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Loading ...During my recent vacation I took a whole lot of pictures. Some I took with the simple, low megapixel built-in camera on the iPhone. Others I took with my Casio Exilim 7 megapixel shooter. A camera phone with a couple of megapixel vs a dedicated high megapixel camera. No competition, right?
Right!
The iPhone blew the Casio away!
It was easier to use and took some awesome shots.
On my next trip I don’t think I’ll bother taking my camera at all.
The iPhone just gets better and better.
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by patrick, on March 26 2008 @ 1:02 am
Great pics Dan! Looks like that trip was hellish
by iamse7en, on March 26 2008 @ 2:00 am
Looks awesome… Where were you?
Yeah, I don’t even own a camera anymore. I’m just waiting for Polar Bear Farm to develop ShowTime further, or MonsterandFriends, in order to have an awesome video camera, with sound, possibly?
by kaweeka, on March 26 2008 @ 2:17 am
ROFL, it gets to a point where the ridiculous just gets outright stupid. How can you EVEN try to compare a 2 megapixel photo with a 7 mega pixel camera? Short of you having the worst shooter there is a phone camera cannot come even remotely close to matching the quality of a higher resolution photo, if for nothing else other than RESOLUTION.
It might be fine for the shots you posted on the internet, nothing better than reduced pixels to obscure any good detail, but now try to print that piece of junk on paper and see how that goes?
Do you live in an NTSC world still? Come one man, if youa re going to glorify the iPhone, at least do it on things that do warrant merit. Its camera is the weakest link in the hardware, and the fact that it cannnot even do real time video is also a big downside to it.
Stop drinking that kool-aid in excess. We all love our iPhone, but to try to tell people to throw away their camera because it offers ‘better’ quality is just downright wrong.
by jcjdoss, on March 26 2008 @ 5:00 am
It is funny that you post this. I just got back from my vacation to Maui. I took my Sony SR7 Camcorder, my Sony (I’m to lazy to get up and find out the name) 7 megapixel camera, and my iPhone. After the trip was said and done. I took 30 min of video (I know that is lame) 68 Pictures with the “real” camera, and over 1000 pictures with my iPhone. I live blogged the whole trip so my family could follow what we were doing as we were doing it. I got so many compliments on the picture quality of the iPhone…especially when I made sure the lens was clean. (WARNING-iPhone camera slows down on start up when your camera roll is large. Missed a few shots when having to start it up, but not bad) I would never hesitate to do this again. It seems to me the way of the printed photo is making room for sharing in other ways, but that is for another post.
by danc, on March 26 2008 @ 8:03 am
kaweeka-
I wasn’t trying to tell ANYONE to throw away their camera and use the iPhone– I wasn’t trying to tell anyone what to do PERIOD. I was speaking only for myself and I stand by it- I was surprised and impressed enough that I would strongly consider using the iPhone only and not bringing the other camera.
For MY purposes the iPhone was not only sufficient but GREAT.
Sure, it lacks the flexibility and higher resolution BUT that wasn’t my point. My point wasn’t even that my Casio was AWEFUL and my iPhone was GREAT. My point was- I assumed that based on specs it would be a slam dunk and the Casio would be good and the Phone terrible and I was blown away by how good the pictures from the iPhone were. For MY PURPOSES they were good enough to leave the Casio behind.
I completely agree that the inability to take video is a bummer– hopefully that changes in June or with the release of the 3G iPhone.
Personally I find the weakest link on the iPhone to be the Bluetooth radio which could make the device so much more than it is.
jcjdoss– thanks for sharing your story- it helps reinforce the point I was trying to make. It also doesn’t hurt that you were taking pictures in Maui and me Jamaica. Not bad subject matter in either place.
by danc, on March 26 2008 @ 8:14 am
jcjdoss- thanks for the tip about the large camera roll slowing the iPhone’s camera down. I noticed it getting slower as the trip went on but did not put two and two together.
by rick, on March 26 2008 @ 9:22 am
I came from previously having an N95 phone, and I have to say that the picture quality on the N95 seemed much better.
But, can I ask if you are using the in-built camera application that comes with the iPhone, or are you using one of the 3rd party ones from Installer? (I’ve been using the in-built camera app).
by Brandon, on March 26 2008 @ 10:49 am
Good stuff Dan.
