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For all those people wanting more megapixels for the iPhone camera

Harley05 said:
LOL a post worthy of quoting. I hope all the "OMG upgrade the camera/video function idiots" see this pic.
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The post (and pic) was funny -- but why is anyone asking for an upgrade to the camera an "idiot"? A camera upgrade is the ONE thing that would have pushed me over to the "buy" category for the new 3G iPhone, rather than the "pass" category. From the looks of it, a LOT of people are in the same boat -- especially 1st gen iPhone owners who don't see enough reason to upgrade for now. Apple & AT&T could have made a ton of more sales and new higher phone plan revenue, simply by improving the camera somehow. The slight cost to them would have been minimal compared to the revenue they would have gotten from extra sales.

I agree that many of the "demands" people have (like a front-facing camera, 32/64gb, microwave oven, etc) are less realistic or practical -- and therefore people should not get so upset over the new iPhone not having these features (though I don't think THEY should be called "idiots" either -- little harsh, no?). However, improved camera functions were definitely possible -- and for whatever reason, Apple chose not to include them, despite the fact the cost of adding them would be more than offset by even higher phone sales.

Now -- I'm not going to call Apple or AT&T "idiots" either for not seizing an opportunity for more money. I see it as a simple (but costsly) mistake they'll hopefully rectify in Version 3.
 
Which is why I just say "a better camera". More megapixels, better CMOS, better lens. I'm not really fussed about no flash.

Personally I would have liked the 3G iPhone to have the current camera facing the user and a much improved one on the back. It won't stop me buying an iPhone but it would be nice to have a camera comparable in quality to my 2003 P&S digital camera.
 
what i dont understand is why people just dont go out and buy a camera if they want to take high-quality photos.
 
People aren't asking for the camera to be on par with a $200 point-n-shoot camera. Rather, I think most will agree that we want a camera where we can take a picture on the spare of the moment - walking down the street, sitting on the beach, standing on balcony of a hotel room, or just sitting in a restaurant - and not have to resize it to 3"x5" or smaller in order to look clean or sharp. I've tried those with my iPhone and the results were worse than mediocre. I can't even get a good picture indoors even if it's lit by a fluorescent lights from above and one wall lined with windows on a somewhat sunny day.
 
adamerr said:
what i dont understand is why people just dont go out and buy a camera if they want to take high-quality photos.
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Why don't people buy an iPod classic to listen to music? Why don't people buy a Macbook to fetch their email and browse the internet? Why don't people buy a calculator if they want to do some simple calculations? Why don't people buy a PSP or DS if they want to do some gaming?

Your argument is flawed. The point is that the iPhone is a converged device, doing a lot of things. It is brilliant in some things, however it seriously lags behind on other things. They could certainly improve the camera. A number of phones are very near to (cheap) compact camera's. However, the iPhone isn't even close...

This is exactly the same as Apple offering the cheapest Macbook with a combodrive. It is artificial and has nothing to do with cost/profit. Next year on WWDC, Steve will boast about the great camera. How the 5 MP camera with autofocus of the iPhone is so good, that you won't have to buy another camera.

I don't care much about the camera. But I know a lot of people who do care. It is just a shame, that Apple won't make the iPhone as good as they could make it.
 
The Phazer said:
As is pointed out in the comments below, that's not a terribly good article.

It's certainly true that the amount of megapixels isn't the biggest contributor to the iPhone's camera being poor - the shittly lens, poor CMOS and lack of flash are (and bad software that doesn't offer some of the chipsets native features like video encoding). But that's not exactly a good thing, because none of those problems have been fixed either.

There's an argument in the thread that they wouldn't fit in an iPhone, but they certainly would (3.2 megapixel sensors with better light detection, a much better autofocus lens and a flash fit in a Sony Ericcsson K850i. It is a few mm thicker than the iphone, but the lens is behind the screen - on the iphone it isn't, it's on top, so there's the equivalent thickness available for the camera assembly internally). Nor would it add significantly to costs for manufucture. Which is why many other camera phones are able to offer it, and are better. My crappy old K750i was comfortably able to outperform my iPhone (especially in low light, which is REALLY important for a camera phone), and they cost an awful lot less to manufacture...

However, the notion that the extra noise and loss of light performance would lead to worse performance with more megapixels is flat out wrong. That doesn't apply until much higher megapixel counts (well, unless you're talking about truly terrible CMOS designs like you get in crappy disposable digital cameras). 2mp to 3.5mp would be an improvement. 5mp to 7mp wouldn't be, and indeed arguably counterproductive.

Phazer
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When you refer to the SE K850i above, are you saying it is a 5mp camera with only a 3.2 sensor?

Also, I can corroborate the fact that the K750i (4 year old phone) outperformed my iphone. My current K800i is possibly one of the best phones I've had. The camera quality is superb for being only 3.2mp - it's extremely handy for taking reasonable snaps when out and about when I don't have my compact with me - not a substitute by any means - but handy to have. The difference between my uploaded iPhone snaps and those taken on my k800i are so blatantly obvious.

The k850i has a 5mp camera and xenon flash as well as many other features but it was simply an awful phone. The build quality was suspect (the one i had creaked when i used it) the buttons were terrible, but the firmware was likely the cause of most problems. For instance, the flash would go off too far in advance of the picture being taken. Terrible.

