Tony: Rae actually discovered we can change our phone picture quality to high over the weekend so I’ve fallen in love with my phone all over again.
Daniel: Woo hoo! (Must put my phone contract expiry in my diary. Upgrade to camera phone top priority.)
Tony: The latest crop, the ‘i’ models for Nokia, have 1.5-2 mega pixel cameras now. Very very impressive.
Daniel: So by the time I upgrade, I’ll probably be able to get 3mp, which is what my Real Camera has! But even 2 is plenty for web use.
Tony: When I went to Canada all those years ago I had a 2MP camera and thought it was the bees-knees. I’m leaning more and more towards the phone being the great convergence technology. I can put a 1G SD card in to my phone now to turn it in to a more than adequate MP3 player, it even plays AAC files. A 2MP camera would do just fine for snaps. It already has the calendar feature and all my contacts. I probably won’t get another PocketPC when this one falls over.
Daniel: It makes a lot of sense, because making phone calls is really the killer app for mobile technology. I’ve long taken the view that I’ll carry a phone no matter what, so the more features I can pack in there, the better.
Tony: Exactly. The phone and keys are the two things you always seem to have on you.
Daniel: I might turn this conversation into a GR.
Tony: Cool.
Don’t let the number of MP’s fool you. It’s still going to be a crap camera. I’ve got a 1.3MP and it’s not bad for still, but if there’s any movement (and I mean any) or anything but perfect light conditions, forget about it.
Nutcases, the both of you. NUTCASES. 😉
Digital Cameras disappoint me in general in this regard. I got a 4MP one to take to New Zealand and while I’ve managed to take some good pictures, there do seem to be issues. Some photos that I’ve taken where there is slight movement have ended up blury. Another problem that I have is that a photo might look focused on the little LCD display though it’s can be slightly out of focus. I didn’t have that problem on my 35mm SLR camera (film that is), if it looked focused in the view finder it usually was. This is particularly a problem if you want to use macro mode or manual focus. Finally it takes way longer to refresh after you take each photo than the the time it takes you to shift 35mm film to the next frame.
That’s not to say I don’t like digital cameras. I can experiment and take photos of strange looking things, yet without paying for film processing and a complete set of prints. Just, don’t discount film yet. On the other hand, the professional kind of digital cameras probably do alright. I wouldn’t bother with film for P&S either, really.
“Another problem that I have is that a photo might look focused on the little LCD display though it’s can be slightly out of focus.”
I used to find that an abolute pain in the arse as well. That’s why I bough a camera that still has a viewfinder as well as a LCD screen (though mine’s an SLR and not a compact). Many compact sorts of cameras have this now (Olympus, Cannon, etc). You’ll find it helps. And yeah, the digital SLR handles the lag much better – almost like using a film SLR.
Hate to tell you this, but taking a photograph through a lens half the size of a key on a mobile’s keypad is not going to produce a quality image – you just aren’t getting enough photons. Feel free to crank the megapixels up all you like. A mobile’s lens is also going to get the crap scratched out of it in a matter of months, adding to your blurry photo problem.
But I agree, convergence is coming and nothing’s going to stop it, and mobile phones are the mandatory take-everywhere item so it’s logical that they will be the platform from which all else will hang. Problem is, I’m still using a seven year old phone with no problems – it makes phone calls. The biggest advances in the past seven years seem to be colour screens (wow!) and built-in Java, and thus games (wow!); I’m yet to ‘upgrade’, but I have shelled out for a digital SLR camera, because they finally cut the mustard. And I don’t think that phones are going to get bigger again in such a way that large format lenses are going to be an option.
Camera phones good for happy snaps ‘tho.