While I won’t go so far as to say the iPhone takes pictures as good as my Casio Exilim 8MP … the consistancy of the iPhone’s camera is a lot better than what I get from the Casio. I’m not sure what it is about the Casio - but the pictures are a crap shoot. Sometimes I get wonderful pictures other times its like I was riding a sled down a rock slope they are so blurry.
Fortunately I’ve got a Canon Rebel DSLR. And there’s no way that thing is staying home on my next vacation.
by danc, on March 26 2008 @ 11:42 am
rick-
I am using the built in camera.
by rick, on March 26 2008 @ 5:03 pm
I looked back over my pictures I had taken, and I realised some of them were quite good quality.
But if the natural lighting at the time was not good, then my iPhone picture quality was quite bad - and those were the photos I had been thinking of.
by Aczon, on March 26 2008 @ 11:17 pm
I’m sorry, but I have to agree most of what kaweeka had to say. I have a Canon Digital Elph SD300 4.0MP that is maybe 2-3 years old that will take better pictures than my iPhone any day. Granted the picture of the iPhone is quite impressive (for a phone camera), it will still takes you twice the effort than the regular camera (e.g. SD300) to get a decent shot.
Maybe the CASIO is just that much crappier, rather than the iPhone much better.
Anywho - Great view (noticed I didn’t say great pics)
by thoughton, on March 27 2008 @ 9:34 am
Unfortunately I also have to agree with kaweeka. Maybe not in the way he said it, but his points are spot on. Either the Casio is incredibly bad, or there’s something wrong with your eyes
I have a 5MP compact camera and the photos are orders of magnitude better than the iPhone shots you’ve posted. Don’t get me wrong, I love my iPhone, and for a 2MP camera it’s not bad, but the photos it produces are awful compared to a ‘real’ camera.
Rick’s comments about the N95 camera are also spot on. The N95 camera blows the iPhone camera away.
Even the shots you’ve posted, which might seem halfway-decent for a mobile phone, aren’t so great. If you’d shot them with a real camera you’d say they were blurred, with terrible colours, and serious exposure issues.
Sorry dude
Loving the blog, btw!
by kaweeka, on March 29 2008 @ 10:16 am
Dan, I might have been too aggreesive on how I worded my gripe about your glorification of the iPhones relatively weak camera.
There are more issues to the camera that I can mention, including its inability to take any photos that have motion in them. It is just a slow chipset, or a really bad driver, not sure which, but the camera is unfortunately not good enough for anything but for still photos in which you had several seconds to point and shoot.
Also, try to take photos with a relatively low LUX and you will see its other big weakness.
Anyway, I just don’t see how the camera on the iPhone could be said as ‘better than its specs say’. I disagree. Either you have a rather low expectation of what digital photography should be, or you think that phototgraphy is limited to pictures small enough you can put on a weblog.
by danc, on March 29 2008 @ 11:30 am
kaweeka-
I really appreciate your follow-up email. I’ve never been able to understand some of the tone I see on many blogs. With so much ugliness in the world I don’t see why it has to invade this space-
…joking, poking, kidding around- yes
but too often… well, just look at some of the stuff between Gizmodo and Engadget…
anyhow— I appreciate the comment and the opportunity to discuss things and learn a bit along the way.
I don’t claim to be anything of a photographer. I shoot pictures for myself and my family, to post on a blog or three, and to send to family and friends or some of the families of the kids I work with.
So, yes, when I speak about photography I am clearly speaking about something different than you and something that is done for different purposes than you.
To flesh out my statement “better than the specs” though let me note that my last attempt to use a camera phone was the 1.3mp camera on the Samsung Blackjack. It felt like an afterthought and I never used it. When I got the iPhone I noted that the mp count was a bit higher but it had EVEN LESS flexibility than the Blackjack. Based on the specs I assumed it was a useless “throw-on”. I have found that it is not and that my assumption based on specs alone was wrong– (for my purposes). When I started using it I found that it actually is quite useful for me. I find it easy to point and shoot, love having such a huge “view-finder” and actually find the pictures as good or better than I need. I also love not having to think about it and knowing I have a camera with me all the time.
Again, my needs and wants are clearly different than yours.
I find it perfectly sufficient for what I normally need.
All this noted- I all really hoping the gen2 iPhone ups the specs a lot. More mega pixels, flexibility and video mode would make for something AWESOME.