This morning, the Nokia camera team has pushed out two updates: one for their Camera app, which is less exciting and one for their Camera Beta app. The latter one is certainly more tantalizing due to new features and some prepping for the Lumia Cyan firmware update, which comes with Windows Phone 8.1 .

Updated from version 4.5.1.7 back in February, the latest version of Camera looks to improve upon the user experience with a routine update with no noticeable new features. To put it another way, it does not have the new UI that Camera Beta introduced recently, so if you prefer that design you’re in luck. We have noticed occasional issues with Windows Phone 8.1 and Camera, so maybe these address some of those quirks. Notice anything else? Let us know in comments.

Nokia Camera Beta 4.7.1.3

Nokia’s test bed for new features in their powerful camera app is their Camera Beta app. Today, it has been bumped up from 4.6.3.8 back in February, as well. The good news is that this version does come with a changelog. The bad news is some of the more exciting features are only for the Lumia Icon, Lumia 930 and Lumia 1520 running the Lumia Cyan firmware. If that sounds limiting, it’s because those phones run the newish Snapdragon 800 processor, which enables some necessary hardware tweaks for these apps. Let’s see the changelog:

Living Images support*

Continuous Autofocus for faster focusing*

Surround sound capture in Video*

New Camera Roll with Full Resolution Zoom and inline playback of video, cinemagraph, smart sequences and refocus images

Nokia Camera integrates with Creative Studio and Video Trimmer for editing your photos and videos

See those asterisks? They refer to this statement “Living Images and Continuous Autofocus are supported on Lumia 930, 1520 and Icon running the Lumia Cyan software update”. We’d also toss in the Surround sound capture in Video to that list too.

Actually, some of those other features seemed to be already in the previous version e.g. Creative Studio integration. The playback of Cinemagraph and smart sequences though may be something new (we haven’t used those features in a while, ourselves). Creative Studio is supposed to get a major update soon, and it’s probable this Camera Beta app reflects that upcoming change.

Like the above Camera app, we’re sure there are some other optimizations on board, as well. Pick up Nokia Camera Beta version 4.7.1.3 here in the Store.

Thanks, Felipe V., and everyone, for the tips!