Photos taken by Ms. Jen with the Nokia N97.

Sun 07.05.09 - Both in yesterday's Fourth of July photo essay and in today's close-up/macro mode test, the N97 is consistently choosing a farther away than expected focal point and is not as clear/sharp as the N95 (see my previous test with the N95 & N97). With the Nokia N95 and N82, one could set the camera on Macro / Close-Up mode and get about 4 inches / 10 cm from the subject and get a good clear photo, not so with the Nokia N97, as you can see from the above photos.

The first photo on the left was taken at 5 inches from the bottle brush bloom of which the camera did not auto-focus on the bloom, but on the leaves and stalks behind. In the second photo on the right, I kept the camera about 10 inches / 25.4 cm from the subjects and was able to get a clear photo of the blooms.

Frankly, if the next firmware update comes without a 'manual' touch screen focus option, the engineers in Espoo should be spanked. Samsung has it, Sony has it, now Apple has it, Nokia's N97 needs to have the ability for the photographer to use the touchscreen to choose where the focus should be and the camera should do it.