokia Asha 300, Kaleidoscopic

Mobile Photography: Image making with a vintage candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, kaleidoscopic reflections.

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Still having fun with my come-back-to-life candy-bar Nokia Asha 300, while trying out a newfound genre that mobile phones are good at, close-up photography. Mobile phones, as we know, have lenses with incredible minimum focus distances which can be used effectively as a close-up camera, or when fitted with an auxiliary close-up attachment, as a macro monster.

When you have the camera held at arm's length, however, or with the camera pushed far forward and angled away from your eyes, using the camera at its closest autofocus distance, even without supplementary lens add-ons, is a guessing game. The best you can do in this situation is to take multiple shots, or a burst mode sequence, while moving the camera slightly forward or backward from your practiced distance.

Nokia Asha 300

The archaic Nokia Asha 300, like the one I was using here, does not have the close-up capability as later or more expensive camera models, but sufficient to say that it handles itself well as a learning or starter camera, which can be said of other lower-end mobile cameras as well. The subject of my curiosity here was a water-filled upturned cover of a garden bin that had collected a bunch of fallen leaves, captured against the reflected backdrop of the sky and covering foliage.

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