Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 4/29/2007
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no, it's not the future.
At least not the future for serious photography.
It MIGHT be the end of the lowend compact, which at the moment offers little over mobile phone cams except slightly better optics and higher resolution (the former being required to not make a complete disappointment out of the latter).
But for serious use they're not flexible enough, FAR from good enough in both optics and electronics, and just too cumbersome to use.
I think I'm not alone in the opinion that if phonecams were the only ones around I'd not be a photographer.
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Mads Jensen
(K=64) - Comment Date 4/29/2007
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Well, i agree with you, about the optics and electronics. But 4 years ago, people said the same thing about digital cameras :) And now? - Almost every professional photographer is using digital gear.
I mean - on a mobilephone you can upload pictures directly to your blog, website whatever. This is a big step, when you wanna sent pictures to your firm or whatever.
I think that in 4 years or so from now, it will be the reality. It is VERY flexible.
Mads
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 4/29/2007
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no, they'll never make serious cameras.
The optics are just not there, the electronics aren't there.
Digital cameras at the high end to midrange level aren't coming down in size and cost for a reason.
The size is the minimum that's comfortable to use and can pack everything that's needed.
The latter might go down a bit, but has been pretty constant for several decades now so don't hold your breath, but the former is determined by the size and shape of the human body (and especially the eye and hand) which isn't going to become much smaller.
For optics you just can't pack a 70-200 f/2.8 inside a mobile phone, the space isn't there.
And forget to even think of a 400 f/2.8...
The tiny sensors don't help much either, they may be nice for makine 320x200 pixel images for a photoblog but that's about it.
Like I said, if at some point they're the only game in town it's game over.
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AJ Miller
(K=49168) - Comment Date 4/29/2007
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If I want a phone, I'll buy a phone. If I want a camera, I'll buy a camera. And please don't try to put a phone in my new Nikon...
But if you want to discuss phone pics on UF, I suggest you upload some to UF - I see you've not uploaded anything here. :)
AJ
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Gayle's Eclectic Photos
(K=91109) - Comment Date 4/29/2007
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hi, i peeked out your pics on your blog and overall they are not bad for having been shot by a cell,but the macros were far from impressive and lacked any sharpness...what size decent print do you get with that 3 mgp?...there are some members here that post cell shots and some members who enjoy looking at them...
i think Jeroen makes some good points....and AJ is just too funny,but i fully agree with him!...last thing i want on my photo shoot is a @#%* phone ringing......  :) ;) 
regards,gayle
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Mads Jensen
(K=64) - Comment Date 4/30/2007
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I get 2048 x 1536 - ALL pictures on my blog, has been made twice as small (giving lack of quality) or else blogger would not blog them.
You are right about the ringing thing while you take pictures, but when itīs on soundless, you wound know itīs ringing - except you can see a little icon on the screen in the top corner. Let me get one thing straight here. Theres no doubt about what you say - if you want a camera you buy a camera, if you want a phone you buy a phone. I just wanted to discuss about wheter its the future, or not?
Sonyericsson comes with a 5 Megapixel camera in about two months, imagine in about 2 years? I mean. I can also watch freaking televison on my phone - and the quality is actually quite good.
Rock on
Mads
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 4/30/2007
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the quality is actually abysmal. But given the tiny screens the extremely low resolution looks good (and having memories of the far worse quality of previous generation phone screens makes it seem even more impressive).
It's physically impossible to get any decent optics in a phone, there's just not enough space.
And with the trend to make phones ever smaller that space won't get there either, it will in fact only get worse.
So the only thing phone manufacturers can do is try to dumb down the target audience so they actually expect that poor quality (and come to see it as high quality).
Same happened several years ago with digicams. The manufacturers launched a very successful marketing campaign, making droves of people believe that their 4-6MP digicams were inherently superior to any film camera out there, irrespective of the optics on them.
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AJ Miller
(K=49168) - Comment Date 5/1/2007
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Sorry, unlike Gayle, I didn't peek at your blog. If you want me to look at your pics, please post them on UF.
Jeroen has, I think, got this one spot on. Sure, the toys will become ever smaller and ever more powerful, but you will NOT cram a decent lens into a cell phone. And if you've got a decent lens you've already got a handful, so you might as well put a camera back on that balances it and has space inside for anything else you might need. (Decent screen? Fancy electronics? Can of beer? OK. But not a telephone...)
AJ
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Doyle D. Chastain
(K=101119) - Comment Date 5/1/2007
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Since this is the discussion topic - "Is This The Future?" I will have to sound in with Jeroen and AJ on this one.
