I’ve just been asked for advice on buying a digital camera. I’m not an expert on cameras but I have a good general knowledge of technology – and I’m sure that the readers of my blog will correct me rapidly if I make any serious mistakes. ;)

Types of Camera

The Wikipedia Page about Digital Cameras is worth reading [1].

Here are the types of camera that are useful as a stand-alone camera (IE not camera phones or industrial cameras):

• Digital SLR – large, very capable, and very expensive. They have detachable lenses and a prism to split the light between a viewfinder and the CCD that records the digital photo. Such a split provides much less benefit now that you can have an LCD display for the viewfinder. In Australia they seem to start at about $1500.
• Bridge Cameras – they are of a similar size and shape to a Digital SLR, but the lens is permanently attached and the price is a lot lower. Typically between $400 and $800.
• Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Cameras – they allow changing lenses like a DSLR but don’t have the prism for an optical viewfinder. This makes the optics simpler and cheaper. Andre Pang wrote a good review of one [2] – which sells for about $700.
• Compact cameras – small and cheap. Between $60 and $400 depending on features.

I suggest that people not start out a hobby of digital photography with a DSLR or other interchangeable lens camera. I think that it’s best to start out with simple gear that’s cheap – if you decide that digital photography is not your thing then you have wasted less money, and if you really get into it then you’ll be able to make a more informed choice about an expensive camera after getting some experience.

A spare cheap compact camera can be useful even if you own a more expensive camera. There are times when you don’t want the bulk of a DSLR or Bridge Camera and when you have a risk of theft or accidental damage such that you don’t want to take an expensive camera. People who are really serious about photography apparently take a camera everywhere, you could have a compact camera in your front pocket for fast pictures and a bulky camera in your backpack for when you have time to prepare a quality shot. So buying a cheap camera and then buying an expensive one a few months later would not be wasting money!

As the person who asked for advice has never owned a digital camera before I’ll focus on cheap compact cameras for the rest of this post.

Pixels and Lenses

Cameras are typically advertised with the resolution in Megapixels described in bold. Presumably most people search for the camera with the highest resolution. The first thing to beware of is cameras that don’t have hardware which is capable of taking a picture of the stated resolution, they use interpolation to generate a higher resolution image. There are probably some cameras with interpolation that are OK and provide a decent picture at a low price, but generally I recommend avoiding all cameras that do interpolation.

Optical zoom is a very important feature. Often pictures have to be cropped to remove unwanted background, if you zoom in appropriately you can avoid cropping and make better use of the available resolution. Beware of cameras that advertise things such as “advanced zoom“, anything that doesn’t exactly say “optical zoom” is using digital zoom – IE interpolation. I suggest not considering a compact camera unless it can do at least 4* optical zoom, with 5* or better being preferable.

The physical size of the lens is important. A bigger lens allows better pictures in adverse lighting and also allows a faster shutter speed to give better photos of moving objects and better photos when you are moving. Generally you can get a rough idea of the potential that a camera has by just glancing at the lens, if it’s the size of a lens in a mobile phone then the pictures won’t be that great. If it is on a telescopic mount and it’s wide then the result will be better. When buying a lens for a DSLR or other detachable lens camera you should be able to read specifications of the lens which indicate it’s size. For compact cameras the specifications of the lens are usually available from the vendor and often available from review sites but generally aren’t included in adverts by retailers. If you are comparing cameras in the store looking at them seems like the best option.

The ratio of the lens area to the number of pixels determines how much light is received by the sensors for each pixel. So when there are two cameras that are essentially identical apart from the number of megapixels the one with the highest number isn’t necessarily better in all situations. A 12MP camera might not give a better result than a 10MP camera, a monitor described as “Full HD” has a resolution of 1920*1080 which is 2MP. A 5MP camera is useful to allow cropping but if the aim is to display pictures on current monitors then anything much bigger than 5MP is probably wasted at this time and 10MP will provide pictures that can use the capabilities of monitors that are developed for a while.

Printing

Some printers that are affordable for home use might require something like a 7MP camera to print a picture at A4 or Letter size at the highest quality. Professional printing will probably require something even greater. But if your intended use of a digital camera doesn’t involve printing the pictures, or only rarely involves printing them at A4 or Letter size then you don’t need a high resolution for printing. I expect that there are some available printers that can use paper at sizes such as B3 which might require a 20MP camera for best quality. But if the aim of the printing is to put a picture on your wall (the most common case) then even if it’s not at the ideal resolution then probably no-one will notice the difference – you can’t see the pixels from a few meters away.

