Can a Camera Phone Replace Your Dedicated Digital Camera?

There’s a good discussion in the Convergence Zone over at the S60 blogs that deals with the fact that today’s mobile phones are becoming serious competitors to dedicated cameras and the fact that people are unwilling to accept this. True- camera phones will in all likelihood never completely replace the stand alone digital camera but it certainly offers some features not found in such devices, and rivals the existing features for casual, yet high quality photography. With the added bonus of other converged features such as GPS, direct and fast access to photo sharing resources such as seamless flickr uploading combined with the fact that you don’t have to carry a second device with you, and aren’t likely to do so all day long, every day.

More inside…

The fact that you can pull out your phone and take a 5 megapixel prize winner in a moment’s notice is really quite remarkable to me. Obviously things are only going to get better- Nokia has already released somewhat of a follow up to the amazing capabilities of the N95 with the N82, bettering it by a smidge with the xenon flash that allows for brilliant night shots and other low-level light conditions. No doubt we’ll be seeing more devices with optical zoom, and those without optical zoom will most certainly benefit from more megapixels. I know people are really down on the whole megapixel buzz nowadays claiming there’s more to image quality than a megapixel race. This is of course true, but more megapixels means I’ll be able to crop photos better. It’s no optical zoom, but it’s far better than being tempted to use that miserable, wretched digital zoom.  It truly is all about the camera you have- the camera you have on you every day of your life that enables you to capture moments of it with ease and quickness.

My flickr page is comprised solely of (other than maybe three or four images out of some 600 images to date) images taken with the N95 and N82- and there some fantastic examples of what those devices can do. There are some remarkable images in there. Even more so is the catalog of images in the N95users flickr group headed by James Burland from NokiaCreative.com that honors Nokia camera phone users with a monthly camera phone award. It’s well worth a look over there to see some remarkable images from camera phones that the general public still doesn’t seem to realize exists.

I’ve printed out several images at 11x14 inches, matted, framed and hung on the wall in my home. The quality of image produced by the cellphone cam is just that good. People are constantly amazed that the photos were taken with my N95. Everyone seems to want one when I show them what I’ve used to take the photo- and it amazes me even more that they’re so interested in such a product, but have no idea it exists. For the most part, it seems consumers still have the impression of camera phones to be gimmicky little devices that offer quality only worthy of online presentation- this is most certainly, and should obviously not be the case anymore. We’re living in a converged world now- and I should hope it will only be a matter of time before the rest of the world ‘gets it’.

There are countless improvements from Nokia on the horizon with regards to imaging devices- we’ve recently heard they’re planning on creating a device with HD video recording… though it seems that’s a bit down the road in 2010. In the meantime, we’ll quite assuredly be assaulted by the Nseries team with improved optics, better flashes, optical zooms and other unforeseen features by then to keep us interested.

We’ll keep lusting after larger sensors, faster load and processing times, that optical zoom and yes… I’ll say it again, more pixels- and no doubt we’ll get it- but right now as it stands we’ve got some pretty wickedly capable digital cameras embedded in our mobile phones now, and I think it’s absurd that it’s still not understood by many as a reasonable replacement for dedicated equipment.

So what do you think? Are cellphones on the way to replacing the standalone digital camera for your needs? What features are you hoping for in the future from manufacturers like Nokia?

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written by Tommie, January 04, 2008

Well like your qweston> Are cellphones on the way to replacing the standalone digital camera for your needs? The answer is Yes for shoore When i cheek your pictures in flickr taken with N95 and N82 they are much better then mine I taken with a Canon Digtal IXUSS55 camera > http://flickr.com/photos/21877990@N03/

Ok I'm no fotograf ,have only automatic installations on but any how, The cost for Ixuss55 "1-2year ago" was almost the same as N95 or N82 today but I cant listen to music ,make calls use GPS and more with my Ixus .

Thats why answer are Yes i belive for shoore cell-phones can replace standard cameras, and Nokia make great videorecording in the devices , in the future maybee inbulit systemcamera

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