In fact, technological innovation has been very focused. While there are the ocassional eruptions (like computer technology) . . . we cannot predict the future. Given the current technology, there is no reason to assume this will become the future. People do seem to enjoy their iPod / cell phone / camera / blackberry / tv units . . . . coming soon, no doubt, with radar detectors and sunscreen applications. My cell doesn't sport a camera . . . and only has internet access because the large cell I used to use (which I still think was fine) was replaced by my wife with a sporty new model that had it. (Something about me being "Stone Age" came up)!
Let's not forget the conservative side as well. As we progress (using that term loosely), there will be people kicking and scratching all the way as they are dragged into the future. People like film still, right? Progress is defined differently by different people. Frankly . . . progress is a concept to shield people from the terrors of the future and often isn't really progress at all.
But this is all really just one big moot point because, frankly, optical physics simply must use lenses and add distance between them to function and to assume that the future will find away around this is one extreme leap of faith. Macro Photography, apertures of f/2.8 combined with 300 or 400mm simply MUST have a certain amount of space (not to mention appropriate sensor size to use them fully).
Unless you or the future can find a way to defy all current knowledge on this. The only way to combine them would be to add a phone to the camera but the phone trend is going for a smaller is better approach (though I can't for the life of me understand why). Why would I want (essentially) a cell phone glued to my camera?? Frankly, why stop there? Why not a cup holder for a drink and a radio or TV?
Basically, it seems physically impossible, and of questionable merit to do it even if it wasn't. But that's just (Stone Age) me! :)
...And Jeroen.
...And AJ.
...And Gayle.
Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~
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Doyle D. Chastain
(K=101119) - Comment Date 5/1/2007
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By the way, like AJ, I view photos here. Why don't you post here too? I don't have enough time as it is and bouncing around the internet to look at people's sites would take away what little time I had. :)
Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~
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Free Rider
(K=430) - Comment Date 5/1/2007
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And here I am, just having bought my first digital camera and making it a cheap one to see if I can handle digital at all, and I'm complaining to myself about all the things it can't do. Can't wait to get back to an SLR with the added ease of digital. The thought of a camera phone instead seems like a step back into the dark ages.
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AJ Miller
(K=49168) - Comment Date 5/1/2007
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"Why not a cup holder for a drink..." says Doyle. Why not indeed. My computer has one - I push the little button and the cup holder just slides smoothly out. Can't for the life of me work out why it needs a volume wheel though...
AJ
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Doyle D. Chastain
(K=101119) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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Oh, poor misguided AJ! The volume wheel rotates so the cup holder can accomodate different volumes of liquid in the cup. But since you mention it . . . . corkscrew too? LoL!
Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~
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Daniel Taylor
(K=3495) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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"It's physically impossible to get any decent optics in a phone, there's just not enough space."
While I don't think camera phones are "the future" in that they will replace larger, dedicated photographic tools, I have to disagree with this comment.
How big is the human eye, really? There are birds with much smaller eyes that put our vision, in terms of absolute resolution, to shame. It's possible to fashion quality optics at phone size, at least within a narrow focal length/aperture range. I bet if you look hard enough at existing digicams and industrial tools, you can find man made lenses which already fit the bill.
The real problem seems to be sensor size and S/N. But if we're able to design more sensitive sensors, we might over come that.
A few camera phones already take decent photos, if "decent" is defined as competitive quality wise with low to mid end dedicated P&S units. Good 4x6 prints and the occasional acceptable 8x10. We may yet have camera phones which serious photographers would consider usable when the DSLR is at home.
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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Unless and until you can recreate the adaptive optics and the required processing power and actuators that come with the lens of an eye (and it would have to be quite some eye, being able to have the equivalent range of focal lengths from 10 to 1000mm, something no eye has) in a package a few millimeters on a side you're not going to get a complete SLR system the size of a mobile phone.
Phones do NOT have quality optics, they have a single cheap plastic lens, just good enough to make an image that doesn't look too bad at the resolution of the phone's screen.
That's a physical limitation of the size and weight requirements (plus the cost requirements).
But keep on dreaming and lowering your standards to the point where you consider that phonecam to be the equivalent in quality to a pro DSLR.
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Free Rider
(K=430) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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I think "good 4x6 prints" from a phonecam come with the caveat "at appropriate viewing distance". In other words, don't look too close.
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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hmm, a 4x6mm print has to be looked at closely to see it at all :)
But indeed, a phonecam should be able to make a larger print than that.
At most consumer printers printing 200-300dpi, it should be able to go up to over an inch on the largest axis ;)
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Free Rider
(K=430) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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Needing glasses, Jeroen? ;)
I used to use a loupe on my film images. I haven't yet printed any of my digital. That's going to be the test. I've heard complaints though from pros talking about how people go up close to their photos in the galleries and complain about the digital aspect. Appropriate viewing distance for digital is apparently something quite important. No loupes allowed. 
