Camera Phone Tips

Darren writes "It is getting hard to find a cell phone WITHOUT a camera in it - as a result millions are flooding the internet through moblogs with camera phone images - many of which are poor quality. I'm sick of seeing poor quality camera phone images being posted to moblogs and so have collected a series of camera phone tips and links that will hopefully help us all improve our camera phone images."

Comments

My tips

[Killjoy_NL]

Can't read the article at the moment, but here are my tips for using a mobcam.

- Take a lot of pics in different modes
- Don't be afraid to throw away the crap ones
- Don't trust the display on the phone, your monitor has a lot better quality.

Just a few simple but handy tips I use :)

Other problem...

[JoeLinux]

For those of us in the defense industry, it's mandatory that we get a phone without a camera on it. If you are working in an Open Secret area, you will be fired on the spot if you don't. I suspect that while that rule is in effect, phone manufacturers will always produce a camera-less version, lest they lose defense industry contracts.

Gym

[liam193]

What really bugs me about the cell-phone / camera combo is that most gyms won't allow you have a cell-phone because they could be a camera in disguise. Makes it a little hard to go to the gym while on call when you can't take a cell-phone with you. All because someone can't wait a few minutes to download photos from a real digital camera.

Re:Want high-quality? Get a real camera!

[b06r011]

i agree, if you want some good quality images go for a single function device - i.e. a digital camera.

but for mobility, i love my camera phone. the number of times i have my phone but no other camera seems to increase. but the real bonus of having a camera in my phone is that i get a good insurance policy from my phone company (orange) so i am never afraid to take it out with me when i go drinking. i'd never be that fearless with a camera costing lots more.

oh - and lets not forget that it's probably only a matter of time before mobile phones get camera compnents the quality of a good digital camera - it'll only get better!

I like the lowtech charme of camphones.

[Lispy]

Actually I think about the poor quality as a new form of art. The pics from my Nokia7250 may not be great from a photographers perspective but they give me the ability to spice up stuff on my homepage. Personally I like the weird colors and built in blur that the pics show off. ;-)

Btw: Here's my "moblog", more pics here.
Please feel free to ignore the mistakes in the lyrics. I am german and not a native speaker! ;-)

need non-camera phones

[spoonyfork]

Camera-enabled devices are not allowed on company property where I work. It is difficult to obtain a mobile phone with decent features that doesn't have a camera. Since a lot of companies are implementing this security policy, when can we expect the mobile phone companies to meet this need for non-camera phones?

Camera phones suck (now)

[jcostantino]

I have a Motorola V400 and the camera sucks on it. Open note to all who are looking to buy one: Unless you just want it as an emergency back-up camera like I do, don't get one for now.

The quality of camera phones out there now is way worse than the quality of very cheap digital cameras 6 years ago. Granted, the Kodak DC120 swimming in my desk drawer could probably whoop my V400's ass, it's also enormous.

Back to my point; there will be better camera phones in the next year, I've seen some (Samsung?) which will have macro mode and "real" flashes. The closest I've seen to a camphone with a flash was one that used white LED's and that was only as a framing aid.

Bottom line: don't waste your money now unless like me, you don't care about the quality of the camera because the phone is the primary function. If you want good quality, give it till the end of the year.

I'm surprised that there isn't a website (like www.imaging-resource.com) that reviews the actual camera of the phone and gives concise reviews based on quality, light sensitivity and optics. I guess camphones are still too much of a niche market for that.

Re:Camera phones are silly

[mccalli]

The vast majority of cell phone users use neither text messages...

Pardon?

All I can think of is that you must be in the US. In Europe, I would go so far as to say that the primary use of many mobiles sold is for text messaging. I know I send far more texts than I make voice calls.

I can't speak for Japan, but I believe there's a similar situation there. I thought that the US was going the same way, but I'm prepared to be corrected on that.

As for cameras being silly, I disagree. I often take around ten a week, and I imagine I'm only in the midrange. The reason? I have children, and I very often don't have my full-blown 5mp digital camera with me but do have my mobile on me. Snaps of my kids playing in the park are good fun for those who are interested, and utterly dull for the rest of the world. Some get kept, most get discarded.

I have other uses too. For example, on Friday an A4 sheet had been left at a railway station detailing proposed changes to the timetable and who to get in contact with to protest them (the changes are bad from this town's point of view - Maidenhead). There was only one sheet left, so I took a couple of photos with the phone and left the sheet there for someone else to pick up. I read the information later on my laptop after transferring the pictures there.

The combination of a camera phone which is bluetooth equipped and having a bluetooth'n'wifi equipped laptop (that works - I use a Powerbook, I've heard of terrible problems with MS's stack and Nokia phones) immediately opens up a world of fast snapping, fast editing and fast publishing. Don't knock camera phones - they're useful things.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Too many features,

[kev0153]

I agree. I work for a large U.S. Government Contractor and I'm required to enter secure buildings around Washington DC. Security at these buildings is not requesting that you check your phone at the front desk if it has a camera in it. Some military bases just take them from you if you are caught. Having a camera phone is not an option for me. I ended up going with a Siemens S56. It may be a niche market around DC but I bet non-camera phones sell like hotcakes around here.

Camera Phone image tests

[pcp_ip]

Here's a link to some basic tests of the color quality of popular cameraphones. As you can see- most of them suck

Re:I see phones w/o cameras all the time

[UpnAtom]

In the UK, the market has been saturated for 3 years. The manufacturers and re-sellers have resorted to running ads designed to embarrass consumers who have last year's phones.

The network share has been static as people's social groups since most charged 4x more for calling another network than their own. Things are beginning to change now though, despite the regulator sitting on it's hands.

Re:Want high-quality? Get a real camera!

[crayz]

[b]oh - and lets not forget that it's probably only a matter of time before mobile phones get camera compnents the quality of a good digital camera[/b]

I'd actually say that's unlikely. Part of the problem with current digital cameras is that their sensors aren't big enough, and thus you wind up having a lens focusing a tiny amount of light onto the sensor.

Now, in 5 years I'm sure that you will have cell phone/PDAs with fairly high resolution cameras. But there's still going to be a lot of situations where it will be difficult to take a decent picture because:
- lack of light and no flash
- lack of ability to control aperature/shutter speed
- problems focusing

If this was all about megapixels, the 2MP camera-phones wouldn't take pictures far shittier than my years old 1.3MP digicam could.