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From an old LG flip-phone to the Motorola Droid: what can I as a photographer get from a cell phone camera?
By Jacob Vorpahl | January 8, 2010
If you look at the marketing points for the Motorola Droid, Verizon’s latest and greatest (and heavily advertised) smartphone, you’ll see some interesting tidbits: 5 megapixel camera, dual LED flash, ability to take shots at night, calculate missile flight patterns while simulateously making you the best omelet you’ve ever had. You’d be correct if you assumed those marketing points mean almost zip. We could discuss the technical matters at length, but I’ll just say this: trying to cram all of that stuff into a tiny area on a phone probably isn’t going to get you the best results. But more on that later.
Instead, after playing around with cell phone cameras, specifically the ones on my most recent two phones, I’ve really wondered at what I as a photographer can realistically get from photos I take with my phone. When you think of what you need to take a quality photo, a cell phone really doesn’t fit in there anywhere, at least not for me. Yeah, some people like Chase Jarvis have been able to find a market for that sort of thing , but, personally, I find the pictures in his book to be … I don’t know, a little unappealing? There are a few gems in there for sure, but, perhaps its not my taste. I mean, do I really want to see a partial picture of an old boat with some water in it with a little mobile Photoshop thrown in? What’s so compelling about that? Anyways, I hope not to offend, I respect Chase’s work a lot, but for that particular project I just don’t “get it” for a good number of his photos.
Nonetheless, I won’t say that quality photos can’t come from a cell phone, and as the saying goes, the best camera is the one that’s with you. So, what is the point of all of my rambling then? I guess I’m just trying to figure out what my perspective should be when it comes to camera phones: is it an artistic tool or is it something that you’ll get a cool picture or two out of by sheer luck (i.e. conditions being just suitable enough for the camera on the phone to be able to take a decent picture). To be honest, recently I’ve seen it as both. Let me explain why.
My first camera phone (that I can remember and actually used): the LG VX-7000.
Lets start from the beginning. This is the first camera phone I had that I used, and when I say used I mean I took peoples pictures and put them under their contact entry. That’s about it. The cool thing about it though, and I am still surprised it’s not on modern flip phones, was that the camera was able to rotate so you could just hold the phone as if you were looking at it regularly and take a picture, no awkward turning it around in your hand. Probably not a big deal, but I thought it was the best thing ever.
Here is the extent to which I used the camera on the phone (click through for the largest version available, and that goes for all the pictures in the rest of the article):
For information’s sake, that first picture is a former coworker of mine named Joe who liked to goof off and have fun (in a good way). The second was a warning sign in a series of pictures at Universal Studios that they had up back in 2007. Easily the best warning signs I’d ever seen.
Again, not really compelling stuff here. It was just simple snapshots of people and things. I ended up getting most of them deleted when I went to move over to a new phone, thanks to Verizon (“sorry sir, they won’t transfer over, we had to delete them”).
Moving on up… kinda: The LG Chocolate (VX8550):
So after lamenting almost all of my pictures getting deleted, I got over it and started using my shinny new Chocolate. At this point in life, I was just getting into photography and I had no need to have a wiz-bang camera on my phone, so, again, we have snapshots. But, it was a little better than my flip phone, in some regards. Here are some sample pictures:
Again, just snapshots. Sorry for the one of my neck, I had a casing go down my shirt during training and it gave me quite the burn. Nonetheless, nothing too great. You can even see in the one with my wife and I on our vacation where it was perfectly bright outside and somehow the camera still blurred/smeared some of it.
Now, this was a few months after the first generation iPhone was being released, so the whole “cell phone photographer” movement was either at its earliest possible infancy or just flat out nonexistant. I kept the Chocolate for two years (this puts us at about October 2009), and my how things had changed. Cameras were being stuffed into everything just about and thanks to the iPhone 3GS and it’s higher quality camera, photographers were paying more attention to the camera that’s now always with you. It didn’t hurt that people like David Hobby, Chase Jarvis, and Joe McNally kept mentioning things in this regard (sometimes for nothing but humor) and that Chase himself even went as far as to create an iPhone app geared right at this type of movement.
