Slashdot Mirror
Megapixels & Camera Phones
CEmongler writes "Consumer Electronics publication CoolTechZone.com tackles the integrated camera attachments in today's cell phones. According to the author, "The camera integration has in fact reached such a stage that any self-respecting phone would incorporate at least a megapixel camera. The cutting-edge feature to have though is the 2-megapixel variety. The question is: is it really worth the extra money you pay for it? Without getting into model-by-model comparisons, I am questioning the entire range of 2-megapixel camera phones. Are they really worth it?
For the most part, no."
Look, the number of pixels is simply not as important as the optical properties of the system. I've seen better pictures come out of a four megapixel (MP) camera with better lenses than those that come out of a seven MP camera with poorer quality optics. So, if your lenses allow clean transmission of light without chromatic aberration and little to no change to the fidelity of the image, then you will have better images than just simply bumping up the MP count through commodity CCDs.
This of course is what the phone manufacturers are doing, buying commodity CCDs because that is what is being made. It is cheaper for them to spend an extra dollar or two on a higher MP count CCD rather than putting the development dollars on improving the user experience, interface or infrastructure.
This of course is because people respond to higher MP counts in the same way they like "bling". "Ooooh shiny things!" Come-on people! Put some effort into purchasing quality products that demand a bit more work and are functional for longer periods of time instead of purchasing things that you throw away after only a short time. It shows you are more discriminating, pushes companies to produce better products, is easier on the environment and gives you better quality goods that help to improve your life rather than clutter it up with junk.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Who really takes their digicam with them everywhere they go? I know I don't.
I did not own a digital camera up until this xmas, and it was a gift. I purchased my w800i because it's sort of a MacGyver-esk tool used for pictures, music, and communication.
Since I prefer film vs digital, I thought it would be nice to consolidate tools into one device that I have on me all the time. It has proved to be a good investment, despite the $400 investment. The premium price I paid has a lot to do with markets and such, but those aside, the phone fits its niche in my life and it's always convenient to have a camera on you at all times.
Most phones available in the US have really crappy cameras, but the w800i is an exception.
And why? Because the optics still sucks. I guess there ain't enough space for a good camera inside a phone, because the optics ain't small enough. While the ccd or cmos sensor is small enough, it needs good optics to give good quality.
Say you've got the good optics, and a decent sensor... A ccd uses more power than a cmos, and needs more light. A cmos however, gives lots of artifacts (noise) in the picture, but performs better in low-ligt conditions, and needs less power.
Ok, so we go for a ccd. Then we need a good flash, which takes even more power. Power which has to come from a capacitor since a battery can't deliver high enough voltage and enough current fast enough. A capacitor and flash takes up space.
In short, if we want small phones, we won't get decent image quality. If we can accept a phone twice as big as the ones we have, we can just bundle together a normal compact camera and a phone...
Assembling etherkillers for fun an profit
The whole "cameras in cell phones" craze is starting to cause some problems for me. Many DoD installations do not let you take camera phones onsite. This has the effect of severely limiting my cell phone choices, so that I'm stuck with "crackberry" or "super cheap", neither of which is terribly appealing. What happened to a nice, mid-range phone with no camera? It's not even that I don't like a camera integrated into it - it's just not an option for me. This insanity is even starting to creep into PDA phones - witness the Treo 650's digital camera, for instance.
It's gotten to the point where I'm thinking of switching from Sprint to Nextel, just because Nextel's phones actually seem more reasonable for my (and my wife's) usage. Interestingly, the Sprint rep I spoke with said I could do this, and they even had a group for going from Sprint -> Nextel!
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Dammit, I've already got a phone (an old Nokia candybar model that has a wonderful interface and battery life and no stupid camera). Any self-respecting phone should be just a phone. If I want to take along my camera, I'll do so.
I'm hoping my current phone doesn't break so I don't have to involuntarily "upgrade" to the next model which has countless features I don't want and an interface whose designers I want to reciprocally torture by redesigning their TV so that changing channels requires multiple button presses in even the most common case. Gah *head explodes*.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
He says he took only 20 pictures in 3 months with his 2 mp camera phone. Why the hell is he reviewing cameraphones then?
I probably take 20 pics per week on mine, I send them to friends and family straight from the phone, sometimes I post things on my family's website from it. I'll never get a phone without a camera.
Having a 2 megapixel camera is pretty pointless if you only use it to put a picture of your partner on the phone's main screen, or to send multimedia messages (which reduces the quality to something like VGA quality).
However if you can get the image from the phone to an internet site like Flickr, TextAmerica, Kodak, &c, then it is worth having a 2 megapixel image, just like it's worth having a decent amount of megapixels for your regular digital camera. The higher quality is useful for displaying on a PC, or for printing the photo, and so on.
Unfortunately it's very hard to get your pictures from your phone to the internet. Email and WAP uploaders have proved not good enough for this task, and hardly anyone does this.
