November 11, 2011
By Hollie Hepburn

…it’s what you do with it.

Truer words have never been spoken. But what are they doing on a technology blog? We want to shed some light on some popular myths and assumptions about what makes a good camera on a smartphone.

Cameras on mobile devices are usually used to take family vacation shots, moments from concerts, outings with friends – basically, on-the-fly capturing when carrying an actual camera is just not an option. But times are changing and the quality of cameras on some smartphones are making avid photographers sit up and take notice.

Specifications are becoming more and more important in buying criteria, and a good balance of megapixels, aperture, lens type, speed of the camera and the skill of the operator. There is a popular misconception that larger megapixels = better camera, which is often not the case.

Here are some pointers when deciding on whether the smartphone you want, has a camera that does it justice:

Lighting, Lens and Sensors

Success is combination of an a-grade sensor (as large as possible), with a high quality lens of notable size and aperture.

This combination can cope with most situations where there is a range of lighting from extremely bright to really dim. From picnics and outings, to dinners and clubs.

A good example of this is the Nokia N8, bringing these criteria together

Shutter Speed and Flash

As with most smartphone cameras indoor or night time shots often come out shadowy or blurry. Shutter Speed is important here to avoid a grainy photo.

Dual LED flash will go you so far but a proper flash can get you further like a Xenon flash

Xenon fires a flash 10 000 times brighter than LED flash for about a 1000 times longer. This means that anything turning or spinning, appears stationary.

The Nokia N8 is great for night time use because of its Xenon Flash.

Important: The Xenon Flash has to be properly integrated into the main camera software otherwise failure is imminent.

Video capabilities

What is a smartphone if its camera cannot shoot decent footage?

VGA is now a minimum resolution at 30 frames per second

A quality sensor, large lens and aperture is crucial

The Nokia N8 boasts impressive functionality when it comes to shooting videos

The Nokia N9 is also top of their class in terms of camera with an 8-megapixel camera, Carl Zeiss lens, and autofocus. The Nokia N9 camera continuously auto focuses on subjects when it is on. You can also tap-to-focus. The Nokia N8 camera can also be relied on to capture and product great images and video.

Remember, a phone is still a phone no matter how impressive the camera. If you’re looking for National Geographic Photo of the Year contenders, it might be best to leave it to the professionals.