Camera Phones - The Photographer's Always Present Companion
Thursday, November 27th, 2008
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With the rapid advancement of camera phone sensors, I keep thinking about the day when I'll rely more on my camera phone than I will on my SLR.
That day hasn't come yet, but it is getting closer. With constant reports on engadget about sensors of 8, 10, even 12 megapixels on a phone, advancements regarding glass and liquid lens technologies and ever improved storage capacity, change is near at hand. A wirefly survey listed here indicates that 19% of adults use their phones for primary picture taking. I would argue that the survey group is slightly skewed from the norm, but interesting none the less.
I've gone from the Nokia 6682 to the Blackjack II to the iPhone and they are still just a novelty to me. Good enough to capture a passed-out friend or the random royal blue Rolls Royce driving down the street, but if I were on a trip and all I had was my camera phone, I would just as soon not take any pictures.
Sample Pictures
iPhone 2MP
Sony Ericsson W760a 3.2MP
The Wish List
With the way things stand now, there just isn't a way I would use any existing cell phone as my primary camera. If I was concerned about getting the shot, I would make sure to lug along my SLR. Here are the things that would have to change with phones in order to make me a more devoted users:
- Better Lenses digital zoom doesn't cut it, a minimum of 35mm-100mm equivalent optical zoom would be on my list
- Larger Sensor I know sensor isn't everything, but to help overcome limitations, I decide to randomly pick 8MP as a good cutoff for sensor size.
- No Shutter Lag when I'm about to catch a 'dude, watch this' moment, I can't afford to miss it because of shutter lag (read here)
- RAW Format the user interface on a phone will never match a dedicated camera, so having the most flexibility in post processing is a must
- Full Manual Mode I'm talking shutter speed, aperture, white ballance, ISO, everything.
Until those things are all standard, I'm just not going to trust my phone enough to make it my primary picture capturing device.
Wrap Up
With image posts on flickr still favoring point-n-shoots and SLRs by several orders of magnitude, cell phones have a long way to go, but they'll get there. Even now, work on all of the above is underway to improve lenses, enlarge sensors and increase storage. Given a little time, I think we'll all become accustomed to even wedding photographers using cell phones to capture the memories.
What are your thoughts? Do you think cell phone picture quality is good enough? Can you see the difference between a point-n-shoot and a phone? Leave a comment below, I would love to know. |
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There are 2 comments |
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Thanks for your comment on my blog. I don\'t think our thoughts are very different, with the sensor size and lenses they have on cameraphones now, it doesn\'t make sense to add more megapixels (lenses aren\'t good enough to resolve more detail, noise gets worse) They could, as you suggest, increase the sensor size and have better lenses, but this requires adding size to the phone, people generally want phones that easily fit in their pocket.
I am sure there will be some phones that are as much camera as they are phone (there are a couple of them now) but they are quite large, suitable only for people who put them in their purse. I expect them to remain a niche product.
Although I think the quality sucks, I am glad my phone has a camera, and have posted a couple of pictures on my blog that I took with it simply because I didn\'t have another camera with me. |
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Posted by Edward @ 12/26/2008 8:16 AM |
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Case in point, the nokia n97 has a 5MP camera and shoots DVD quality video at 30fps. That is getting closer to an everyday use camera.
read about the Nokia N97 on engadget |
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Posted by Adam Parker @ 12/02/2008 10:25 AM |
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