S60 Open to new features

I completely agree. Sometimes it is 'spur of the moment' type photography that creates the best photos, and for this a phone camera is perfect. Especially the likes of the N82, now with the xenon technology coming through to the phone.

If I know I'm going to want to take photo's, such as going to the zoo etc, I will take my SLR, for all other times my N95 copes perfectly.

I completely agree. Perhaps those who diss the notion of camera phones replacing dedicated digital cameras don't know what's possible with a device such as the N95 or N82. I've taken some brilliant shots, blown them up to 11x14- framed, matted and hung on the wall. The quality of even the tiny 5mpix sensor is just that good. People are always blown away when I tell them it's taken with a camera phone. I can't wait to see what the next generation of camera phones from Nokia will be able to do.

I'm quite certain that we'll never completely replace a great stand alone camera with a mobile phone camera, but the technology that exists today really does allow the consumer to take excellent shots that are good for more than just emailing and posting on the web. As well as blowing images up to 11x14 and hanging them on the wall, I've made a couple of those 8.5x11" photo books for family members, calendars and all kinds of fun little things- all with images taken with my very well trusted N95. The camera I have. The camera I have everyday, all day.

Things will only get better, and I can't wait. :)

Right to the point Daemon. It's what I talked about in Day1 report out with my trial N95 8GB. The N95 8GB definitely would replace my 4MP stand alone digicam, and i believe it does for many people who own it (all the non pro photographers)

This is already true. I carry my N95 everywhere. The two Canons tend to stay at home, unless I have specific need for wide angle or tight zoom shots. The day that a phone can take interchangeable lenses and provide true optical zoom, the rules will change again...

I did forget the N82 in my post. While I don't have first-hand experience with the N82, reports from others suggest that it, too, is a contender in that digital snapshot camera replacement category.

I think the true test for me is when I hand a DVD of pictures over to my wife and see how many of them she decides to print out. :)

Posted by: PhoneBoy | December 31, 2007 11:10 AM

There is some point in this, but also some problems.

Yes, I do carry my N95 "everywhere." Yes, I can get decent pictures with it. But the problem: if there is a "spur of the moment" type of happening, the time that it takes for the N95 camera to start up is so long that the moment has long gone.

So instead of megapixels and other useless numbers maybe there should be some work done on the startup time of the camera.

Maybe this is why there isn't a lens cover on the newer models, you can click faster?

And no, I'm not asking for the same startup times as my SLR has (0.2 seconds) but five seconds is too long :P And no, I don't know what it's like to have a great camera on my phone. N95's camera does not produce great pictures, even N93 is better. Megapixels go up, noise goes up, algorithms try to compensate -> worsened quality. But you can always scale the picture to get decent results.

(And I've only had my SLR for two weeks so it's not like I'm used to that kind of quality verywhere :)

But happy new year for all!

All mobile cameras have shutter speed issues. A lot of the digital snapshot cameras have these same issues. Curious that your N93 takes better pictures than your N95. Either I've got a defective N93, you've got a defective N95, or both. My N93 does not take as good as pictures as it takes videos. :)

Posted by: PhoneBoy | December 31, 2007 05:08 PM

shutter speed on the N95 is indeed a problem. Are you sure you have the latest firmware on your N95? Firmware updates have shortened the lag time.

The N82 is also faster than the N95 in just about all respects, but especially shutter speed.

@ Symbiatch - I don't believe that the removal of the lens slider has anything to do with the speed in which it takes to get the camera app loaded up. If you think about it, the N95-1 is really a bit quicker to get the camera going (assuming you have the latest firmware for the classic N95 that features demand paging speed improvements). With the lack of a lens slider to activate the camera app, you need to first either operate the slider or perform a two-button key press to disengage the keylock. Then you'll need to press and hold the capture button long enough for the device to realize you intend to launch the camera, and haven't just bumped it. At this point the app will now load. With the manually operated lens cover you just flick it open in half a second and the app will load. Don't forget to take another couple seconds to wipe the dust, dirt and grease from the ill protected lens cover as well- adding a couple more seconds to the process of the latest variants of the N95. I honestly think that the removal of the lens cover has only cost us more time to capture those spontaneous moments. :O

Sorry to slightly derail the topic, I think I've gotten a little long winded there- it's a bit of a sore spot with me. :)

Another point- are we speaking of the shutter speed as in how fast the shutter fires, which results in a blurred capture of a moving image with the N95? This is one improvement that I would LOVE to see on an Nseries imaging powerhouse. I was really hoping for betterment in this area with the N82- really it seems to be the same hardware as the N95 other than the xenon flash. If I could take good images of moving items, I'd be a lot happier with the camera- though I'm quite satisfied with it as is for a cellphone camera! Optical zoom and some other slick features would be fantastic- but really I'd rather be able to capture moving images than anything else right now.

That's exactly what I'm talking about, @pseudofinn. How quick the shutter fires. It's the entire reason my wife wanted a DSLR because all the digital snapshot cameras we tried had horrible shutter speed.

Things have improved in the latest firmwares for the N95 for sure in terms of shutter speed, but it's still a bit slow for my tastes.

Posted by: PhoneBoy | January 2, 2008 10:16 AM

I see... I'm glad to hear the shutter has been sped up a little bit- of course as you mention, it's still certainly not going to be like a DSLR. Anyway, I'm still waiting on all the improvements we've seen with the v20 update for the classic N95 on my N95-3. I've recently offloaded my N95-1, that was before the update with demand paging and everything... so I'm left with a slow loading 5mpix camera with a slower shutter speed. At least I've got my 3G. I will be happy to see a bit faster shutter speed as well as everything else when we finally see that monumental update on the US variant N95.