If the aim of the camera is to photograph professional artwork for the purpose of selling it on the Internet then a high resolution camera really isn’t desired. You want to offer pictures on the Internet which aren’t good enough to be usefully printed.

Video

The capabilities for recording video can vary significantly between different cameras in the same range. If you don’t care about video then that’s fine, but if video matters to you then you have to read the specs. It’s also worth considering digital video cameras, I have previously summarised the available digital video cameras – although I’m sure that there have been some new models since then [3]. A good (expensive) digital camera will have video functionality that compares well to most digital video cameras – but it will cost a lot more.

Choosing a Compact Camera

There are many compact cameras in the $100 to $150 price range. Ted’s has the Samsung Digimax ES65 for $99.95 which has 10MP and 5* optical zoom. This seems like a good deal. Practice with a cheap camera could easily allow you to make a better choice when buying a more expensive camera that saves you more than $100 so it seems unlikely that you will have any great regrets about buying a $100 camera.

Buying from the specs is a bad idea, I recommend testing a camera in the store before buying – every store that you want to buy from allows this. But don’t expect that quality pictures in the store means much, the people who run the camera stores usually set them up with good lighting so that pictures will tend to turn out well. The aim of an in-store test is not to discover what the camera does well, but to discover what (if anything) it does badly. Also it’s useful to test the ergonomics of the camera before buying, discover whether you would be happy to hold the camera for an hour.

It’s a good idea to ask the staff at a camera store for advice, but don’t rely on such advice. My experience is that they tend not to ask what the prospective customer plans to do with the camera and this significantly limits the quality of their recommendations.

Conclusion

Make your first digital camera a cheap compact camera that doesn’t cost much more than $100. Make sure it has at least 4* optical zoom with 5* being preferred. Don’t worry too much about the number of megapixels, anything more than 5 will do. Test the camera in the store to look for any obvious reasons that make it unsuitable for your use. If you want video then be prepared to pay a little more as the cheapest cameras have a low resolution for video.

• [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_camera
• [2] http://algorithm.com.au/blog/files/gf1.php
• [3] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/07/20/digital-video-cameras/

My telco Three have just offered me a deal on getting a new phone a couple of months earlier than my contract was supposed to expire, presumably they have some competition and want to get me locked into another 2 year contract a couple of months before anyone else has the chance.

My current phone is a LG U990 Viewty [1] which I am reasonably happy with for the regular phone and camera functionality (apart from it being too slow to take a photo), it’s on a $29 per month plan. I also have a 3G modem which is on a $15 per month plan for 1G of data per month for a total cost of $44 per month. As new phones have advanced client functionality (ssh, IMAP, etc) and have Wifi support for providing net access to a laptop there seems to be less need to have a separate phone and modem. So I am considering getting a high-end phone to replace the phone and modem, so while I don’t want to pay a lot more than I currently pay, a $49 contract would be quite affordable and a $59 contract is something I can consider.

What I need is a system with a good ssh client implementation, a high resolution screen (800*480 or better), preferably a slide out keyboard and an option to use a Bluetooth keyboard.

The best option for the OS seems to be Android as it’s based on Linux, it’s moderately open, and it has a good range of applications. The Nokia N900 has been recommended based on features but a friend had a bad experience with a N900 that broke and didn’t get good warranty support. Also the N900 doesn’t have a digital compass (so can’t do augmented reality). While I’m primarily buying a phone for making phone calls, using the net, and being a ssh client I want to be able to do cool things like do Google searches on things that I photograph and have an annotated star map when I point my phone at the sky. Also as I’m not using Windows or Apple phones for obvious reasons that leaves Android phones as the only suitable phones that are on offer from my Telco.

I have checked some options for buying a grey-market phone, given that I need to get a more expensive phone contract to have the voice and data access I need the cost of buying a grey-market phone and having a no-phone contract would be unreasonable. So selecting a phone that’s on offer by Three/Vodaphone seems to be the best option. Moving to another telco would be inconvenient as I would have to convince the relatives that I call often to switch as well (I get free calls to other Three/Vodaphone customers).

I previously listed some phones that seemed good without regard as to where I could buy them [2] and some people wrote some really interesting and informative comments (thanks a lot!). But after considering all the options it seems that the costs of the various options force me to choose something that Three offers.