So here is where I come in. I didn’t quite want a smartphone at this point, primarily because of the data fee, so I went with my next best option.
My old new camera phone: the LG Env Touch
When I first got my EnV Touch, I was so gleefuly happy. Yeah, it could do a decent job at surfing the internet and I was incredibly glad to have a full keyboard on the phone, but what I loved most was its camera. It had a pretty respectable macro mode (for a phone), white balance, touch autofocus, an exposure slider which I used quite often, and it was relatively simple to use, if not a little slow. Plus, it had one feature that I may have used too often: a panoramic-by-stiching mode that actually did a good job, provided you did a good job holding the phone. Let me show you the first one I took that caused me to instantly wish my D80 could do this:
After this, I was hooked, and I took pictures of just about everything. The cell phone photographer bug had bitten me.
Gallery looks best in PicLens.
So, what happened? Well, soon after I got my EnV Touch and was bitten by the cell phone photographer bug the Motorola Droid debuted and I was bitten by the data-hungry smartphone user bug. The latter was the stronger of the two.
And here we are: the Motorola Droid, my “best camera”
I must admit, I was almost taken in with the advertising for the Droid. I remember the day the Verizon website for it went live. It had me really excited about the 5mp camera and ability to “take pictures at night”. But reason caught on before I turned into a sheep and I remembered that no matter what, this was a cell phone, with a tiny lens and tiny sensor. Sure 5mp is really cool, but that’s 5mp crammed into an area that’s not really big, meaning noise and loss of quality.
One thing is for sure, this thing is sharper than my Env Touch. Check out this picture I have from a Jacksonville-Maimi game this season:
It looks even better full size (which you can see by clicking on it). Now, with that said, in practically all other ways, I’d much rather have that EnV Touch. The Droid doesn’t autofocus well and there is no way to change the exposure from what the phone selects, unlike the Touch which has the exposure slider. Because of that, sometimes I don’t even pull it out so as not to waste my time. Also important to mention is that the thing is veeeeerrrryyyy slow. We’re talking almost a full second or sometimes more from the moment I press the shutter button to the time it snaps the picture. Not cool.
It’s only been recently that I’ve used the Droid within its limitations and got some pictures I’m proud of, if not at least for some added Facebook material. Here’s a gallery of some that have turned out. The first two are my favorites. And once again, I’d recommend you click on “view in PicLens” for the best viewing experience or click on each picture to see them full size. Some have been made a little smaller because I’ve tweaked them a little in Photoshop Mobile for Android and it doesn’t put them out at full size.
Ok, we’ve talked about the camera phones, so….
… so, now what? Is it a photographic tool? Is it a very limited camera that puts out decent quality stuff in the best of conditions? For my part, I tend to waver back and forth. I know these things can do some cool stuff, like that riverside panoramic from earlier. That’s the kind of stuff I would look at be and inspired from, inspired to go and recreate that picture with gear capable of maximizing the beauty of the location. But at the same time, it’s just so frustrating with the Droid that it makes me very cold toward the concept.
And I don’t know if it is just the Droid or not. Without that panoramic mode and decent macro mode that EnV Touch would fare no better. Then again, I imagine if the Droid autofocused like it should that would help… anyways, I’m rambling.
But to the initial question: what can I as a photographer expect from a cell phone camera? I think the answer requires two parts: first, nothing. These things are so inconsistent, at least in my experience, that I can’t “expect” anything as much as I hope the conditions aren’t too much for the camera to be able to resolve. Second, I think I should expect inspiration from the things I shoot. Inspired by the composition and potential to be able to make something better when I have the means to do it. I think maybe it would be neat to think of it as a visual notepad, even.
But, that’s my perspective. What is yours? How do you view today’s camera phones? Let me know in the comments.
Topics: Gear, Photography, Photos | No Comments »