Camera Phone Tips 286
Darren writes "It is getting hard to find a cell phone WITHOUT a camera in it - as a result millions are flooding the internet through moblogs with camera phone images - many of which are poor quality.
I'm sick of seeing poor quality camera phone images being posted to moblogs and so have collected a series of camera phone tips and links that will hopefully help us all improve our camera phone images."
Here is a good tip... (Score:3, Insightful)
Want high-quality? Get a real camera! (Score:5, Insightful)
The tips on the site seemed pretty obvious to me...get close, increase resolution, don't use digital zoom... the site even states they are obvious. From my brief look at the other linked sites, it looks like there are a few slightly more interesting points, but also a lot of repetition (between the sites).
I think if anyone is a budding photographer, interested in building a gallery on their site, they should get ahold of a "real" digital camera (a device whose primary function is as such). It seems to me that people running "moblogs" aren't going to be too bothered about having high-quality photos anyway.
Lint (Score:5, Insightful)
Too many features, (Score:5, Insightful)
This too will pass... (Score:3, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too many features, (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll second that - in fact, I preached that gospel myself before.
A phone is for making phonecalls with, allthought I'll be happy to point out that an SMS (or text-message if you prefer) is a nice way to convay a fair chunk of info in a fast way without having to talk to the answeringmachine.
A camera is for taking pictures with - or short videos.
A PDA is for pretty much everything else - reading ebooks, to do lists, calendars, list of numbers and adresses and so on and so forth.
My portable gameconsole (ie; my GBA) is for short bursts of simple fun
A portable computer is for serious working - or serious gaming if you prefer.
Yes, it does mean I have to carry around two or three devises instead of one. It also means I can leave the functionality I don't need at home, and that each of my devices are optimised for it's intended role - meaning the camera takes very nice pictures, the PDA has a nice big screen and fits my hand comfertable, my portable game consolle has easy to change games and so on. It also means that if one device breaks, the rest of my gizmos are in perfect working order.
Re:Camera phones are silly (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem is that people misuse it. They seem to think the camera phone is there to replace your camera. Right now it isn't!
Since getting a camera phone I have enjoyed taking pics. But at no point did I think they were going to be of high enough quality to be printed out and framed or put up on a web site. But, the ability to take a picture of something and MMS it to a friend (usually to find out if I'm looking at the correct thing), has proved invaluable a couple of times already.
My father bought a digital camera about 6 years ago. It's maximum resolution was 640x480. It was expensive, and little more than a toy. Look at the quality of digital cameras now. I bet within 3 or 4 year time your phones will be more than adequate for posting arb pictures on your website. Why carry around a small camera and a small phone, when you can carry around one camera phone.
As for SMS's and web browsing being fads. Maybe in america, but I know here in South Africa SMS's are huge (and cell phones are owned by almost everyone, well over half the population as far as I know). Maybe its because we're poorer and therefor the money saved is worth it. Given that I just got a camera phone free of charge when renewing my cell phone contract, and even a cheap digital camera costs decent part of a salary here, I think its worth it.
This is true of most technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Select the camera with most pixels (Score:5, Insightful)
There's more to it than that though. The cheap plastic lens on these phones isn't really capable of taking high quality photos, even if you had a high megapixel system behind the lens. This becomes especially true after the thing rattles around in your pocket for a while and you get lint, sand, fingerprints, etc on it.
Another poster had it right: if you want good photos, get a good camera. If you're not worried about being the next Ansel Adams, use your camera phone.
The beauty of camera phones isn't that the picture quality is worth a damn -- it isn't. The great thing is that you always have the thing with you, so if something interesting happens you've got the ability to capture it on the spot without having to run home for your Nikon, by which time the moment will inevitably have passed.
If you want spontaneous pictures that are also of high quality, lug around a nice Nikon SLR -- the D70 looks fantastic. If on the other hand you'd rather not lug around an expensive camera body and a bag full of delicate lenses all the time, then the Lo-Fi, cheap-o camera on modern phones or PDAs can do in a pinch.
