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The Nokia E72 has a more powerful camera setup than its Nokia E71 predecessor, with a 5MP shooter on the back, equipped with an LED flash. There's no sliding cover gadgetry on this model, however – it rather juts out of the back.
A secondary video-calling camera sits inconspicuously on the front above the display, for anyone who wants a bit of face-to-face mobile chat.
Unusually for this grade of cameraphone there's no dedicated camera button on the side. The landscape oriented-screen is a probable reason, as most people will want to shoot in the same orientation as they hold the phone.
The optical navigation key takes shots once the camera has been booted up. It takes around four seconds from a softkey press to be ready for snapping action, which is a touch leisurely for our liking, but no deal-breaker in itself.
The E72 uses a familiar interface to other recent non-touch S60 phones, with a column of scrollable settings icons on the right of the viewfinder screen, and large autofocus frame in the middle.
Getting the autofocus system to lock onto exactly what you want is tricky using the navigation key trackpad.
It requires much more subtle handling than regular two-step autofocus (frame then snap) button pressing cameras. We found it hit and miss sometimes, particularly with our less than sensitive fingertip prodding, and you can end up taking simple point and shoot shots rather than nicely framed images.
The results from the camera can be pleasing, though the trickiness in controlling the autofocus can be frustrating for those used to more dependable Nokia cameraphones.
Nevertheless, colour rendition is rich and vivid, and detail is quite well handled for this class of device. Auto exposure control is dealt with competently too.
However, the flash is very limited, and you need to be close to get illumination – it's not particularly powerful and isn't a patch on the better xenon flashes some high-end cameraphones pack.
Overall, the E72 is capable of producing decent results, though it has its foibles that don't aid consistently satisfactory autofocus results.
A familiar set of camera settings options is available. These include a variety of scene modes for varying lighting and shooting conditions, with a close-up mode for macro shooting, plus landscape, portrait, night mode and suchlike.
White balance adjustments are available too, plus timer and multi-shot settings, and flash on/off/auto and red-eye reduction mode.
There's a reasonable panorama setting too that uses a sensor to help you stitch shots together for one continuous image.
Post shooting, images can be uploaded to a selection of image sharing online services, including Ovi, Vox and Flickr, and there are some editing tools for tweaking shots before posting, with effects and text options too.
SUNLIGHT: The five-megapixel camera on the Nokia E72 is capable of producing rich, vibrantly coloured images with a decent amount of detail
MIXED OUTDOORS: The camera is able to produce a good balance in tones and handle variations in light in an image pretty well
DETAIL: The autofocus system enables users to pick out details in subjects for crisper shots. Colours here are well defined with a nice balance and good contrast
AUTOFOCUS: Although the camera is capable of capturing reasonably good images, its autofocus system suffers from the limited control of focusing offered by the Navi key
LIGHT AND DARK: The camera can handle exposure well for light and dark portions of an image, with no impact on colour fidelity
SHADOW: A shot taken in shadow retains decent amounts of detail in the foreground while the strongly lit background isn't burnt
MOVING SUBJECT: The camera's auto-metering system does a decent job at capturing moving subjects when lighting conditions are favourable, though in poorer light sports mode can help with exposure
LANDSCAPE: The E72 can take reasonable long-range landscape shots too
FOCUS: The autofocus system does enable you to take interesting images by adjusting the element in focus, though it can be fiddly to get it right first time
FLASH: The E72's flash offers some illumination in dark conditions, but has limited effect and only at short range
Video capture performance is middle of the road on the E72; it can shoot at up to VGA resolution (640 x 480 pixels) at 15 frames a second.
Although footage can look adequately bright and may be sufficient for casual online action, quality is limited and there is some slight hesitancy to playback.