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Mads Jensen
(K=64) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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haha Jeroen. In the newer phones its NOT jsut a cheap lense. Thats why it really DOES take okay pictures. Remember Bill Gates said 14 years ago that 248 KB was enough for EVERYONE! Well, i guess he was wrong. Now, i have looked at your pictures. And my phonepictures - talking quality - compared to your camera, for instance - the picture you have of the spider, or "the long wait" - the K800i pictures is WAY better, + they are bigger in size also. As i said. I am just experimenting, i am a professional photographer just like you. There is simply to much noise in your pictures (which is not on purpose), (You have a good photographic eye though). I am sorry for not posting pictures here. But i cannot post pictures because, they only allow a crappy 750x700 less than 360 k in size. You can still check them out at http://www.blackrosethewall.blogspot.com
Regards
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Free Rider
(K=430) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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Mads, you obviously rely quite a lot on PhotoShop or similar. What are your photographs like out of the box?
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AJ Miller
(K=49168) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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"But i cannot post pictures because, they only allow a crappy 750x700 less than 360 k in size."
Doesn't seem consistent with your original comment at the start of this thread:
"...finally found a website, with the content i was looking for, nice to get some critique also. Thumbs up..."
Actually, if you had even tried to be part of the community and upload an image, you would know that the size for a standard upload is 850 x 850 @ 400k. And I would be genuinely intrigued to see an image from your K800i uploaded on UF so that I could compare it against the shots of Jeroen that you single out. If, as you suggest, the K800i can produce a higher quality macro shot of a spider, then I want one!
Even though I find it hilarious comparing a K800i to a Nikon D200, let's not turn this into a futile war of words of the "mine's better than yours" ilk. At the end of the day, there's a place for phone cams and a place for the serious stuff. Equally there's a place for Fiat Pandas and BMW 735s - both of them will get you there.
And sure Sony Ericsson will produce an even more stunning machine in 4 years time. But presumably Nikon will not stand still either.
AJ
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Daniel Taylor
(K=3495) - Comment Date 5/3/2007
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"Unless and until you can recreate the adaptive optics and the required processing power and actuators that come with the lens of an eye (and it would have to be quite some eye, being able to have the equivalent range of focal lengths from 10 to 1000mm, something no eye has) in a package a few millimeters on a side you're not going to get a complete SLR system the size of a mobile phone."
No one said you would or could. I believe I said that they would never replace dedicated units, though one could hope that they would someday be usable "...when the DSLR is at home."
"Phones do NOT have quality optics, they have a single cheap plastic lens, just good enough to make an image that doesn't look too bad at the resolution of the phone's screen.
That's a physical limitation of the size and weight requirements (plus the cost requirements)."
No, it's not. There's nothing preventing one from creating a good, but tiny, lens for a single focal length. The problem right now is that it's hard to make a good but tiny sensor due to S/N.
"But keep on dreaming and lowering your standards to the point where you consider that phonecam to be the equivalent in quality to a pro DSLR."
You haven't changed one bit, have you? For a couple years there you would bash DSLRs at every opportunity and tell everyone how poor their quality was. They would "never" be good enough to use, "never" equal film. In one post you even said you would give up photography before being forced to use a DSLR due to the end of film production, if that were to ever occur.
Now you shoot a D200. By choice. And a CoolPix. Your last film shot posted to this site is over a year old.
You were wrong then. What makes you so smug that you are sarcastic now?
Here's a review of 3mp camera phones, some with decent AF lenses.
http://asia.cnet.com/reviews/mobilephones/0,39050603,39351563,00.htm
Here's a Flickr group with plenty of 2mp camera phone photos which should make decent 4x6 prints.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/w810i/pool/
Here's a comparison of a 3mp camera phone to two DSLRs. The DSLRs are clearly better, but the average person would see little difference in a 4x6 print, given a bright scene so as to avoid noise issues.
http://www.mobile88.com/news/read.asp?file=/2006/8/4/20060802131039&sec=cover%20story
No, a cell phone will never replace larger, dedicated equipment. But if "the future" is decent small prints from a cell phone with a usable camera, then it's closer than one might think. Some would say the future is here now.
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Jeroen Wenting
(K=25317) - Comment Date 5/4/2007
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the only reason I moved to a DSLR is the cost of film, not the quality that can be achieved.
If film were to revert to what it cost a few years ago I'd ditch that D200 instantly, sell it for a new slide scanner...
No, phonecams will not replace dedicated cameras. Maybe the people taking their cameras to the beach to shoot heavily overexposed and backlit shots of their kids won't notice the difference, but that's about the level you'd have to stoop down to to get any satisfaction from them.
And of course the phone sites are positive about them, rating them "almost" as good as DSLRs, they have an agenda to sell those phones, usually get sponsored by the manufacturers.
