How To Choose a Great Camera Phone

List of Features

Camera phones are handy, and they offer the most features of any type of cell phone on the market. The list of features available on a camera phone is truly astounding for such a small product. Here is a sample list:

Internet access, better color resolution, improved sound quality, multi media messaging (MMS), zoom in/out, video recording capabilities (short clips, no movies), speaker phones, FM radio, MP3 players … and all the other capabilities you associate with great cell phones.

Every major cell phone manufacturer has a camera phone on the market. While some manufacturers say their camera phones are the latest and greatest, all camera phones have limitations when compared to regular cameras. If you have dreams of taking pictures on the fly and sending them over to Grandma's house, compare, compare, and then compare features again before you purchase your camera phone.

Picture Quality

Pictures on camera phones can be fuzzy, garbled or weird. Camera phones don’t have the same capacity for clarity and space as your average Digital Camera. Check the specs on your phone to see resolution. On newer models, 640 X 480 pixels is the norm. In contrast, Digital Cameras are rated according to millions of pixels. Make sure you have enough space to store a few pictures. You should know how many pictures you can keep on your phone at any one time. Usually, around 30 small pictures are possible.

Charge

In the cell phone industry, every new feature seems to have a new charge. Be aware of the amount of time it takes to send a picture from your phone. Check your service agreement to see if the time it takes to send a picture via the web will be deducted from your minutes, or if a monthly fee is required to send pictures from your camera phone. Under the best plans, you pay a monthly fee to send unlimited amounts of pictures.

Lighting

Take pictures where there is lots of light. Some of the newer models have a built in flash and this makes a tremendous difference in the quality of the pictures.

Compatibility

Your camera phone must be compatible with your network. Check with your service provider if you are in the market for a new phone. If you are purchasing a camera phone with a cell phone plan, the web retailer should have some kind of comparison chart to show you which phones are recommended or supported by your network. Look for MMS capability. Multimedia Messaging is required to send photos out and to receive them from other cell phones.

Batteries

Flashes can suck the life out of your cell phone battery. The longer the talk time on your cell phone, the better it will be able to stand up to all of your camera phone extras.

To get the best value on a camera phone, purchase a brand that is known for having the best cell phones. If a company spent their time and research efforts on producing an excellent phone, they will do the same when it comes to making camera phones. As with other electronics, you get higher quality, better sound and better pictures as the price goes up.

However, great deals on camera phones can be found on the web. Know the facts about the capabilities of camera phones, decide how much you want spend and shop around. If you’re on a budget, you can get a camera phone in the $50 to $150 price range if the phone is purchased with a service plan.

Syd Johnson is the Executive Editor of RapidLingo.com, Financial Solutions Website. You can see more articles at http://www.rapidlingo.com.

While analyzing any camera, one of the most important qualities of a photograph that a person seeks, is resolution. This word itself needs a brief discussion before progressing onto its implication upon a digital camera. This is a word that seems to almost every new photographer as a nightmare. With all the myths and irrelevant information circulating all around, this is quite common. This however is an effort to clear those misty myths and provide good information for everyone. Without any complexity, generally a photograph, either viewed on the screen or printed, is composed of infinitesimal dots (called pixels). The greater amount of these dots that can fit per inch of space, the smaller the dots and the sharper the image. This is the basis of understanding ... resolution!

Considering an image at 100 dots per inch that is one square inch in size. It is comprised of 100 X 100 pixels. Now changing this image four-times to four square inches. This image is quite clear. Now the same 100 X 100 dots exist, but with only 25 dots per inch. The appearance becomes grainy. This is the factor know as resolution that determines this quality of image. Hence it can now be interpreted by any person what the importance of resolution is and where it is required in the filed of photography. While purchasing a digital camera, resolution is a very important factor to take into account when settling upon buying a particular one.

Digital camera resolution comes in as Mega pixels. A Mega pixel is composed of one million pixels. The greater the number of Mega pixels, the greater becomes the standard of quality of the photograph or picture. As a standard, one mega pixel is the minimum bottom line below which a digital camera must not be usually purchased. This is a general decided value for any amateur photographers also, and the exact value of higher mega pixels is not a concern for people who do not intend to print the photographs. In an effort to scrutinize the pixels in an image out of sheer anxiety, a person can magnify the display in a photo editor, like a little magnifying glass, and they become very much visible!

The resolution decides the ultimate the future of the hard copy of a photograph being taken, whether a digital camera or a conventional camera. A print from a high-resolution photograph challenges anything produced from a chemical film camera. However a low-resolution image print of a photograph is quite appalling with fine details and restrained color transitions absent resulting from too few pixels. Thus the resolution can spoil an entire effort to freeze a memorable moment. Thus it is so vital. As a general rule a minimum of 200 pixels are required for each linear inch of a print. However, some printers get better results with 300 pixels per-inch of resolution.

The above discussion has brought into light a lot of relevant information regarding resolution and its application in the digital camera and photography. Also in the concluding lines it can only be stated for digital camera ... resolution is the real soul!

By Jakob Jelling
http://www.snapjunky.com