7 Megapixel Camera Phone

Alex writes "It looks like LG Electronics are planning a 7 Megapixel Camera Phone which to me seems like overkill - but it must be making a few of those digital photography manufacturers pushing out point and shoot digicams a little nervous. Camera phones will never take over DSLRs or serious digital cameras but are we seeing what will be the death of the entry level point and shoot digicam?"

Comments

camcorder phone

[osho_gg]

So, when do we start seeing phone with camcorder?

Re:camcorder phone

[Anonymous Coward]

This got me thinking...

A high resolution device providing a low resolution video means great quality digital zoom. This is my guess being as optical zoom would require more space and mechanical complexity - not good in a phone.

Plus wouldn't the higher resolution also give better chance of providing digital steady-cam capabilities with a little bit of image processing? Or is the image processing required just too much for current silicon?

I see handy-cams, digital cameras etc just stop-gaps until we are in a situation where as much as possible is provided in one device that is both waterproof, portable and able to be always with you, like a watch or some other form like a broach (like in Star Trek), or ear-bud, or contact lens, or pearcing. But I am dreaming here arn't I... been reading too much Sci-Fi, not going to live long enough.

Course I'm not really going to be impressed by the resolution of cameras until we have one like in the Movie Blade Runner.

A thought

[The Ancients]

How will this affect traffic charges over GPRS or 3G? Will network providers charge more, considering how much more data a 7MP camera will push, in comparison to a 1MP (pretty much the current highest.

In many places providers have been moving to flatrate, so they better haul ass and make sure they've got 3G (or at leat 2.5G) and the backhaul to carry this off. That and there's the small matter of porn as well...

Worrying...

[NiTr|c]

With the introduction of higher resolution phones like this all over the place what are the privacy implications people face? 7 megapixels is quite clear indeed, and depending on the zoom (if any) you would be able to take some very intense candid photos. Also, as previously mentioned on slashdot, photographing sections of books or magazines in stores could grow in popularity. Depending on memory in the phone, one could walk into a store, snap photos of all the interesting articles of numerous magazines and then leave with a fantastic digital reproduction. So many evil intentions with these things...

Re:Worrying...

[NiTr|c]

You're most certainly correct. You wonder if these will start getting banned in all types of public areas, similar to cigarettes. I can't say it would surprise me to see the image of a phone with a camera on it in the middle of a red circle with a slash through it. Might just be the next big thing. I smell regulation time!

Re:death of the digicam?

[Cecil]

I hate cellphones too, and do not own one. I hate the phones, I hate the pricing, I hate the services, I hate the companies involved. ... however, curious little devices like the Nokia 6820 are starting to woo me towards the dark side. As data fees continue to decrease, Mobile Internet is starting to become attractive.

Bastards!

lame

[pHatidic]

what would really impressive me is if LG came out with a phone without a camera at all. I would kill for a black and white razor phone without a camera (i know i know its motorola but still)

PQ sucks with camera phones

[doormat]

Even with the new megapixel phones, the picture quality is crapola. They need a 10-fold increase in the quality of the lens/optics before they start ramping to 4, 5 or 7MP.

Re:death of the digicam?

[phalse phace]

I know what you mean. There's no point in having one. I once had one, but no one ever called me since I don't have any frineds.

Sucks being a geek.

*Sigh*

One gigapixel?

[rice_burners_suck]

Well if your camera phone is gonna be a 7 megapixel, then maybe the new DSLRs of the next few years will be, like, 100 megapixel.

That would be cool, because you could shoot film-quality photographs at poster size if you wanted.

I can't wait until the first gigapixel camera. Which reminds me of the time an old friend of mine and I were talking about computers. I had a whole whopping 150 megs of hard drive space. Your cheapest computer today comes with more megs of RAM than that. He was a hard core computer geek, though, and he had around 300 megs of hard drive space. I thought that was a ridiculously large hard drive. It seemed like an endless amount of space that would never fill up completely. Anyway, he told me about this guy who had a "gigabyte", pronouncing the first "G" in "gigabyte" like the "G" in "giant"... Nobody pronounces "gigabyte" like that anymore. I was like, "What the hell is a gigabyte?" He said something along the lines of, "I don't know, but it's a LOT of space!" I was like, "Holy shit." Nowadays the cheapest hard drive has like 20 gigabytes, and most computers come with at least 40. And that space fills up so fast with applications and junk that it's not enough. I can't believe that shit.

So I can't wait until the first gigapixel camera. Shit, you'll be able to shoot a 60' by 40' photograph and get film-quality results. We could send that thing to like Mars or something.

Re:One gigapixel?

[Anonymous Coward]

I know you mean to say "film quality" in the nicest possible meaning, but it's actually incorrect.

Digital sensors are a little larger than a square centimeter in size. Most of the difference is in the width being wider than the sensor is tall.

Even at that small area, the quality of digital prints is indistinguishable from 35mm film. As you go up in the price ranges, you come to the Canon 1-Ds which has an 8MP 35mm sensor which can create images that rival medium format film images. At that sensor size, it blows 35mm film out of the water.

Square millimeter per square millimeter, digital is actually better than film. It's hard to believe, and film fanciers will always claim differently, but film does not have the resolution of an equivalently sized digital sensor.

The problems with digital sensors are:
1) cost. It costs a lot to build the sensors and put them in cameras. That's why there are only a few 35mm-sized digicams. Most of the Pro-level stuff is APS-sized and the consumer digicams are much smaller than that.
2) sensitivity. There are problems with the current technology that include things like blooming, dead pixels, and pixel overload. The technology is getting better, but for very high-contrast scenes, the sensors can sometimes be fooled.
3) lack of profiles. With film, each film type has its own particular qualities. As photographers become acquainted with these qualities, they tend to use more of a certain type than another. Fuji vs. Kodak. Negative vs. Slide. Fuji Reala vs. Kodak UC. And so on. With digital, you are essentially stuck with whatever the makers decided to put in there. Even when shooting in RAW, you are limited to the sensor and sensor layout that the maker built into the camera. If you are getting pictures that are routinely too green or too red, there's nothing you can do except post process the image in Photoshop. With film, there are so many different types that you will eventually find the one you like the best and stick with it (Everyone eventually finds Fuji Reala).

Re:Well.... it would depend on the target market.

[rainman_bc]

Actually, I'm almost 30, and I think there's something to be said about having a camera in the phone. Living in such a deeply litigious age, it's almost handy to have something that can give you evidence. A phone you'll always have on you, but your camera you might not have on your persona. Sometimes a photo adds a lot of credibility.

What right do you have?

[Gendou]

You have no to tell people in a public place that they can't look at certain things.

Rape involves touching someone, which is a violation of their freedom if done against their will. But in a public place, you have the right to look at anything that's being displayed for public viewing.

If a person is walking around naked (voluntarily) in a public palce, you have the right to look at them. If they didn't want someone looking at them naked, why did they go out in a public place?

Similarly, if you wear a skirt, and thus display your panties to the world (from the right angle, anyway), what right do you have to tell people that they can't look at you from a certain angle? None.

Looking can not and should not be a crime.

double standard

[mitchellandrews]

Think for a second; if someone built a phone inside a digital camera you'd be like, "This is fukin' retarded." So why in the hell would someone buy a 7 megapixel camera inside a phone?