A new generation of software is emerging on phones though. Services like ShoZu allow you to upload full quality images from your phone to sites like Flickr, TextAmerica, &c, in a very simple manner, and also allow editing of titles, descriptions and even tags both before and after upload. With this sort of service on your phone it really is worth having a decent camera in your phone.
I dont care if you can get a 30 megapixel phone, It's images will suck.
The only way they can get lenses in these things is to either use the ceramic lenses or tiny plastic lenses at fixed focus and the image will stink no matter what.
I have an old Fuji S1 3 megapixel digiatal camera in my closet that will kick the crap out of the highest megapixel point and shoot on the market today simply because I can plop a $1000.00 lens on it.
90% of the image is in the optics and ALL cameraphones have crappy optics simply because there is no room for the real stuff.
Unless people want to put a SLR up to their head to talk Cameraphones will always stink at photo's.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
banned from most workplaces? I doubt even 1% of employers have rules against camera phones.
I just want a phone with a gigabyte of flash memory and bluetooth capability to be able to mount as a drive and store data on.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
We used to use a regular digital camera, and just keep one in each conference room. But they kept growing legs, getting misplaced, needing batteries, or just malfunctioning. Cameras that are owned by individuals have the advantage that the individual actually takes care of the thing, so it is much more likely to be available and work when it is needed.
The key to any tool is to use it appropriately. A camera can be misused, such as to transmit confidential material to a competitor. A camera can also be very useful, to record and communicate drawings within the company.
Banning cameras does not protect the confidential information, unless the organization also bans email, removable disks, printers, paper, and briefcases. Only two things are actually accomplished by banning any specific tool: It makes the organization less productive; And it tells the people that they are not trusted. Both effects are counter-productive.
It's about EASY. I have a camera phone. It was free with my contract. It has a 2MP camera. I take it with me everywhere because it's my phone, so if I see something I want to snap, I can. Camera phones are not for people that want artistic or even "good" pictures. What they take is memories and reminders, things otherwise forgotten, not art. So get off your damn high horse. Of course it would be great if they managed to fit a DSLR quality camera system inside a phone. FOr now they can't and the products are STILL great, and within the budget of most people here in the UK.
I have to say I feel it was entirely worth it.
Firstly i'm not coming on to defend my purchase. To be honest the phone was free anyway on a contract upgrade I needed to make so I thought i'd go for it.
The phone is a Nokia N70 and, for all of its foibles (including the incredibly annoying slide open camera activation / lens protection cover) the camera stands out as a superb product.
I'd love to link to an image i've taken from it but fear the slashdot effect would ruin me on hosting charges.. but under the right conditions (ie NOT night time) the camera returns impressive pictures. Yes, in low light it makes everything look incredibly washed out - yes the delay is enormous on taking a picture - but in good average daylight conditions pictures come back looking almost as good as those of my old 2MP Olympus point and shoot which i've since retired.
One of the 'points' of camera phones for me was just having a camera with you at all times in case something unusual happened - be that a car accident (and you need to record photographic evidence of the scene), a good sunset, etc - the increase in MP allows you to do this more and more - previous generations meant that the picture was only 640x480 or so and this didn't really allow you to get the whole picture across!
Cheers.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
"Especially with employers that have to be HIPAA compliant."
Wierd --
I am the HIPAA compliance officer with my office, and I have not seen any rules to this extent.
At the same time, we train our employees and don't expect them to be idiots...but thats just my office. The rest of my organization might have other rules and employees they hire that for some reason they allow access to this data but don't really trust (i.e., there is no way for any of my people to download bulk data -- nor should there ever be for someone that can't be trusted -- and our software is designed so that certain activities like looking up the records of family members or even your own personal records is frowned upon...I actually got a call from the 'boys upstairs' because I was looking up a record of my own -- and that was just to correct erronious data from some tests I had accidently automated with my ID# back when the system was still in the test phase and none of the data was supposed to go forward).
But yeah, we take HIPAA seriously here -- but we do it in a way that makes sense and not just restricts anyone that might actually have to use technology.
Wow. Another slashdotter seemingly incapable of distinguishing between "Where I work" and "Most workplaces."
Clue : The plural of "anecdote" is not "data"
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
obligitory onion reference
The Camera-Phone
Death and danger are my various breads and various butters.
Of course megapixels don't mean much without the optics to match. Compare these two images, both taken at 640x480. Spotting the photo taken on the Treo isn't hard...
* It's not about the number of pixels, it's about the lense and camera design
* I just want a PHONE that is a PHONE goddammit
* blah blah blah
For those who believe humans have free will, slashdot provides plenty of evidence to the contrary. I think I've seen these same posts modded up in a dozen different stories about camera phones. It reminds of the dilbert cartoon where the most overused phrase is how "swimming is the best form of exercise".
LS
There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie