Hi Pentaxian friends.
About a month ago, I purchase and posted about my new iPod Touch . I liked it except that it was only useful around my own home network or at places like Starbuck where Wi-Fi is available. I already have the second generation of iPod and the songs and images capabilities are about the same. Neither has a camera. I purchased it at Costco and was able to return it for a full refund. I cannot afford an Apple iPhone and don't really like AT&T for cellular phone services.
My cell phone contract is with Verizon. I explored what Verizon had available these days to see if I could upgrade my current cell phone for one with a better built-in digital camera . Well...I found it. I renewed my subscription for another two years and got a new phone for free. I also signed for unlimited internet for just $39.95. The cell phone I chose is a Samsung Omnia II. It is similar to the iPhone technology but uses Windows Mobile 6.5. It's like a mini laptop and I can get all my emails wherever I go. I can surf the internet, post on Facebook and even on my blog, which I eventually will.
The 5.0 megapixels camera (The iPhone has a 3 megapixels camera) combined with a 3.7" WVGA AMOLED display screen, is what impressed me the most. Here are some of the camera features: 5.0 megapixels, Autofocus, Scene mode, single and continuous shooting, auto-panorama, auto and adjustable white balance, Face recognition, Special Effects, Sensitivity of ISO 50 to 800, Contrast-Saturation-Sharpness adjustment, Flash on - Auto or off, Brightness adjustment, Anti-shake, Matrix - Center Weighted and Spot metering, and more. It even has WDR (Wide Dynamic Range) which is a form of HDR (High Dynamic Range on DSLRs) Oh yes...it also has the capability of storing images in the phone's 8 gig internal memory, or use a mini SDHC card up to 16gig, or upload your pictures to places like Flickr, Facebook, Photobucket, YouTube, etc, on the internet, right from the phone. Grant you...the sensor is smaller than a DSLR, but look at how much progress that has been made in the last five years with cell phone technology. Will the cell phone cameras of tomorrow be as good as Today's DSLRs? Will Cell phones replace the cameras and computers as a media tool? Perhaps they will.
A few more attributes, my cell runs microsoft Word, Excel, Power point and all of the standard Microsoft Office applications. It can be used as a voice recorder and even has GPS. I plays video movies, TV programs, stores and play thousands of songs, podcasts, e-books, etc. My Pentax e-books can be uploaded in Word format including all of the images or in PDF without the images. Oh yeah! Did I mention that it also has video capabilities?
Ain't technology grand? Maybe Pentax will someday team-up with a cell phone manufacturer and offer Pentax Technology for the camera part. Pentax has always been know for the small footprint of their cameras.
Joshua Tree National Park
180 Degree Panorama
Victoria Gardens
Thanks for reading,
Yvon Bourque
5 comments:
you know i shoot at a theme park for living and i can certainly say that the cameras in the cell phones is lowering our business. Some phones even have a flash. Sure it don't compare to a Dslr but in then the quality of cellphone is pretty damn good.
While the cell phone cams are getting better, I have to disagree that they are getting close to a DSLR. I do not even believe they are on the level of mid range point and shoots. Of course, I am sure as time passes, they will get a step closer, but still a long way off.
Javire,
I know, but it's a catchy title. While I know that Cell Phone cameras are still not par with DSLRs, and while I'm not about to sell my Pentax equipment, one has to admit that having a 5mp camera, a phone, access to the internet, a video cam, email, voice mail, GPS, etc,... in one small unit, it great. We are getting ever closer to Dick Tracy's world.
Dick Tracy, you say?
http://www.google.com/search?q=watch+phone&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
I dont think a cellphone's camera will be replacing a dslr camera any soon because the "camera function" in a cellphone is just a secondary element to the cellphone function as a whole.
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