Camera phones?

[scottcatlin]

Hello everyone,
Is there a thread about camera phones? I hope they aren't persona non-grata here.
I have an extremely limited budget and was hoping I could make do with the camera in a phone. I was hoping to get a new phone with an 8mp camera in it, but I have some doubts it's not that simple. Initially, I wanted an old DSLR, but 6mp are going for around 150-300 on Ebay. That's alot of money for me. Plus the cost of cables, batteries, memory cards and and lenses. Lenses are expensive. What are some of your thoughts?

[Bruce A]

There's no dedicated thread, but that shouldn't stop you sharing your images, using the critique section or asking questions or even joining the all nut cases on the chit-chat thread.

Welcome and enjoy - lots of good folks here willing to give you their 2 cents worth - or more sometimes.

[Biomech]

Obviously consider the price of the phone, if you buy it outright a lot of phones are hundreds and hundreds.

Ignore the megapixels, it's not worth thinking about. The trouble is that with the lenses on cameras being so tiny, 16mp of crap is still crap. So test them out in the shop.

At the risk of sounding like a fanboy, the best cameras on phones are undoubtably Sony Ericssons. My mate has only just converted from a K850i to a smartphone (for work) simply because of his love of the photos. I don't know where they are now, but the K980i, K900i etc had exceptional picture quality.

Look for one with an LED flash too.

HTH

[homank76]

Have you thought about a point and shoot camera?

[LMAshton]

The camera you have is better than the one you don't. Use what you have and learn to use it the best way you can. Some pretty great photos have been taken with camera phones - it's the ability of the photographer more so than the equipment.

[SwissJon]

Hey.. Composition is composition.. You may have limited ability with the phone, but that doesn't mean you can't learn to compose your photos.

Hey, a camera is a camera.. A camera adict is a camera adict.. I've been know to snap away on my mobile before.

[jdepould]

Exhibit A: Flickr: jdepould's stuff tagged with iphoneography

Also, try Goodwill-type stores, sometimes they have some really interesting stuff.

Edit: Exhibit B http://blog.blurb.com/index.php/2011...oks-with-koci/