But don't bother mixing the two -- I can't imagine wanting to carry around a phone that doubled as a high megapixel camera. Think about it: the image sizes will be far too big to send to other camera phone users, which is a big part of the appeal with camera phones. You could have some kind of removable media, but at that point you have a crappy, expensive camera-phone hybrid that is cumbersome as a phone and inept as a camera. Why bother?
******
Composition, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the image. Look at the ways movies & magazines do photography, and copy what they do. Random examples off the top of my head:
Re:Want high-quality? Get a real camera! (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't Bother (Score:3, Insightful)
As a sometime professional photographer, I've given any number of hints similar to what I expect is on this list (love the
If people want good photos, all they have to do is look at their own photos as art and then work to make them look better.
Re:Camera phones are silly (Score:1, Insightful)
200 free sms per month = mass savings if you stop making stupid little 30 second phone calls
or browse the web on a crappy display with no mouse or proper keyboard.
Oh, so you carry a 21" TFT, mouse and keyboard around in your pocket hey? didnt think so. doesnt matter to you though since you probably dont leave the house much. people dont choose to use these technologies for no reason dumbass
Re:Here is a good tip... (Score:2, Insightful)
And why does having a camera phone make this point even more prominent to the point of reminding us of this redundant topic?
This is redundant folks, karma whoring at its finest. It's sort of like wandering into a thread about Windows security and saying "well if you really want security you should switch to Linux!" It's only insightful if the general populace hasn't considered it.
Re:Select the camera with most pixels (Score:3, Insightful)
No, it's the one with the best optics. I'll tell you right now, I'm not getting full use of the 640 by 480 CCD I have right now. A better lens would do me wonders, but increasing the CCD resolution would give me higher-resolution blur.
plenty of small-form-factor digital cameras avail (Score:2, Insightful)
These are great cameras to carry with you 24/7 and while they don't take digital SLR level photos they are a lot better than a camera phone and have a lot more smarts about exposure levels and autofocus.
Buy a couple of memory cards and you can take pictures constantly for a week and not pay to upload them over a cell phone carrier's network. You'll get some truly awesome photos that aren't stuck at 640x480 on a fixed-focus no-zoom, filled-with-dirt-lens seconday add-on marketing-said-to piece of junk.
What would funny is if they had gone the other direction and put a cheap cell phone into a Nikon digital rebel. "Excuse me, my camera is ringing..."
Re:Best use of camera phones ever (Score:2, Insightful)
Picture your average British Rail journey... filled with a constant background noise of tinny ringtones. More annoying are those who think their ringtones are cool/funny and seem to leave them playing for the enjoyment of those around. I swear I'm going to throttle the next person I encounter with The Muppets theme tune, if only because I end up humming it for the rest of the day!!
Worse of all, though, are the actual conversations... either for their sheer dullness ("Hi. I'm on the train" or "Hello Darling, we're just pulling into Sutton" being v. popular), or for the full-on detail they are relaying ("Yeah, I was sick everywhere").
Personally, the thing I hate most about camera phones is, I can't lie to the wife about where I am. "Prove it", she'll say when I claim to be stuck at some god-forsaken station (when in reality, I'm in my local having a couple of jars on the way home).
JJ
Re:My tips (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be afraid to throw away the crap ones
YES!
The biggest improvement an amateur photographer can make is a simple matter of self-discipline:
Throw away 8 of every 10 photos you take, before showing them to anyone.
There are many reasons why this works. If you adopt this practice now, by the end of the summer you'll have discovered several of those reasons on your own. You'll also have taken many more pictures than you would have otherwise, yet have fewer to show for it. OTOH, you'll start getting more compliments on your work.
Later on, if you decide you like this and want to go to the next level, you can start reading about digital photography and throwing away at least 9 of every 10 shots.
Re:Here is a good tip... (Score:1, Insightful)