

To ensure consistency, we set all of the smartphones to auto shooting mode, with our trusted senior mobile editor Myriam Joire behind the wheel. She matched up framing and held each device perfectly still -- she describes the process described in the video below.

Then, we scaled each shot to 620 pixels wide (to fit right here) and included a 100-percent cropped view in the lower left corner. We know you might want to examine each image yourself, though, so we're including the original files at the source link at the bottom of this page.

First up is the Lumia 920, which offered the most even exposure of all of the devices we tested. Admittedly, the shot has a yellow cast, but given the dim conditions, it's certainly acceptable.

Next up is the Nokia 808 PureView, which did a fantastic job compared to the other handsets, but required a longer exposure and lost significant color detail. It also has a heavy magenta cast -- still, a commendable performance.

The iPhone was also a solid runner-up with this test -- it didn't perform as well in even dimmer light, as we experienced when capturing images from a dark rooftop late at night, but it did yield decent shots in the lab. Even so, the frame is underexposed, includes a heavy orange cast and the 100-percent view is heavily pixelated and noticeably soft.

For its part, the One X snapped some detail, but the image is hardly usable -- it's quite dark and noisy. We were able to save it in Photoshop (not pictured), so HTC's flagship will work in a bind, but certainly wouldn't be our first pick.

Finally, the Samsung Galaxy S III just barely squeezed by, snapping only the brightest elements. All in all, it really won't do.

A few hours later, we hit the streets of Helsinki for a shoot under the stars (or, well, under the clouds). We found a rather dim spot that worked well for a second comparison, which you can see just below. The Lumia and iPhone may look like they offer on-par image quality, but the latter device had more than its fair share of noise output, while the shot from Nokia's phone was much cleaner. The 808 was quite dark in normal shooting mode (seen below), but performed better with the ISO bumped to 1600, which we opted not to include considering that not all of the cameras offered this feature. The One X snap was too dark to be usable, while you can just barely make out the boat in the Galaxy S III's.

We're including untouched, full-res versions of all of these shots at the source link below, along with all of the Lumia 920 images from the gallery up above.

Myriam Joire and Joseph Volpe contributed to this report.