Yes, even the best cameraphones take crappy pictures by camera standards, but there's one thing phones will always have over their more optically-adept cousins: convenience. The fact that you always have your phone with you, it can often geotag, and it's got an always-on, always-available data connection for uploads to photo sharing sites are all factors giving handsets an edge in the fight to dominate Flickr. Add in the fact that we're approaching just-good-enough picture quality for everyday use on the upper end of the phone spectrum with the latest 5, 8, and 12 megapixel models, and, well... you've got a recipe for an upset. After briefly showing it having pulled ahead yesterday, Flickr's stats currently have the
iPhone in all its flavors neck-and-neck with Canon's
Digital Rebel XTi for upload popularity after a stark, sudden jump presumably spearheaded by the launch of the 3GS -- and given the trending we're seeing, it seems like it's just a matter of time before the iPhone pulls ahead for good. Granted, Flickr's pooling all iPhone models into a single stat, which isn't really fair -- philosophically, that's not much different from grouping every Digital Rebel together -- but the fact remains that this speaks volumes about the modern cameraphone's value as a serious photographic tool.
[Via
pocket-lint and
Los Angeles Times]
posted Aug 18th 2009 7:09AM
I wouldn't say it speaks volumes about the phone as a "serious photographic tool" so much as it speaks volumes about how much crap an iPhone user is willing to share with the world without thought to quality or being worthy to share. This is not a knock on the iPhone as it is a statement about all camera phone snaps.
There goes the neighborhood.
Serious photographic tool...um...you shouldn't do crack before you write a story. I agree with Jay, it just shows that they have an iphone and it's easy to snap a pic and upload it in all it's ugly pixels.
I'll stick to my XTi for actual photos worth sharing, k thnx.
The vast majority of photos posted online are not serious photography, they're snapshots taken by people to remember -- and share with others -- various moments in their life. Heck, many people upload photos which aren't even good snapshots... So, a lot of people use the camera in their iPhone and then upload tons of their bad snapshots to Flickr. :-)
this would be more significant to me if all the digital rebels were combined just like the iphones were. oh, and it would need to also factor in the number of people who own an iphone or rebel.