Slashdot Mirror

Is this the case? My phone has a sliding lens cover,

That is the exception. Here is a page of camera phone reviews. Take a look and identify the ones with a lens cover of any type and the typical reviews of the photos. Camera phones in the US are generally known for their quality as OK for snaps, but not for good photos.

http://www.livingroom.org.au/cameraphone/

Te reviews are not pretty. Out of a full page of reviews, only 2 are OK. I'll stick with a real camera for photography. For those who don't read the reviews, here is a list of clips from the reviews.

Here the full screen comes into its own allowing for good steady alignment of photos without having to squint at a tiny image. It is a shame, in this regard, that the pixelage hasn't been boosted to 5 with a more comprehensive lens arrangement.

it's a shame the camera doesn't produce better pictures.

Stills are limited to 1.3 megapixels which really is low for any mobile, and for Sony Ericsson, which produces some of the best cameraphones out there, is shameful.

Samsung still seems to be skimping on camera lenses, at least for their American phones. The pictures we took with the Samsung Instinct's 2-megapixel sensor were pitiful.

The main camera is also very impressive. It's a 5-megapixel model

It might be telling that Nokia doesn't include a dedicate camera button, and instead the camera feature is buried under three menu layers. But pictures were actually not bad.

Image quality on the 2-megapixel camera was dismal.

Disappointingly, the LED photo light only worked okay for close up shots and didn't perform well at over a couple of metres, which meant photos of mates in dark pubs and clubs didn't come out well."

Broadly speaking, we saw desaturated colours, consistently soft focus, and the "hot" areas of our images flaring.

The auto-focus works well for the most part, though it sometimes struggled with close-up shots and is quite slow to settle. Colour reproduction was passable,

Let's start with the five-megapixel camera. Despite its multiple-pixel capability, compared with the Samsung G800, the Soul's camera features appear a tad lacking.

Most of all, though, we'd like to see great-looking pictures, but the pics we got from the Samsung P520 Armani were as disappointing as any average, budget Samsung phone.

This was in another blog entry on problogger, I won't dig it up again, I kept this on my clipboard:

http://www.livingroom.org.au/problogger/Picture-3. gif

One useful function resulting from the camera-phone combo is fighting crime:

In Japan, an 18-year-old woman took a photo of a 38-year-old man who was fondling her on a commuter train, and police arrested him at the next stop. In Sweden, a convenience store owner took a picture of a robber that was used to help identify and arrest the criminal. - Crime & Cameras

You never know how useful an object is, until you need it in extraordinary situations.

Equally as lame is the conversation on their site (http://www.livingroom.org.au/uavblog/archives/was p_micro_air_vehicle_mav.php). Those people need to get a life. Maybe even sign up for a slashdot account.

jon

Yes, but what about your rowing?

Maybe she should be the first human test subject? =)

I wish people didn't leave links that don't have servers to hold up under the pressure. Not very professional. I'm interested in seeing these new Minolta cameras and have done some digging around. Gizmodo had a link to this site that has descriptions of the 4 new digicams. they are not as exciting as I had hoped - I am waiting for them to release a DSLR. These are just more of the same - but with a few tweaks.