Camera Phones – The good and the bad
Mobile phones have evolved a lot in the past decade and we have seen some crazy tech make it to mobile devices in the recent times. Apart from powerful processors, superb displays, internet capabilities and mammoth storage, there has been one other component that has seen drastic changes. It is the tiny camera sit at the back panel of your device. Camera phones have been there for almost a decade now. While they started off as an add on hardware for you to capture when you don’t have immediate access to a camera, they have been rivaling point and shoot cameras now.
The improvement in mobile photography has changed the trend in the recent times. While earlier Nikon and Canon used to dominate the charts on Flickr, now we see more mobile cameras in the finder. Point and shoot cameras have lost customers due to high end mobile phones. This has affected both people and manufacturers. While most people like this transition from camera to mobile phones, some photographers refuse to agree. There are good and bad bits to it.
The bad
Well most photographers complain that mobile photography has deteriorated the quality of photos that we capture. Mobile phone cameras were supposed to be something used as a backup and it should work that way. A dedicated device would obviously be better than a device that is trying to be everything. People are compromising on technologies that should be a part of the camera and the megapixel war is not really doing much good to the photography. Also the small size of cellphone doesn’t allow for a large lens assembly or the scope for adding optical zoom. And the problem is that people love their life with a compromise.
As more people are adapting to this mobile photography thing, manufacturers are doing everything they can to squeeze in everything they can in their devices. And now we have reached a state where it has just become a war of specifications. For uploading a photograph on instagram or facebook, a decent eight megapixel camera is good enough. Even five megapixels would do the job very well but the problem is that manufacturers aren’t stopping there. We saw the Nokia 808 pure view with a sensor of over forty megapixels. Do we really need something like that on a cellphone?
Putting a camera like this on a mobile phone is forcing them to put even more powerful hardware inside the device to cope up with it. Let alone full HD videos, the devices now can record videos in even higher resolution and at insane frames per second. This has become a never ending thing. A bigger camera, powerful hardware, more power requirement, bigger devices, rising competition and then everything goes bigger yet again to keep the rivals in check.
We really appreciated it when HTC kept the megapixel count in control to actually work towards improving photography on mobile devices. But no matter how hard they try, all they are doing is matching the level of a basic point and shoot. Samsung tried to put optical zoom in the Galaxy Zoom but that thing isn’t even remotely comfortable as a phone. But mobile photography hasn’t done all bad about photography.
The good
Well the best bit is that everyone is a photographer now. A lot of people started with smartphones and have moved up to high end cameras after they got their start. Many people share their experiences and credit their mobile cameras for their start. The thing is, that even the good ones who didn’t try to get hands on a camera got their personal point and shoot with their smartphones. At some point they will upgrade to a proper camera because they would want more than what a camera phone can offer. Plus as it is a smartphone, you get all the photography tools you want on the go. You can add filters, crop parts, add effects and then post it on your social networking account using the network or Wi-Fi.
As the competition has evolved, camera manufacturers are working hard on their cameras to give people a reason to pick them over a mobile camera. The new age smart cameras give you everything you get on a conventional point and shoot while adding some adorable features from your smartphone. You get editing features that would let you do some mild editing right on the camera and then use the Wi-Fi connectivity to upload it to your facebook account. A good number of cameras also run android now to give you all the options you get on your camera phone but as it is a camera, you get a large sensor and lens assembly to capture good photographs. Having android would allow you to access all your social networking apps as well as you can use some good photography apps like camera 360 to capture superb shots.
Some camera makers like canon have made good use of all this technological development. They haven’t ditched their camera interface in favour of android. Instead they integrate your smartphone and camera so that you can capture good images on your camera and then make use of it on your smartphone. Some other manufacturers have also introduced apps for android and iOS devices to use the location of device in photographs.
Verdict
The point here is that camera phones have worked both for and against photography. The improvement in camera phones have killed the basic point and shoot camera and that isn’t a good thing really. The good thing is that it has given us a lot of new photographers. Some smart brains that make good use of the smart options that digital photography gives us. It has also forced the digital camera, as we knew it, to evolve and serve the best to enthusiasts.
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