Cellphone cameras

[fred...@noemail.com]

Recently I've seen cellphone camera photos that look as good as those
from digital cameras. The first phones took lousy pics, but these days
it almost seems senseless to buy a simple digital camera when the phones
take as good of pictures. I know a costly SLR camera will do better,
but compared to a point and shoot, they look identical.

I'm wondering what the resolution is on these newest phones? I actually
think the resolution on some of the newest point and shoot cameras is
getting so high that the photo storage size in megabytes is getting far
too high. Unless the photos are going to be printed as large posters,
there is no sense needing so many pixels.

I am seeing where the new phones may replace all but the most advanced
cameras. After all, who wants to carry a camera when they already have
a phone.

[Michael]

The new ones are pretty good. My iPhone 4S has a camera just over 8
megapixels and it is autofocus. It can also do a digital zoom, and take
1080 video. Of course, the sensor is tiny. If I load any of the photos
into iPhoto I can read the metadata: the lens is 4.3mm with a fixed
aperture of f/2/4. The camera varies the shutter speed and also the
ISO. I see ISO's with it from 64 to 800. 800 is very noisy on that
lens. But hell, it came free with a $200 cell phone that is also a
handheld computer. No complaints.
--
Michael

[Michael]

But it is not even close to my Nikon D5000 which Nikon introduced as a
slightly-better-than-entry-level DSLR.
--
Michael

[Alan Browne]

Any camera, no matter how limited, can produce great photos when the
photographer shoots within the limits of the camera.

The sensor in phone cameras is tiny. That means it starts with densely
packed, noise prone sensor sites. As resolution goes up, the signal
goes down and the noise gets worse.

The lenses on cell phones are simple, pretty good (for what they are)
and offer limited ability for selective focus and low light situations
(if it's possible at all for the shooter to control aperture - it's
often not possible or at best only with difficulty). As to FL and zoom
they are very limited.

That said, cell phone cameras can produce nice shots. But if you want
to deliberately go out and make photographs, then a more serious camera
is needed.

A good P&S, better shots.
A good zoom-lens camera even better.
A good D/SLR better still...

--
"A person with a new idea is a crank until the idea succeeds."
-Samuel Clemens.

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

fred...@noemail.com <fred...@noemail.com> wrote:

> Recently I've seen cellphone camera photos that look as good as those
> from digital cameras.

News flash: cell phone cameras now available in digital!
Stop always feeding analog film into your cell phone, and
circumvent the expensive and slow development process!

> The first phones took lousy pics, but these days
> it almost seems senseless to buy a simple digital camera when the phones
> take as good of pictures. I know a costly SLR camera will do better,
> but compared to a point and shoot, they look identical.

That would depend a lot on the circumstances, wouldn't it?

-Wolfgang

[DanP]

You can take good pictures with mobile phone if you don't shoot moving subjects, have plenty of light and don't want the background blurred.

That being said I own an Android phone, a P&S camera and a DSLR one. The P&S is gathering dust, I seldom take pictures with the phone and I always take my DSLR bag with me on days out. And if I would lose that DSLR I would buy another.


DanP

[David Dyer-Bennet]

And a medium-format digital back, if you want really *good* photos! :-)

But then, hauling around heavy stuff that you have to set up means you
don't get certain photos at all. Small and light and having it with you
has its own charm.

I take the D700 if I'm expecting to take photos seriously, carry the
EPL-2 in the shoulder bag that's usually with me, and can fall back on
the HTC Evo cell phone if something turns up by surprise.
--
David Dyer-Bennet, dd...@dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/
Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/
Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/
Dragaera: http://dragaera.info

[Alan Browne]

On 2012-05-08 13:44 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote:

> Alan Browne <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> writes:
>
>> That said, cell phone cameras can produce nice shots. But if you want
>> to deliberately go out and make photographs, then a more serious
>> camera is needed.
>>
>> A good P&S, better shots.
>> A good zoom-lens camera even better.
>> A good D/SLR better still...
>
> And a medium-format digital back, if you want really *good* photos! :-)

And a 20" x 24" Polaroid Land Camera to beat those.

[tony cooper]

On Tue, 8 May 2012 02:08:26 -0700 (PDT), DanP <dan....@gmail.com>
wrote:

I can see that more and more people will be opting for the use of a
cell phone camera instead of a dslr, but these are people who are
basically snapshot users. The shoot friends, family, pets, and
vacation shots. The cell phone camera that provides good images from
a device they already carry anyway erodes the need for a dslr.

The more serious amateur photographers, though, will stick to the
dslrs. To us, it's not a matter of convenience.

I know some "street" candid photographers who are using cell phone
camera more and more, but that's because the cell phone camera is less
conspicuous so they can get more candid shots. It's also because they
are taking shots on the subway and places they are going to when going
to and from work and don't want to carry a dslr to work with them.


--
Tony Cooper - Orlando, Florida

[Wolfgang Weisselberg]

Alan Browne <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
> On 2012-05-08 13:44 , David Dyer-Bennet wrote:
>> Alan Browne <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> writes:

>>> That said, cell phone cameras can produce nice shots. But if you want
>>> to deliberately go out and make photographs, then a more serious
>>> camera is needed.

>>> A good P&S, better shots.
>>> A good zoom-lens camera even better.
>>> A good D/SLR better still...

>> And a medium-format digital back, if you want really *good* photos! :-)

> And a 20" x 24" Polaroid Land Camera to beat those.

Naah, you'd build a hangar on the right spot, hang a few dozen
square meters of light sensitive material down the rear end wall
and drill a pinhole into the front. Everything else is just
horsing around.

-Wolf'SCNR'gang

[Andrea Rimicci]

On Mon, 07 May 2012 06:30:59 -0500, fred...@noemail.com wrote:

>Recently I've seen cellphone camera photos that look as good as those

>from digital cameras.<snip>

Why buy a dedicated camera when you have a phone who also is able
shoot photos, is a question who arise when you are satisfied with the
results you get from your phone.

Most likely, you really don't need buy a digital camera, the need for
a camera comes when you are not satisfied by the results, and you want
more control on how the picture is taken. If you want adjust white
balance in a different way, if you want over/under exposure on
purpose, here comes the need for something who lets you do it.

More the control you want, more the hardware goes expensive.

Want decently shoot moving/sport objects? SLR.
Want decently shoot in low light but no flash allowed? Dedicated
objectives. Manual exposure time.

At the end, if you are happy with the photo of your cellphone, you
really don't need buy dedicated hardware.

That does not means photos taken with a cellphone are worse than ones
taken with a SLR. I saw really nice photos taken by cellphones. And
really crappy photos taken with a $5,000 SLR. A good hardware does not
take good photos. A good photographer does! If you want use money to
take better photos, I recommend you buy a book about photography, that
helps you take better pictures 100thousands more than a better
hardware alone. I'm sure you will take great pictures with your cell
;)

Andrea
--
andrea()ar italy(dot)com

[petern]

yup! I used my iPhone camera for taking a SI entry. I was going

--
PeterN

[Paul Furman]

My Samsung Infuse 4G is 8MP but I just noticed the default setting is
3MP, which has been just fine for my purposes. The aperture is fixed and
apparently manual focus is impossible even to custom programmers :-(