In the meantime, I'm Nokia is cooking up some camera improvements for the next big Nseries device, and I can't wait. :)

Oooops- meant to say I'm _sure_ Nokia is working on some nice camera improvements... such as the HD video recording we've recently heard about, though that seems to be a lot further off than would have hoped. But not doubt we'll be seeing more pixels- which I know everyone is all about pixels being all but meaningless, but without optical zoom it sure makes it nicer to crop photos to emulate zoom and end up with a useful image. The xenon flash on the N82 is a great addition to the feature set. Again showing that phone cams are only getting better all the time and it should be plain to everyone that they produce images far more useful than our old devices that generally left us with images worthy of only online presentation in emails and on websites. Some of these camera phones really do rival digital cameras and always will for many due to the simple fact that we're living in a converged world now- who really wants to lug around five devices for what one device can do remarkably well for the package size. So yeah- I definitely agree that camera phones will overtake sales of dedicated cameras- certainly they won't replace them, but they are good enough to allow you to leave your dedicated camera behind already. What will the camera become in five years? How about in just two year...?

Anyway- isn't Nokia already the largest producer of cameras in the world?

I believe Nokia already announced they produce more cameras in a year than anyone else, @PseudoFinn. That may make the numbers look good for mobile phone cameras, but the real question is: do people use them and how much versus their standalone cameras.

Posted by: PhoneBoy | January 3, 2008 02:17 PM

Another aspect that could eventually make a difference between mobile phones doubling as cameras and dedicated digicams is the ability to develop applications that run on the camera...

Think about it - a device like the Nokia N95 is probably the first 5 megapixel camera with software which can (to some extent) be upgraded by 3rd parties, rather than having to rely on the usually minor bugfixes released by traditional "camera" manufacturers after the release of the product in their new firmware.

Given that the usefulness of a digital camera is to a large extent driven by the software it runs and the features it implements, having the ability to add things like HDR imaging, panorama stitching, motion compensation, geotagging, new video codecs (YouTube anyone?) and of course all sorts of image enhancements as 3rd party software could eventually make phones the better all-round digicams...

See http://www.panoman.net/ for an example of the type of application I think about (disclaimer: I am not related to this company in any way, but I think it is a great idea).

Perhaps Nokia should consider adding a "RAW" API to its next generation camera phone, giving 3rd parties access to the unprocessed output of the CCD, for maximum customization.

Symbian as a future operating system for digital cameras? Why not...

I have the N82 and a Panasonic DMC FZ8.

I use the N82 (and previously the N93i/N93) for daily use of taking photos to capture moments. I upload everything to my Flickr account and use it as a way of remembering people, places, and occasions. Only for special occasions where I know I'll want to Zoom in will I bring my Panasonic DMC FZ8 since it has a Zoom lens (vacations, expo's, etc). It probably comes out to about 90% using the N82 and 10% using the FZ8.

Of course a stand alone digital camera will take better quality photos than a mobile's camera. Stand alone cameras have large image sensors, big lenses, and dedicated processors designed solely for capturing and processing an image. If photo quality of stand alone cameras were to fall below that of a mobile's camera the stand alone camera manufacturer's would really be in trouble. But the real questions between using your mobile's camera or carrying a stand alone camera come down to: "What kind of Image quality are you looking to get?" and "How convenient of a solution are you looking for?" In my opinion as the mobile camera photo quality improves the decision to leave their stand alone camera at home is becoming easier to make for more people.

Even professional photographers that own 8 different cameras and 16 different lenses can't carry all of their cameras with them. They choose the camera based on what they're trying to capture. It's a trade-off/decision that every photographer makes. Regular mobile camera users that also own a stand alone digital camera make that same decision. Do you bring along the stand alone digital camera or leave it at home.

Of course for those unexpected moments that you wish to capture, there's no question what camera you'll use, because you'll usually only have your mobile camera with you. Not to mention the fact that if you pull out a big DSLR the moment you're trying to capture may end right then and there due to the camera's presence. (ie. a person or animal sees the camera and stops doing what it was you were trying to capture and thus the moment is lost.)

Access to RAW would be KILLER for third party apps, though I suspect part of the issue is how long it would take to WRITE that much data onto the SD card. It's slow enough as it is.

Yes, this is an issue of quality over convenience. The quality you are getting with the convenience of having it with you--in your mobile phone--will only continue to improve.

Posted by: PhoneBoy | January 4, 2008 10:22 AM

I think whether a camera phone can replace a digital camera depends on the user. Mine already has. I have a low end 3 MP Kodak camera which doesn't have that many features. Four months back I bought the N80 which has the same megapixel specs, but takes much better pics than the Kodak, and has more features to improve the quality of the pics.

I recently convinced a friend of mine to buy N82. He wanted to start his own stock photography business and was looking for a high end, easy to carry digital camera. I sent him URLs of Flickr photographs taken with N82 and reviews from All About Symbian. That sealed it. He's not a professional photographer, but he's more than an amateur. N82 was exactly the kind of camera he was looking for.

Spur-of-the-moment photography is the camera phone's biggest advantage. Isn't that what non-professional photographers need? They're the market for camera phones.

Spur-of-the-moment photography is different from "planned" photography. Always has been, always will.

Posted by: PhoneBoy | January 6, 2008 02:15 AM