What sets the Lumia's camera apart isn't its 8.7-megapixel sensor or f2.0 lens; you can find those on other cameraphones. Rather, it's the camera's optical image stabilization, which Lumia claims rivals the OIS systems available in DSLRs. While I can't vouch for that, I can say that, in the demos I saw today, the Lumia 920's OIS made a dramatic difference in the kind of stills and videos you can shoot with a phone. For one demo, a Nokia spokesman shot a video while shaking the phone, the way you might do when holding it with one hand. The resulting video had no shakes or jitters. In another demo, Nokia took on all comers by asking us to shoot a picture of a vase placed in a darkened cubby using our own phones. The spokesperson then shot the same vase with the Lumia 920. In flash-free shots, virtually every other phone ended up with pics of a muddy mess, even in night-shot mode. The Lumia 920, on the other hand, took a sharp, well-balanced photo, even using what the spokesman said were the phone's default camera settings.
The software behind the Lumia 920's camera isn't yet, final, and at this point, it's unclear what other tricks it has up its sleeve (I'd like to see how it handles HDR, for example). However, for now at least, the Lumia 920 appears to be the phone to beat when it comes to low-light shooting, smooth, jitter-free videos, and action photography.