But it seems you've already decided that a phonecam is good enough for all of us, so indeed dream on.
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Jon O'Brien
(K=11321) - Comment Date 7/6/2007
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Guessing the future is a fool's game. I have friends who get quite reasonable snapshots from their cell phones.. more power to 'em. Undoubtedly there are advantages to the cell phone camera - and here I'm afraid I have to disagree with Jeroen's outright dismissal of them - but I like my DSLR, heavy mother in its bulky bag though it may be. I've asked Santa Claus for a small P&S digital to carry in my pocket for those occasions where I don't want to fart about with lenses and filters.
TTFN,
Jon
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Maris Rusis
(K=30) - Comment Date 7/25/2007
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Multi-function electronic devices with a picture recording capability will become very familiar in the near to mid future.
What these devices have to do with photography eludes me. Just because one uses a camera and gets a picture does not mean photography has been done. Think of the millions of camcorder users. They are not photographers and their output is not photographs but they use cameras and get pictures. If anything they are movie makers. The phone camera crowd will, I think, go the same way.
On the other hand if a phone camera user (phone-ographer?) makes cyanotypes, platinotypes, or even familiar gelatin-siver black and white photographs that would be grounds for a rethink. I bet it won't happen.
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Joe Johnson
(K=8529) - Comment Date 7/30/2007
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I, too, think that inevitably the future of video recording and snaps will be some iphone, or something like that which works. That might not be a good thing, when it comes to photos of baby, who grows up so fast. You'll get internet and tv programs on demand, high speed access, maybe some programs to work on, contact books, etc, and video and still, maybe with a CMOS and good quality. But you won't have the 'glass', as it were. And there won't be a substitute for that. Optics are optics. It might be a shame that the Moms shooting 1000 photos a day of the toddler with their 350 and 400 Canon 'rebels' would one day switch to an all purpose portable 'phone-like device'. Those 400 photos will come out pretty good. The phone-like would have to be a step backward from that. Snaps may be snaps. And record photos may just be record photos. But what Mom wouldn't want a beautifully exposed, sharp image of baby to preserve for decades if the alternative 'multi-purpose' photo looks like the old dimestore 'brownies'.
The future of photography may just be digital. But it will continue to consist of expensive lenses and accessories. I don't know. I do know that some amazing photos, with great clarity, with interest in almost every sector of the photograph, have been taken, even in the distant past, by men and women - using film. That much is known.
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Chad Parish
(K=6440) - Comment Date 8/16/2007
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I wont discount the future abilities of phonecam technology out of hand. I have posted in the past phonecam pics and they were fun for the sheer novelty of it much like the first time you use a box camera. Here are some examples posted here:
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=546663
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=547551
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=547540
http://www.usefilm.com/Image.asp?ID=547531
I am not saying these are a match for my DSLR shots(if they are then I need some serious help), but bear in mind these were taken some 5 years ago (phonecams in Japan are way more advanced then what is seen in the States)with a 1.5M cam. I have no idea what they are now making in Japan as I moved back to the States but I am sure they are at 3M. 5 years from now, who knows.
What I do believe though is that the major players in the SLR game will continue to upgrade their pro level gear to a degree that it will always be the tool of choice for any pro level photography.
In conclusion I dont see DSLRs being put out of a job, but the little point and shoots used by the mainstay of amateur photogs may go the wayside in place of an ever evolving phonecam rival.
Cheers,
Chad
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Chad Parish
(K=6440) - Comment Date 8/24/2007
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Oh, one other shot from a phone cam I took in 2004. I think it is pretty good clarity for a phone came especialy for the phone came produced at that time.
http://www.usefilm.com/image/608885.html
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Brent Mills
(K=758) - Comment Date 9/18/2008
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Its hard to say what is or is not the future. A lot of what we have today was once thought to be impossible. Looking back in time even to the early 1900's, how many photographers would have believed that by the 1970s, their cameras would be able to focus themselves? Before digital became a reality, how many photographers would imagine shooting one shot at iso 64 and then shooting the next at iso 800 without changing film? I don't think we're looking at just a couple of years here. As has already been said, the technology just doesn't exist now. You can't fit pro level, or even advanced amateur gear into a cellphone-sized package. Even if you could, would you really want to? My hands are too large to play games on my friend's iPhone! There's no way I could adjust shutter speed, aperture, white balance, iso, zoom, and focus with the same speed as on a full sized SLR body. I'd try to adjust a setting and end up getting directions to a sushi house. Image quality in cellphone cameras is definitely improving, but the real limitation isn't in the optics, but the size. Sensor technology will improve as will optics technology. I think that settings / controls will be the real issue. But the fact that the technology doesn't exist now doesn't mean that it never will. Maybe if we all stay healthy, we may just live long enough to see if this ever does become a worthwhile reality! :-D
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