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The Evolution of mobile photography

The first mobile phones with a camera appeared in 2000. Samsung has released the SCH-V200 model, this is a «clamshell» with a rear-view camera with a resolution of 0.11 MP. To take a picture, it was necessary to connect the phone to the computer and use a special program.

The Sharp J-SH04 is considered the first full-fledged phone with a camera, the resolution is also 0.11 MP. There was no need for more, the phone has a tiny screen. The phone was expensive, and not everyone could afford it.

By 2004, there were phones that could be connected to the camera via the charger socket. They were produced by Siemens, there were expensive models with a built-in 0.3 MP camera. The resolution of the photos is 640x480 pixels.

The number of megapixels was rapidly increasing, already in 2005 there was a phone with a camera resolution of 2 MP (Sony Ericsson K750 i).

The model is expensive, cheap cameras were equipped with a resolution of 0.3 MP-1.3 MP (1280x1024 pixels).

At that time, the camera with a resolution of 1.3 megapixels seemed very good, you could watch photos on large monitors, if you didn’t zoom in too much.

In 2006, the first phone with a 5-megapixel camera (Nokia N93) was released. In 2008, phones with a resolution of 3.2 MP-5 MP were released.

Phones with a 5-megapixel camera were expensive, not everyone could afford them. Prices for phones with five-megapixel cameras decreased in 2011.

Modern inexpensive smartphones and Chinese ones are equipped with a 5-megapixel camera.

In 2006, the first touchscreen phone with an 8-megapixel camera (3264x2448 pixels) appeared.

A year later, the Samsung PIXON12 with a 12-megapixel camera went on sale.

The first phone with a camera with a resolution of 41 MP was released in 2012, it was the Nokia 808.

For most users, they were unavailable due to the high price.

Since then, mobile photography has stopped developing, the resolution of cameras depends on the cost of the phone, but the number of cameras has increased. The phone can have from one to five lenses.

Single-camera phones do not lose their popularity.

Modern mobile photos are very different from pictures with phones.

Let’s compare the photo from the 2010 Nokia 7230 phone with a 3.2 MP camera resolution and the 2020 Huawei Y8P smartphone.

The number of megapixels in the next photo is almost four times more than in the top one. The images differ in size and color rendering.

Mobile photo formats

The most common formats are considered to be a 1x1 square and a 4:3 rectangle.

Square images are made both by smartphones with one camera and smartphones with two cameras (phones with 3—5 lenses).

Square photos are designed for Instagram. The disadvantages of the 1x1 format are that it is difficult to place an object in the frame. There is very little free space in the photo. It is necessary to sacrifice something, to photograph only the object.

For example, in the photo of the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, the cross on the dome is located a few millimeters from the edge. It would be possible to raise the phone so that there is more sky in the frame. Only there would be another problem, the base of the lantern would have to be «cut off», and there would be less ground in the photo.

Some mobile apps take square pictures with different effects. For example, «fish eye».

The most popular format is 4:3. Rectangular photos are taken by absolutely all smartphones. It is much easier to place an object in a rectangle than in a square.

The number of megapixels of smartphones with two or three cameras does not matter. In the 4:3 images, the smartphone «does not use» all its megapixels. For example, the Huawei U8 smartphone is equipped with three rear-view cameras with different resolutions: 48 MP/8 MP/2 MP. The resolution of a normal 4:3 photo with Huawei Y8P is 4000x3000 pixels (12 MP).

To increase the number of pixels in the image, select the high-resolution mode in the camera menu. Let’s compare photos from four smartphones with different numbers of cameras and their resolution.