I guess the theory was you don't always remember to take your camera, but you usually have your phone with you. Heaven forbid you should have to actually REMEMBER something for yourself - you know, with your actual BRAIN.
Those first cameras were pretty crappy of course. Combine a low-res image with a lens covered in fingerprints and pocket-fluff and the resulting photo effect was usually fairly blurry and indistinct. Now I think of it, pretty much like most of the images out there on Instagram.
Oh how things have changed. Now if your phone doesn't boast at least as many megapixels as your real camera, it's time to upgrade. Oh, and just one camera isn't enough of course - obviously you need a camera on both sides these days. (Don't ask me why, you just DO, okay?)
So this week, it's a camera-off between the Samsung Galaxy SIII and the Nokia Lumia 820. (The Lumia 920 has the same camera as the 820, and I only have 2 hands!) I decided to put them to the ultimate test; my daughter's 12th birthday...
What you need to understand here is, birthdays only happen once. Oh, sure you have one every year, but never the same one. That means, after weddings, they're about the most important event to save for posterity - photographically speaking.
If I'm being completely honest with you, I have literally no idea what most of the camera functions do on either of these phones. I just want to take a half decent pic. Luckily, phones are now so smart, they cater for total know-nothing bozos like me.
The solution seems to be something the Galaxy calls "Burst Shot" and the Nokia calls "Blink." This is the setting that takes about a dozen pictures at once so you can choose the best one. I found it a bit fiddly to work on the Galaxy, although it told me how to do it as soon as I started the camera. I was instructed to tap then hold down the camera button, which I got right about 75% of the time. I later discovered I could have put the camera into Burst Mode under the shooting mode menu, but the S3 just loves its fancy little shortcuts.
The thing I like about the Nokia's camera is you can start it up by holding down the dedicated camera button - even from a locked screen. Then you just touch the "Lenses" option, select "Blink" and you're away.
The results? The same. The colours are maybe a little more vibrant through the Nokia's Carl Zeiss lens, but there's really not much in it. I'm giving this round to Samsung though because once you've taken your burst of shots, the S3 picks what it thinks is the best one and puts a Facebook-like thumbs-up sign on it for good measure.
That's what I need from my phone, I want it to do my thinking for me.
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