Cell phone vs digital camera

[Tripredacus]

I've pretty much given up on ever using my digital camera again for a couple of reasons.:
1. My cell phone has more megapixels and thus has the ability to take better pictures.
2. My cell phone can automatically upload photos online.

So what are your ideas about using a cell phone's camera over a digital camera?

The reason I thought about this question is because I found a "mount" for cell phones that could act as a tri-pod for taking better photos with one.
http://www.gizmag.com/mobilemount-unive ... tem/20332/

[shmax]

I've pretty much given up on ever using my digital camera again for a couple of reasons.:
1. My cell phone has more megapixels and thus has the ability to take better pictures.
2. My cell phone can automatically upload photos online.

If we're talking about photos for shmax.com, and it produces a result similar to a digital camera, you'll not hear us complain. However, both your arguments are a bit flawed:
1. more megapixels does not necessarily mean better photos. There are many other variables involved--ISO setting, white balance, and exposure are 3 key properties of digital cameras that are crucial when doing product photography. I've never personally fiddled with my phone camera enough to know if those features exist, but I wouldn't count on it.

2. I don't think you're likely to ever gain much by being able to upload directly online--practically speaking, every photo you submit to shmax.com will need at least some post-processing in PS (or *shudder* GIMP).

But hey, maybe you'll surprise us. Good luck!

[Tripredacus]

There are many other variables involved--ISO setting, white balance, and exposure are 3 key properties of digital cameras that are crucial when doing product photography. I've never personally fiddled with my phone camera enough to know if those features exist, but I wouldn't count on it.

I can see in setting that my phone does have ISO and White Balance. It probably has exposure but using a different term.

The ISO settings are 100, 200, 400 and 800. I still don't know enough about camera terminology to know exactly what all this means.

[shmax]

So how are the experiments coming? Got anything for us to look at, yet?

[Tripredacus]

So how are the experiments coming? Got anything for us to look at, yet?

Nope, haven't gotten the chance to. I haven't even taken "normal" pictures of new stuff yet. My last attempt at taking "real" pictures resulted in a bad experience where the white lightbulbs I bought turned out to be amber type instead. I may give it another shot this week, but I haven't gotten any of those phone tripod mount things yet.

Update: I found some videos online of people "making" holders for their phone to connect it to a tripod. It seemed simple enough but I went one step further. See, the most important part is the tripod attachment on a camera. The key is how to attach that properly to a cell phone? Well I just did a ghetto mod on a broken digital camera. To visualize the end result, I have a digital camera with everything removed inside, with a big slot in the top that the phone goes into... just like a Game Gear or a Super Nintendo. Phone goes in top, its level and ready for mounting to a tripod.  :mrgreen:

I swear tho, I probably shouldn't take a picture of it... someone will grab it and put it on one of those "redneck technology" websites.  :oops:

[shmax]

white lightbulbs I bought turned out to be amber type

You might try a few different "white balance" settings--this sort of issue is exactly what it's designed to solve.

[Tripredacus]

I have done some initial testing with my hack-job tripod. It looks like its going to work, but the autofocus isn't doing it for me. In order to use Macro mode, I'll need to modify the tripod, since I can't touch that part of the screen I want to do the focus.  

[shmax]

Let's see what ya got!

[Spiff-O-Matic]

While this is a great idea in theory, Max has it right that there will need to be post-processing done. Even my fancy-shmancy DSLR Sony pics need post-processing.

Here are 2 pics of the same TF on the same tripod, one with my 8 megapixel HTC Evo 4G  and one with my fancy-shmancy Sony A33 DSLR (12 megapixel I believe).

Pic 1

Pic 2

Can you tell which is which? Ignoring the slight blur from poor focus, the phone-cam pic is much grainier, even though both cameras used and ISO setting of 100 (lower is better for still-life type photos like this as a general rule). This is due to the fact that phone-cam image sensor is much smaller and lower quality than a dedicated digital camera's sensor. Here is a much too complex explanation of the differences.

[Tripredacus]

Hopefully I'll get back on this project after the holidays. I know what you mean about post-processing. The one major issue is that even if I do upload directly to Photobucket, PB will resize the image. Maybe there is an app somewhere that would let me send it to somewhere on my network via wireless. Who knows.