Currently the best option from Three for an Android phone seems to be the HTC Desire HD [3]. It has a 800*480 screen, an 8MP camera with face-detection and geo-tagging, wifi, an accelerometer, GPS, and a digital compass. It also runs Android 2.2 (the latest release). Generally it has everything I want apart from a slide-out keyboard. It seems that Bluetooth keyboards are about $100 each, so I could buy such a keyboard and have options of taking just the phone, the phone and keyboard, or phone and laptop depending on how much I can carry and what I expect to be doing.

Three Prices

The Desire HD is free on a $59 plan, or costs $15 per month on the $29 plan. So for $44 per month (the same as what I spend now) I can get a Desire HD! The down-side is that the $29 plan only allows 200MB of data per month and has an excess data fee of $0.50 per meg. My average usage has been about 300MB per month, I could reduce this a bit but I do occasionally have a month where I need a lot of data transfer. For an extra $8 per month I can get an additional 500MB of data transfer. That would give me a total cost of $52 per month for my phone, and I could get the same phone for my wife for $44 per month (I doubt that she would use the 200MB of data included). That would take a typical Three bill from $73 to $96.

I might just wait a few months. The Viewty and 3G modem combination is working reasonably well, presumably there will be some better deals if I wait a while. At least now after considering all the options I could find and determining that a Desire HD from Three is the best option for me I can now evaluate any new options by comparing them to that.

• [1] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2009/05/31/lg-u990-viewty/
• [2] http://etbe.coker.com.au/2010/10/08/choosing-an-android-phone/
• [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_HD

My phone contract ends in a few months, so I’m looking at getting a new Android phone. I want a big Android phone (in both physical size and resolution) that has a physical keyboard, a digital compass, A-GPS and at least a 5MP camera with geo-tagging.

I want to be able to read PDF files and run ssh sessions, so a big screen is required and a physical keyboard avoids wasting screen space for a soft-keyboard. My pockets will fit something about 10.5cm wide by 17cm high but I don’t expect anyone to manufacture such a large phone. High resolution is a good thing too, it seems that the best available at the moment is 854*480 (with 800*480 being reasonably common).

I want Wifi and all the 3G and GSM data transfer standards. It would be ideal to have a phone with the dual networking stack needed to do both voice and data at the same time.

I’m not interested in anything that runs a version of Android older than 2.2 as native tethering is important. An option to upgrade to post 2.2 would be a really good thing.

Here are the nearest options I could find:

It seems that Motorola makes the phones that best suit my needs, does anyone know of any better options?

I’ve just done some quick research on Digital Video Cameras for some relatives. It seems to me that the main feature that is necessary is Full HD (1920*1080) resolution as everyone seems to be getting 1920*1080 resolution monitors (getting smaller doesn’t save enough money to be worth-while). Resolutions higher than 1920*1080 will probably available in affordable monitors in the next few years, so the ability of programs like mplayer to zoom videos will probably be required even for Full HD video soon. Saving maybe $300 on a video camera while getting a lower resolution doesn’t seem like a good idea.

The next feature is optical zoom, most cameras are advertised with features such as “advanced zoom” to try and trick customers, cameras which advertise 60* or better zoom often turn out to only have 20* zoom. I think that about 20* optical zoom should be considered the minimum, not that there is anything special about 20* zoom, it’s just that there is a good range of cameras with better zoom capacity.

Image stabilisation is a required feature, no-one can keep their hand perfectly steady and the typically a DVC only gets hand-held use – most people who own them don’t even own a tripod! Digital image stabilisation is apparently not nearly as good as optical image stabilisation, and image stabilisation that involves moving the CCD is apparently somewhere in between.

Finally it’s good to have the ability to take quality photos as few people will want to carry a Digital Camera and a Digital Video Camera.

I did a search for DVCs on the web site of Ted’s Camera store (a chain of camera stores in Australia that generally provide good service at a competitive price – but not the cheapest price). The best of the Ted’s options seems to be the Panasonic SD60 HD Video [1] which does 25* optical zoom, 1920*1080i video, 5 megapixel still photography, and optical image stabilisation – it costs $750 from Ted’s.

The next best option seems to be the Sony Handycam HDR-CX110 HD [2] which does 25* optical zoom, 1920*1080i video, 3.1 megapixel 2048*1536 still photography, and digital image stabilisation. The Panasonic seems to be a better option due to having optical image stabilisation and a higher resolution for still photographs. It is also $750 from Ted’s.

