The Technology of Cellphone Cameras and UFOs

[cottonzway]

In the modern day of technology almost everyone has a cellphone. The majority of those phones have cameras on them. The problem is most of them over the last few years were of poor quality, typically VGA cameras or 1.3 Mega Pixel cameras. The trend has been over the last year or so has been to get better quality cameras into cellphones then that.

I see this as a really good news for people who are interested in the UFO subject as the technology is going to give people a much better chance of getting pictures that are of much better quality then we have seen over the last 5-10 years since we first started seeing cell phones with cameras in them.
<O
The poor quality VGA cameras are almost obsolete and so are the 1.3 MP cameras. The 2.0 MP cameras are starting to become more standard. While that is not a high quality camera, it is an upgrade on an industry level that will be able to get clearer pictures.
<O
Now that is talking about what is the “standard” of the cellular industry and not what is out there for people willing to pay a little more for a better quality phone. Most of the better quality phones now have between a 3.2 MP to a 5 MP camera. These were unheard of a few years ago in a cellphone. They are very common now.
<O
One of the primary reasons why I made this thread was thinking about the phone I got recently and thinking about the poor quality of pictures out there of unidentified flying objects from cellphones. I recently got a Sony Ericsson with an 8.1 MP camera. Imagine if I came across something interesting in the sky with that phone (that also allows 2.5 hours of video recording)? This was not possible just a few years ago. If you look back to 2007, there was not a higher quality then a 3.0 MP camera in ANY cellphone that was being sold for production with a major cellular provider. Now we are up to 8.1 MP in a camera phone and a far greater quality across the board.
<O
While this thread may be more about “technology” then anything, I see this as a point to having a far better chance now of getting some pictures that can bring us a little closer to a common question that many of us here have. Just think about if those pictures from O’Hare, blurry and of poor quality were from a phone just a few years later that is such better quality? It’s got a good chance to be a reality next time we have a case like that. The chances are the phones they are going to pull out of their pockets are going to give us a better chance to have a have a serious debate with what those pictures look like. Sometimes, technology is a wonderful thing.

 

[aNorthernSoul]

While this is true, I cringe whenever I hear "everyone is walking around with a camera in their cell phone, why can't we ever get a picture?!?" With the way camera phones are now, with no optical zoom and shoddy pics of anything at a distant, you'll never get a decent pic of UFO that is high in the sky, especially at night. Once near dusk there was a fireball or something in the sky, likely just space junk but I had never seen it before and snapped a bunch of pics with my iPhone and the images basically looked like a spec of orange in the sky when to the human eye it was a large orange fireball with a long tail trailing it.

 

[cottonzway]

While this is true, I cringe whenever I hear "everyone is walking around with a camera in their cell phone, why can't we ever get a picture?!?" With the way camera phones are now, with no optical zoom and shoddy pics of anything at a distant, you'll never get a decent pic of UFO that is high in the sky, especially at night. Once near dusk there was a fireball or something in the sky, likely just space junk but I had never seen it before and snapped a bunch of pics with my iPhone and the images basically looked like a spec of orange in the sky when to the human eye it was a large orange fireball with a long tail trailing it.

I think my point is they are getting better and will be getting even better. The standard is going from a VGA to a 2.0 MP and the top camera in a phone has went from 3.0 MP to 8.1 MP, since 2007. That is a huge improvement in a short time.

Here is what I just got the other day:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_Ericsson_C905

 

[aNorthernSoul]

Actually Samsung has, and Nokia soon will have 10MP cell phone cameras out there. While this will improve things, with no optical zoom, LED flashes at best and low processor speeds I think quality will still be an issue. Don't get me wrong though, I actually agree with you for the most part... I just think it won't be as good as we think. I also think there's the psychological factor... if you're shocked and in total wonderment, you still may not think to take a pic even with a high quality piece of equipment in your pocket. And by that, I mean the camera.

 

[cottonzway]

Actually Samsung has, and Nokia soon will have 10MP cell phone cameras out there. While this will improve things, with no optical zoom, LED flashes at best and low processor speeds I think quality will still be an issue. Don't get me wrong though, I actually agree with you for the most part... I just think it won't be as good as we think. I also think there's the psychological factor... if you're shocked and in total wonderment, you still may not think to take a pic even with a high quality piece of equipment in your pocket. And by that, I mean the camera.

Sure, they do. In Europe. Not a single one of them is for sale in the US under one of the major cellular providers. For years there have been far more advanced phones outside of the US.

The stats I mentioned hold true when taking into consideration the primary cellular providers in the US. AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile, and Sprint/Nextel have over 200,000,000 customers in the US. Not a single one of them had in production circa 2007 a camera that was over 3.0 MP. The majority of phones were lower then they are even today. There is a HUGE difference between what was back in 2006-2007 today in terms of industry standard and top end quality.