Not satisfied with creating a stop-motion animation of microscopic proportions, Nokia has gone in the opposite direction, this time turning a beach into what Guinness deemed the “world’s largest stop motion animation set.” The 12-megapixel stills were shot over five days using a Nokia N8 cell phone strapped to a 40 meter high cherry picker, and the largest scene spans a whopping 11,000 square feet!
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Nokia held a competition with a $10,000 prize this year asking filmmakers to create a short film using only the Nokia N8 cell phone. Director JW Griffiths won with this super creative and beautifully shot film titled “Splitscreen: A Love Story”.

(via Laughing Squid)

I’m not sure how useful this would be for most people, but it’s a neat look at the kinds of technologies people are working on to enrich our photo sharing experience. Pass-Them-Around is an app developed by researchers at Nokia that lets you share digital photographs with friends sitting around a table as if you had physical prints sitting in front of you. The phones can also be placed side by side to act as larger displays for the photos.

Earlier this month we reported that there was a star-studded short film being shot entirely with the Nokia N8 phone. It was just released, and gives a pretty interesting look at what mobile phone cameras are capable of now.

The groundbreaking film, directed by the McHenry Brothers, was shot in just four days with the Nokia N8 using no back up cameras, with the streets of London and St Albans providing the backdrop to Nokia’s story about one commuter’s eventful journey to work.

Watch it in HD mode if your Internet connection can handle it.

(via Small Aperture)

First there was the House season finale filmed entirely with the Canon 5D Mark II to show the HD video recording potential of DSLRs, and now there’s a star studded short film titled “The Commuter” being shot entirely on the new Nokia N8 cell phone, which boasts a 12 megapixel sensor and Carls Zeiss optics. The project — directed by the McHenry Brothers — began filming at the end of September and stars Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire), Pamela Anderson, and Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl).

By the way, the behind-the-scenes video shown above was filmed on the N8 as well.

(via Small Aperture)

Less than a year ago when I was a grad student at Berkeley, I heard a guest lecture by Professor Daniel Fletcher in which he discussed his CellScope project. His group aims to transform cell phones into light microscopes to aid in disease diagnosis in developing countries. Turns out the concept can be used for more than medical purposes.

Inspired by the CellScope, Nokia hired Aardman to create the world’s smallest stop-motion film using the Nokia N8 cell phone. The result is “Dot”, a stop-motion film starring an uber-small 9mm tall girl. Aardman had to create 50 different versions of the girl for all her various poses, and spent about one day making every four seconds of the video.
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Last week we reported that one of Nokia’s top execs made the prediction that cameraphones would soon make DSLRs obsolete, and that HD-video recording would be coming to mobile phones in the next 12 months. This video shows off the HD-video capabilities of the upcoming Nokia N8, captured at 720p. While we still don’t think cameraphones will win over DSLR users, this is pretty amazing footage, considering it was captured on a cell phone.

(via Gizmodo)

Speaking on the explosive improvement of camerephone technology in Helsinki yesterday, Nokia Executive Vice President Anssi Vanjoki shared his vision of the future for cameraphones — a future without DSLRs.

Pointing at a professional photographer in the room, Vanjoki said, “There will be no need to carry around those heavy lenses.”

From a poll we ran on PetaPixel last week, we found that 59% of our readers didn’t believe cameraphones would replace even compact cameras. We didn’t even think to mention DSLRs, since there currently does not seem to be any answer as to how cameraphones will address their disadvantage of smaller sensors and poorer optics.

However, the idea of cameraphones replacing even the best digital cameras continues to find its way into news articles. Just last month Wired published a story titled, “Quantum Technology Promises Wedding Photos From Phone Cameras“.

Wedding photography with a cameraphone? Really?

Perhaps these quotes and articles aren’t intended to suggest that the DSLR market will be replaced by cell phones, but rather that the quality difference will be reduced to the point that those who simply bought DSLR cameras for casual photography might be satisfied with cameraphone quality.

If that’s the case, these claims might be true. Enough consumers may buy into the megapixel myth and eschew fancier cameras for the increased “megapixel power” of cameraphones. In the same speech, Vanjoki also predicted that cellphones will be capable of filming HD video within the next 12 months.

Once we see a “Last 3 Minutes” caliber film shot with a cameraphone, we’ll be believers. Until then, we’ll keep bringing our DSLR to weddings.