Nokia Lumia 1020 is a Windows Phone with a 41-megapixel camera

At a photography-focussed event in New York, Nokia has announced the Lumia 1020.

The Windows Phone-powered smartphone is all about taking pictures, and includes an updated version of the 41-megapixel sensor seen in 2012's Nokia 808 PureView, which captures photos up to 7,712 x 5,360 pixels in resolution, in either 3:2 or 16:9 aspect ratios.

 It's a megapixel count that seems several times greater than the likes of what Samsung and Apple are offering. But the intention is that the phone will output five-megapixels images for sharing with friends, in which each pixel in a JPEG combines the light captured by seven behind the lens. The result, Nokia promises, are significantly more detailed images.

 Nokia has incorporated six lens elements within the optics of the camera, which it claimed is the most in any cameraphone. In SLR systems, the greater the number of lens elements, the sharper the picture. It's a specification that makes a massive difference between cheap lenses and professional alternatives, and it's something that also helps ensure there's no loss of quality when zooming (although, unlike the Galaxy S4 Zoom, the Lumia 1020 doesn't have an optical zoom -- just very good digital zooming).

Don't miss: First collection of photos taken on the Lumia 1020
The Lumia 1020 will come equipped with Pro Camera, an app that offers full access to manual settings such as ISO, white balance, shutter speed, exposure and exposure compensation, as well as manual focus, which can be controlled using a ring overlaid onto the screen -- and it will provide these granular controls to developers to build into their apps. This could result in services like Instagram being able to directly manipulate the lens and sensor settings to produce better pictures.
 There's also a rear-facing Xenon flash for more realistic-looking artificial light in dark shooting conditions.

 Photography aside, the Lumia 1020 has a 4.5-inch Amoled display running at 1,280x768 pixels. It's powered by a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon S4 processor backed by 2GB of RAM, and 32GB of storage (a 64GB version is rumoured to follow). There is also a wide-angle front-facing 1.2-megapixel camera. The phone has 4G LTE, a wireless charging option via a clip-on case, up to 13.3 hours of talktime over 3G and can capture video at up to 1080p anf 30fps. The 2,000mAh battery is not removable.

 While the Lumia 1020's CPU is not quite as hefty as the quad-core, or even octa-core chips inside some Android phones, Windows Phone software isn't as demanding on a phone's internal tech as its competitors, and it should therefore cope just fine with anything you throw at it -- for now

The polycarbonate phone will come in yellow, black and white. Nokia has of course also bundled its Music, Drive and Here maps applications. It's also included its own Instagram-esque editing software called Oggl Pro, which allows you to apply filters to your photos and then upload them directly to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

With such specifications behind the camera technology, Nokia appears to have set a new benchmark for smartphone photography. It comes at an opportune time: the US paper Chicago Sun-Times recently fired all of its professional photographers, instead opting to teach its journalists how to capture pictures with smartphones (iPhones for now). Nokia would do well to drop a box of Lumia 1020s on the Chicago Sun-Times building.

 Nokia introduced its first 41-megapixel camera last year when it unveiled the PureView 808 (we scored it seven-out-of-ten). While the camera tech was superb, the phone was rather disappointingly running a dying operating system: Symbian Belle. The camera performed well in low light, but viewing photos was unpleasant experience on the low-resolution display. Nokia priced the Pureview 808 as a high-end smartphone, but its poor specs failed to persuade consumers of its appeal.

The Nokia Lumia 1020 will launch first in the US on 26 July. It will launch in Europe shortly after that date, although a precise date was not confirmed. Nokia will also release a clip-on ergonomic grip with two-step shutter control, tripod attachment and a battery pack, which will cost an extra $79 (roughly £52, but expect that to end up higher on release).