The 8 Mega Pixel wars
September 9, 2008
At the outset, mobile phones were used purely for the basic purpose of making phone calls. Gradually, with the advancement in technology, the mobile phone manufacturers started incorporating innovative features making mobile phones highly sophisticated and useful devices. One of the features, which revolutionised the concept of mobile phones, was the introduction of camera in mobile phones. This became a rage and now even the basic models of any mobile brand have a camera incorporated in them.
The mega pixels war can be dated back to the very advent of camera mobiles. It is widely perceived that more the mega pixels, the better the clarity of the picture. A one mega pixel camera has a resolution of 1280 x 960. 2 mega pixels give a fairly nice picture with a resolution of 1600 x 1200. A 3 mega pixel has a resolution of 2048 x 1536 and a 5.3 mega pixel gives a resolution of 3008 x 1960. A 6 mega pixel device can surpass 35mm quality in image detailing. An 8megapixel camera approaches the quality of the professional medium format camera.
However, the fact is that the resolution factor solely cannot justify the best of the picture quality, as it is
only worth with active back-ups from lens and aperture features. Since the mobile cameras of the day do not provide an optical zoom facility in them (Motorola is planning to launch a camera with optical zoom feature), the distant subject detailing quality has to be met with a lesser, digital zoom factor of the mobile phone cameras. You know well that with the digital zoom feature image quality gets disintegrated gradually with increased zoom levels as it remains standard with the optical zoom feature.
Moreover, there are also other factors that affect the detailing capabilities of the camera mobile phones with the highest of resolution. For example a 5megapixel camera of a thin mobile phone would definitely trail in its picture detailing capability just for the thinness of the device. The flash type too proves to be a deciding factor in the final results obtained from a camera mobile phone. Considering today, a number of mobile phone models offer xenon flash in the place of the conventional LED flash.
Companies providing 8MP camera
Sony Ericsson came out with the first 8MP camera phone with the Sony Ericsson C905 Cyber Shot. The camera of this phone has an incredible 8.1 mega pixel sensor, Xenon flash and 2.4” QVGA screen. The camera lens is mounted on the rear of the handset. The camera comes along with features like auto focus, 16x digital zoom, image stabilisation, face detection and red eye reduction. The camera combined with the built-in GPS allows geotagging of photos. For video capture, the C905 has an image stabilizer plus a video light. It also has an optional TV out cable for viewing video clips on TV. Another interesting and useful feature provided here, is the PictBridge functionality that allows direct printing of images from the phone to the printer, without an intermediate device.
Samsung launched its 8MP camera phone with the name ‘Samsung Innov8 i8510’. The phone provides an auto-panorama mode along with flash and face detection features. It also has a video recorder that captures clips at 30 frames per second.
LG is planning to come up with an 8MP camera phone as well that would have xenon flash along with face recognition and image stabiliser. The proposed LG KC910 Mobile Phone would also be able to capture 30fps video. According to the rumour mill, Motorola has joined the bandwagon and is ready to launch an 8MP camera phone with optical zoom and touch sensitive display.
When you intent to buy a camera mobile phone, it’s quite natural that much of your decision will revolve around the mega pixel part. See that you do not compromise on other features in order to get a higher mega pixel. The 8MP war is on. Try not to be a victim of this race.
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