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Is your cameraphone an oxymoron?
iPhone 3G v iPhone 3GS v Palm Pre
Let's try something tougher
Dark, backlit subjects are difficult for a simple point-and-shoot camera to image decently, but a few of my test shots of this glad-handing bronze businessman ("Shaking Man" by Terry Allen, 1993) came out not half-bad.
An iPhone 3G with Software 2.2.1, as expected, turned in the worst performance
Click for a full-resolution image
My oldest phone/software combination - the iPhone 3G running Software 2.2.1 - tried its level best, but it just didn't have the chops to pick out detail in both the statue's face and the background. Luckily, it's a free upgrade to Software 3.0.
The difference between an iPhone 3G running Software 2.2.1 and 3.0 is subtle, but noticeable. Check out the improved detail and the sharpness of, for example, the post on the left.
The Palm Pre's sharpness and balance are good, but color is again off a bit
Click for a full-resolution image
Of all the cell-phone cameras I tested, the Palm Pre edged ahead of the others in sharpness and depth of detail. But, then again, "sharp cell-phone camera" is a bit of an oxymoron.
When trying to balance between foreground and background, the iPhone 3GS blew out the background
Click for a full-resolution image
When I used the iPhone 3GS's choose-a-focus-and-exposure-point feature, it was difficult to find a happy medium. Focusing on an edge of the statue and including just a bit of the background, as in the image above, blew out the background. On the other hand, focusing just on the background made statue's face a dark, detail-free muddle, as I detail on the next page of this article.
There's something to be said for using a real camera and not a micro-lensed toy, as are the cameras in even the smartest of smartphones. Even when I let my old Nikon D70 automatically set the exposure based on the Shaking Man's face, it responded intelligently.