However, I maintain that apple should have included a better camera with this revision of the iPhone. We shall wait and see just how much marketing hype will be put out there when the iPhone eventually does upgrade it's camera. You can bet it will be insanely great. At the end of the day, if Apple gave out all of the features people want now, they won't have anything "new" to give the masses in 6-12 months time! But a 3.2 mp camera is far from a new feature and really should've been standard in the previous iPhone let alone the new one that isn't even out yet. Just my opinion...
 
Reiger said:
Why don't people buy an iPod classic to listen to music? Why don't people buy a Macbook to fetch their email and browse the internet? Why don't people buy a calculator if they want to do some simple calculations? Why don't people buy a PSP or DS if they want to do some gaming?

Your argument is flawed. The point is that the iPhone is a converged device, doing a lot of things. It is brilliant in some things, however it seriously lags behind on other things. They could certainly improve the camera. A number of phones are very near to (cheap) compact camera's. However, the iPhone isn't even close...

This is exactly the same as Apple offering the cheapest Macbook with a combodrive. It is artificial and has nothing to do with cost/profit. Next year on WWDC, Steve will boast about the great camera. How the 5 MP camera with autofocus of the iPhone is so good, that you won't have to buy another camera.

I don't care much about the camera. But I know a lot of people who do care. It is just a shame, that Apple won't make the iPhone as good as they could make it.
Click to expand...

i think you are missing my point.
a phone is a phone, not a camera.
the iPhone was designed for music and video.
it was not meant to be a high-end camera phone (however that would be good, it would surely increase the price).

as such, buy a camera.
 
finfloyd said:
It's not the megapixels that bother me about the phone, it's the shutter speed. I think the iPhone takes pretty good still shots but if anything moves, it's blurry.
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The shutter speed is fine. Nothing wrong with that. I pointed it straight at a light bulb and it exposed it. I think you are confusing that with the aperture. The iPhone has a tiny aperture, therefore it doesn't let in a lot of light. To compensate in conditions with low light, the shutter has to remain open longer since it takes longer to gather enough light to produce a properly exposed image.

There are a few problems with the iPhone gaining a better camera. First of all is pixel density. On a sensor as small as the iPhones, bumping up the pixel count by even small amounts would result in higher amounts of noise. So how do you fix the problem? Oh of course, a bigger sensor!

But wait, the iPhone is thinner than most other camera phones, but it is wider to make up for this. Now I'm not certain about all the optics in the iPhone, but it basically looks like its of the pinhole variety with no real moving parts. Generally for this style you would need a greater distance from the sensor if you made it larger, or the image would be too distorted like a fisheye, or wouldn't really even reach the edges of the sensor. Well, I guess we can't make the iPhone much fatter so that's a no go.

Oh...well then what about increasing the size of the aperture, so that it can collect more light in dark conditions? Well, when you increase the aperture size you decrease your depth of field. This would narrow down the area of the image that is in focus. Thats why the iPhone doesn't have autofocus, it uses a pinhole style which means that it has a deeper depth of field, nearly always guaranteeing an image that is in focus. To make the aperture bigger would almost certainly require an autofocus system.

Now, I've read recently about new tiny optical systems developed for cell phones that have a solid state type autofocusing system, which basically means there aren't really any moving parts and it is a pretty small system. I can't remember where I read that, probably Engadget or Gizmodo, but I recall that its still in development and probably won't be seen in production for a few more years.

Prediction for iPhone 3.0: they will cut out some room where the camera is to make for a slightly larger sensor, probably 3-4 megapixels, with a slightly larger aperture. Just enough to make it tolerable but functional. The only way you would ever see a zoom on something like this is if they did something like Sony did with some of their point and shoots, like the T series, and put the zoom system inside the camera vertically with a mirror or prism that would angle the image into the phone and onto the sensor. I doubt we would see something like that anytime soon, but who knows...maybe iPhone 5.0? But who really cares about that anyway...
 
The Samsung i900 will have 5mp, GPS and up to 16gb storage and is only slightly thicker (and smaller in all other areas):

http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone2=2424&idPhone1=2422


I would have preferred the 3g iPhone to have a better camera and no GPS if they had to make a compromise - Has anyone ever used Satnav in a phone successfully? I live in the UK and currently use an N95 and have never been able to find a connection.
 
adamerr said:
i think you are missing my point.
a phone is a phone, not a camera.
the iPhone was designed for music and video.
it was not meant to be a high-end camera phone (however that would be good, it would surely increase the price).

as such, buy a camera.
Click to expand...

i think you're missing the point. iphone is also a camera, it's just a very very bad one. since they chose to include a camera they should at least have included a half decent one.

the component costs of an iphone are estimated to be at around $100 and att is reported to be paying $525 for each so the price really shouldn't be the reason. far cheaper cell phones have decent cameras.
 
sjo said:
i think you're missing the point. iphone is also a camera, it's just a very very bad one. since they chose to include a camera they should at least have included a half decent one.

the component costs of an iphone are estimated to be at around $100 and att is reported to be paying $525 for each so the price really shouldn't be the reason. far cheaper cell phones have decent cameras.
Click to expand...

alright mate.
whatever.
just my opinion.
you dont have to agree with me, its aok if you dont.
 
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