Which Phone for Photography

Father Ted

Father Ted

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Back many many years ago before I became a nurse, I wanted to work in TV as a cameraman (THAT came about due to having the most enormous horn for Anneka Rice) and so I studied photography at school, I had an Olympus OM20, a couple of lenses and a flash and thought I was David Bailey dng double exposures and pushing film in the darkroom. That came to an end and the OM was largely used during the holiday and at Christmas and at no other time. Then I bought a 35mm compact with Zoom as it was easier to cart about, but again this was seldom used.

These days I use a Fuji S5500 for when I want a nice decent picture, but most of the time stuff is captured on my camera that came with the phone. Now despite it being a Nokia with supposedly a 12Mb sensor and Car Zeiss optics even in good lighting conditions the Nokia is trounced on by the Fuji, and even my aged 3Mp Sony DSC-P52.
The downside is the Fuji is the size of a small house brick and the Sony takes just 16 pictures before it dies.

This means the Fuji comes out for special occasions only and at all other times the Nokia is used, at a compromise to photo quality.

So, are there any mobile phones out there with a decent camera attachment?
 
nope... all mobile cameras are disgraceful. End of story.

sorry n'all, but you'd be better spending £60 on a cheap fuji from sainsburys rather than using a mobile. The results will be better.
 
I agree with Shrink, phones aren't good for pictures full stop. But if you pointed a gun at my head and said it HAD to be a phone then probably the iPhone 4S is the best of a bad bunch, my wife is an amateur photographer and she has the 4S, she says it's not too bad all things considered. She tells me that the Sony Experia X10 is also half decent considering it's a phone. But yes, a £60 camera will always beat a £200+ phone for picture quality.
 
I am impressed with the camera on this new iPhone, the standard setting options are limited but I believe there is an app that unlocks a lot more of it's potential.

But then the price of an iPhone takes you into the realms very good cameras.
 
Hmmm, might be time to upgrade my aged Sony DCS-P52 then......
I'll put up some comparison photos later on once I have unearthed the HDD with them on (I keep nothing on the netbook) to show the differences between them - oddly I used to have an N95 and got some really quite good pictures with that phone.
 
I like the Olympus VR310 which you can get for about the £100 mark just now. Others I'd consider are the Canon powershot A1200 and the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS35, but having said that, if you already have a digital camera I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve, are you looking to upgrade a phone, or upgrade a camera... [/align]
 
I've always had good results from Nokia phones with the Carl Zeiss lens I must say. I've had numerous more advanced phones since then, but the camera's have always been worse.

Phone's wil never match camera's for quality, but for me they have one single big advantage, namely I always have it with me, and a poor photo of that unexpected special moment is better than none at all.
 
Canuck said:
if you already have a digital camera I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve
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Mainly what QuattroJames says, the phone I have with me most of the time, the Fuji I dont (given the fact the Fuji is big and doesnt fit in my trouser pocket)

quattrojames said:
Phone's wil never match camera's for quality, but for me they have one single big advantage, namely I always have it with me, and a poor photo of that unexpected special moment is better than one at all.
Click to expand...
True.
I may revert back to the N95 as I found results from it much better than the N8.
 
this one:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fujifilm-X10-Digital-Camera-Optical/dp/B005JRGWNS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323797579&sr=8-1

Don't think the reception is very good but the pictures will be.
 
The problem with mobile phone cameras is that the sensor is so tiny that all the pixels are so close together that they interfere with each other and create digital noise. The same can be said for cameras that boast over 10 mp's. So leave the mobile phone camera alone and buy a camera with the biggest sensor that you can afford and not too many mega pixels. 10 mp's are ample on a full size sensor so a compact with a smaller sensor should have less pixels to maintain the same image quality.
 
Cary Grant said:
The problem with mobile phone cameras is that the sensor is so tiny that all the pixels are so close together that they interfere with each other and create digital noise. The same can be said for cameras that boast over 10 mp's. So leave the mobile phone camera alone and buy a camera with the biggest sensor that you can afford and not too many mega pixels. 10 mp's are ample on a full size sensor so a compact with a smaller sensor should have less pixels to maintain the same image quality.
Click to expand...

Unless you can afford to buy a top of the range DSLR, where the senor is the same size as a 35mm SLR and all the lenses are inter changable, wont get any change from a £1000 mind you.

Jamie.
 
Reminds me very much of a Richo 35mm compact SLR I used to have.

Whilst I no longer have an SLR or DSLR I have a perfectly acceptable DC with additional lense that also takes standard filters. For those occasions I want nice pictures it comes out of the bag. But its large, even a compact DSLR would be too bulky to carry about on a day to day basis. Whereas my phone isnt and is always in my pocket (remember the Kodak Disc cameras - I had one of those!).

This however does add to the arguments about important pictures now being lost in the dross. My Nokia N8 is about 8 months old and already has some 1500 photos on the memory card. Compare that to Robert Capras single shot that captures in an instant the haunting frightening world of the Normandy Landings. From a time when photograpic film and plates were expensive and used sparingly.
Hell I remember loading up a film canister with about 38 B&W shots and thinking if I am lucky I might get one or two decent pictures. Then there was all that mucking about in the darkroom pushing exposures, fiddling with shading part of the paper to adjust contrast and so on. Photoshop has made all that redundant really now.
How far we have come!
 
yea it has come along way...i collected minox bond type cameras...worked perfectly but a bugger either finding the film or trying to split a 36 mm film into 3 to load onto cannisters....nah ill stick with me canon g9
 
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