Street Art Photography with Nokia and the Lumia 1020

Blogging on occasion does have it’s advantages, not least when one of the Worlds best known camera brands get in touch to ask you to trial their latest creation.

Alongside a who’s who of the street art and lifestyle blogging community, including the likes of Hooked, LDN Graffiti and Art of the State, Nokia chose to show off their new camera phone, the Lumia 1020 by taking us all on a Street Art Tour around London’s trendy East End. The phone was sent out in advance to give a little bit of opportunity for experimentation before trying it out on the streets.

Led by Dave ‘NoLionsinEngland’ Stuart, knowledgable founder of ‘Shoreditch Street Art Tours‘, the motley crew of camera enthusiasts were taken on a tour starting in Spitalfields and finishing in the trendy street art themed Far Rockaway Bar in Shoreditch. In between, a journey around the streets and back alleys of the East End gave the opportunity to trial the the camera, it’s features and of course see some of the best art around.

The camera is being pushed heavily by Nokia, which of course is now part of Microsoft, and as such uses the Microsoft operating system. Having not used this before it took me a while to get used to it but as with everything, once shown it becomes pretty simple. The main selling point seems to be the huge number of megapixels, 41 million in total, which allows the user to take pictures which can be zoomed in and heavily cropped and played with. It also boasts a Pureview Zeiss Lens giving it one of the best quality lenses around.

There is no doubt, the camera has some impressive features not least within the ‘Creative Studio’ section where photos can be edited in a variety of ways which can give some good effects. For me though the undoubted winner which sets this camera phone apart is it’s ability to take night time photography. The quality is remarkable and even in very low light, the automatic settings of the camera adjust to such a degree that many photos appear as if they have been taken in normal lighting conditions.

So to see some of the snaps from the tour and to see what the camera can do, have a look at the gallery below. All have been taken with the automatic setting meaning that despite the light the camera has adjusted and I’ve doctored the odd one or two within the Creative Studio feature.

For more photography related posts on Inspiring City have a look at:

20 of the Best Street Art Photographs to start the year