Damian Dinning, the lead programme manager for Imaging Experience at Nokia – whose team is directly responsible for taking smartphone cameras to unprecedented heights – is leaving the company at the end of the month.
Citing personal reasons, Dinning – known by many as the face behind Nokia’s imaging technologies – will leave his team of camera design engineers and physicists in charge of the PureView camera technology, most recently seen in the new Nokia Lumia 920. As Nokia’s global restructuring takes place, many of its development programmes will be relocated to Finland, at a time when relocating Dinning’s family is “not an option”. In his statement, he states that it was a “tremendously difficult decision” but that he knew “for some time” that he would be leaving the company he served with distinction for nine years.
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Nokia also released a statement, hailing his “many innovative and valuable contributions” to the company. Dinning’s team is best known for the their part in 2010’s N8 smartphone, which featured a 12MP camera with Xenon flash – and remains one of the best smartphone cameras today. More recently his team developed what is now Nokia’s branding for its smartphone camera technology, PureView. Originally coined for the 808 PureView smartphone, developed and released by Nokia to “end the megapixel race”, the 41MP sensor was capable of unprecedented lossless zooming, as well as capturing stunning levels of detail. His team pushed the limits even further with the new Lumia 920 which featured Nokia’s floating lens technology, where the camera sensor is mounted with springs which significantly negate hand movements leading to fantastic levels of optical image stabilisation and low-light imaging quality.
As for his future, Dinning will be joining Jaguar Land Rover in a new role in the field of Connected Car. He has also reassured Nokia fans that he is leaving a team more than capable of taking the PureView technology to ever greater heights.
(Source: GSMarena, PureViewClub)
