National Geographic and Nokia team up to photograph the Grand Canyon with a Lumia 1020

The Nokia Lumia 1020 launched to much excitement earlier this year, thanks to its large 41-megapixel sensor. Nokia has been doing a big push on marketing its smartphone as a camera for taking excellent photos, and it has teamed up with National Geographic for a photoshoot around the Grand Canyon.

NatGeo photographer Stephen Alvarez took two Lumia 1020s, and shot the Grand Canyon for both still and video. You can see his video footage in the clip below, and the images are viewable on the National Geographic site.

While the Lumia may be more capable than most smartphones, it's still worth taking a minute to pick apart how well these images actually came out. The photoshoot is an advertorial, so Alvarez' own statements are hardly unbiased. The video footage, we have to admit, looks pretty darned impressive, if occasionally rather prone to jello. But once you click through to the still images, they're not what one would usually see in an issue of National Geographic. The photos look poorly exposed and flat, with limited dynamic range, and not always excellent sharpness. In fairness, though, some of the shots aren't too bad, and they can be very sharp.

While the Nokia Lumia 1020 will probably do a much better job than that phone you got free with a two-year contract, it probably isn't time to start ignoring your DSLR just yet.