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The 3.2MP camera on the 5530 XpressMusic is nothing overly special, but by the same token it works pretty well.
However the absence of Carl Zeiss optics are clearly hurting this effort, as while it manages a decent contrast balance, it struggles horribly up against a dedicated camera in terms of sharpness and colour reproduction.
It's even worse in night mode, when the single LED flash is scant competition to a full Xenon effort.
To be fair to Nokia, it has added in a range of scene modes and colour balances and so on to play with, as well as a good auto focus. We just feel that perhaps instead of confusing people with an array of settings 95 per cent don't know/want to know how to use, just improve the intelligence of the automatic settings to get a brilliant picture each time, like the LG Viewty Smart.
See how the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic got on against our dedicated Olympus SP-565UZ camera:
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic:
WASHED OUT: The colours from the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic pale in comparison to the Olympus
Olympus SP-565UZ:
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic:
GRAINY: Landscapes lack detail, although do capture a majority of the objects well
Olympus SP-565UZ:
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic:
BRIGHT LIGHT: The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic struggles in bright light
Olympus SP-565UZ:
Nokia 5530 XpressMusic:
NIGHT LIGHT: The Nokia 5530 XpressMusic has a decent enough flash to pick things out in the pitch black, although it isn't a match for a xenon effort
Olympus SP-565UZ:
Video recording
Although good for viewing back on the phone, the video recording on the Nokia 5530 XpressMusic isn't up to much at all, with up to 176x220 pixels (QCIF) and up to 15fps not the best spec set we've ever seen. Even the iPhone can record at VGA quality and 30fps.
If this doesn't mean much to you, VGA and 30fps is roughly DVD quality, and looks good on computer screens. The 5530 XpressMusic comes in at around a quarter of the resolution and takes in half as many frames per second leading to a grainier and jerkier video in the end.
There are options to play with the colour balance, as well as making it look like you're in the wild west with a sepia option, but it's not the best compensation.
