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Digital Picture - Problem and Solution??
TylerM23
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Whenever I take pictures with my camera phone (Motorola ic902 2.0 Megapixel with resolution set to high) I get results like so:
- large image
What is the technical term for the problem here and any suggestions for a fix? I don't have this problem with my regular digital camera, an old 1.3 Megapixel Panasonic.
What is the technical term for the problem here and any suggestions for a fix? I don't have this problem with my regular digital camera, an old 1.3 Megapixel Panasonic.
TylerM23 on
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The biggest issue I see with that photo is a lot of noise. That means it was shot with a high ISO. High ISO = more noise. To dumb it down, that means the camera is trying to get more light. in a darker shot it will raise the ISO because that means the lens and sensor is trying to collect more light. the only cameras that do high ISO shots really well are SLR's. even point and shoot camers start to have issues at ISO's higher than 400. Problem on camera phones is that there is likely no way to manually set an ISO setting, because again, they're simple, and shitty.
Even if you could set the ISO, it's a pretty blurry picture, withe some really bad colours behind it. I'd just say that overall it's a pretty shitty camera.
Someone with more knowledge on ISO please feel free to correct me, I just go with the best of my abilities, and personal experience.
A lower ISO such as 100 means your sensor(or film), is less sensitive to light. Meaning you need a lot of light for a good picture, and you will usually use an ISO that low for outdoor shots with a lot of light. It is a lot easier for cameras to get a good image with a low ISO. At 100 ISO a good point and shoot camera could get an image nearly as good as an SLR.
However, making the ISO higher makes it more sensitive to light, meaning you need less light or less time to get the same image you would have with 100. Indoor shots often will use about a 400 in normal lighting.
The problem is the higher you go, the harder it is for your camera to produce a good image. A point and shoot will quickly fall behind any SLR and a camera phones...are pretty screwed. With film cameras, more sensitive film will give you more grain. Noise is the digital equivalent of grain. Unfortunately it's not as pretty. It's just little stray discolored pixels...with photoshop you can run a noise reducer, but the image you have is so far gone it wouldn't be able to fix something like that.
If you want a better picture with that camera you probably need more light. You'd be better off getting a small digital camera to take around in your pocket if you want some nice images.
My old phone took really shitty pictures unless I gave the lens a wipe with a tissue every now and then
I don't believe it - I'm on my THIRD PS3, and my FIRST XBOX360. What the heck?
According to the manual, brightness is 'to set the amount of light in the picture'. Not sure how that actually works, but it looks better.
It possibly means it lowers the shutter speed and/or increase the ISO.
A camera essentially aims to expose either a chemical film or a digital equivalent with light to create a picture. In low light conditions you can do several things to ensure enough light enters the camera to take a good picture. Use a flash or artificial lighting to increase the amount of light in the shot, use a higher ISO film (or simulated digital equivalent) which basically means the film needs less light to record the image or use a slower shutter speed to increase the duration the film is exposed to light for (and thus increase the overall amount of light it is exposed to over time).*
When you get that peculiar discolouration in dark areas of a photograph, it essentially means there wasn't enough light to begin with to record the image properly (ie, the film was under-exposed or enough data wasn't recorded in digital terms). You can see the same effect if you increase the brightness of an under-exposed photograph in Photoshop. It's possible that the camera automatically attempts to artificially brighten an image if it is underexposed but if the data doesn't exist to begin with, even photoshop will struggle so built-in software on a camera phone is likely to fail.
Increasing the film speed and/or lowering the shutter speed ensures that more light data is recorded. Film speed requires better technology though - in traditional film it requires faster acting chemicals whilst in digital cameras it will require faster responding boards. It is highly likely that a cheap digital camera will not have a particularly high ISO capability, so may resort to a slower shutter speed to record images in low-light conditions. The draw back to this is that it increases blur and camera shake, because the board is exposed to light for a longer period of time and so is more likely to pick up movement of either the subject or the camera in the image.
This is probably why your first picture is relatively sharp but noisy whilst your second picture is relatively clean but blurry.
*You could also switch over to Infrared film to photograph the heat rather than the light but that's somewhat outside the scope of the issue. Although I had an old Nokia phone that had a low-light setting that gave a monochromatic effect and picked up images better in low light similar to the results of active infrared found in CCD cameras.
Yeah, I noticed that once I posted it and compared the two on the same page. Interesting idea about infrared, but I doubt it would work for what I typically shoot. Still, I appreciate you taking the time to explain this stuff. I definitely am beginning to understand more about what I need. I'm tempted to do one more picture, this time with my standard digital camera, and see how that shakes out.
Thanks.
Well, I decided to go ahead and do two more pictures. First, one with my phone, with me focusing on holding it steady - this seemed to produce something a little better but it still is blurry.
Then I did one with my regular digital camera, which proves what you've said, it's not about the megapixels.