Nokia Loses Its Head Honcho of Imaging, Face of PureView Technology

There was some surprising news in the smartphoneography world yesterday: Amateur Photographer reported that Nokia’s imaging chief Damian Dinning — “considered the driving force behind the firm’s smartphone camera technology” — would be leaving the company for personal reasons at the end of this month.

Dinning joined the phone company back in 2004 after holding positions at Minolta and Kodak. He then spent five years helping the company develop its PureView technology, leading to the release of the beastly 41-megapixel Nokia 808 PureView smartphone.

Dinning was often the public face for PureView phones. Here’s a video in which he explains the technology:

Nokia recently launched its latest PureView-equipped camera, the Lumia 920:

Initial reports stated that Dinning was leaving the company as a “personal decision,” but we now know that Dinning won’t be bringing his photographic know-how to a competing phone/camera company. In a statement given to PureViewClub, Dinning says that he’s simply pursuing his other main interest now:

[…] the work area I am best known for, imaging, is the result of a huge and massively talented pool of people. I have often felt embarrassed by the media attention I received knowing that whilst I am proud of my own contributions and the forward looking guidance I have strived to provide the teams, there are a lot of unsung heroes! I’ve spent many many months […] working with incredibly talented and highly motivated people across various teams building towards the next steps Nokia will take in imaging.

At a very young age, I had two very strong interests, cars and photography. With regards to the latter, I wanted to be able to take photography from the nerdy or for special occasions only use it was at the time, to being part of everyday life. I never thought I’d be able to play a role in making that happen, but my time at Nokia gave me exactly that opportunity […] we’re really only just entering the next major stage in the development of photography […] I am thrilled that I’ll shortly be joining Jaguar Land Rover

No word yet on who Dinning’s replacement will be, but it’ll likely be a tried-and-true photo industry veteran, given how much the company has already invested in its PureView technology.

(via Amateur Photographer via Engadget)

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