Now there’s the issue of how well the cameras work on Linux. A quick Google search indicated that the Sony cameras present themselves as USB card readers and can be mounted on a Linux system, I couldn’t discover anything about the Panasonic. If I was going to buy one I would take my Netbook to the store and do a quick test.

I don’t have enough information to recommend either of those cameras, they may have some awful defects that are only apparent when you use them. But in terms of features they seem pretty good. The Panasonic SD60 HD Video should be a good benchmark when comparing cameras in the store. If nothing else the camera store staff seem to not be very helpful if asked generic questions such as “which camera is best”, but if asked questions such as “how is this other camera better than the one I’m looking at” they can usually give good answers.

If anyone has any other advice for purchasing a DVC then please let me know. Either generic advice or specific examples of Linux-friendly DVCs that have been purchased recently.

• [1] http://www.teds.com.au/panasonic-digital-video-cameras/panasonic-sd60-hd-video-50-bonus/w1/i6674617_2372546/
• [2] http://www.teds.com.au/sony-digital-video-cameras/sony-handycam-hdr-cx110-hd/w1/i6723301_2372492/

I have just got a LG U990 “Viewty” mobile phone [1]. It’s a 3G phone and came free on the $29 monthly cap plan from “Three” (minimum monthly spend is $29 – but this is free if you use $29 per month). My previous plan was the $29 cap but had a minimum spend of $20 per month, as I never happened to use less than $29 per month I am not paying more.

For a modern mobile phone the actual phone functionality is a sideline. If a device was strictly designed to be a phone then I think it would be very similar to the Nokia phones that were available 5+ years ago – the Nokia I had in 1999 performed every phone function that I desired of it.

Like most modern phones the LG U990 “Viewty” suffers in it’s phone functionality from the desire to make it do non-phone tasks and from the desire to cripple it to meet the desires of the carriers (not the desires of the users). For example the “home” screen will always have at least two buttons for paid Three services and I have no configuration option to remove them. Replacing them with speed dial options for a couple of numbers that I regularly call would be handy. As the main screen is a touch-screen there is no excuse for this, they should allow the software to be reconfigured with more useful options. Eventually the Android will kill most of the other phones and this problem of phones being designed to suit the telephone companies instead of the users will be solved.

One of the most annoying mis-features of the phone is that it doesn’t properly handle address book entries with multiple phone numbers. One of my friends turns his mobile off when he is at home, so I regularly call his mobile and then immediately call his home number if the mobile is unavailable. With my previous two mobile phones I could press the “dial” button to bring up the list of previous calls and then use the arrow buttons to select from the other numbers that are attached to the same address-book entry, so with three button presses I would be dialing his other number. With the Viewty I have to go back to the address book.

The compelling feature of the Viewty is the camera and display. It has a 5MP camera which makes it the second highest resolution camera-phone offered by Three – the LG Renoir (KC910) has 8MP but needs a $99 plan for it to be free. It also has a 240*320 resolution touch-screen display (in a quick search in January when I bought my phone the best resolution display I could find on a phone is 240*400 in the LG Renoir).

While the camera is documented as being 5mp there are no specs available about the resolution of the CCD. I want to use the native resolution of the CCD for pictures (I think interpolation is a waste of space). The CCD might actually be 5mp, a picture of the 1400*1050 resolution screen on my Thinkpad allows me to read all the text even when small fonts are in use, so the CCD resolution must be significantly greater than 1400*1050. This is a really important feature as the Viewty will work well for making screen-shots for bug reports about crashed computers (several of my clients have expressed interest in getting one after seeing such a demonstration). One annoying problem is that the camera software takes a while to load, my trusty Sony digital camera starts a lot faster and the LG U890 phone I used for the past two years is also a lot faster and more convenient. This won’t work well for photographing unexpected events. When I am traveling by public transport I will photograph the relevant pages of my street directory as I can zoom in to photos of the maps and read the street names, it saves some weight when traveling. The 2G micro-SD card (which incidentally cost $10 from OfficeWorks) will allow me to store a lot of maps.

One interesting feature is the video recording capabilities. It can do 640*480 resolution at 30fps (which is pretty good) and 320*240 resolution at 120fps (they claim that you can film a balloon popping). In my quick tests the standard 640*480*30fps mode works well, but the 120fps mode requires much brighter light than most of my test environments, so I have not yet got it working properly.

The phone has a reasonable voice recording function, it can record considerably more than 34 hours of audio and the quality is reasonably good if you use an external microphone. It is however quite poor if you use the built-in microphone for a dictaphone function, it seems that quality is poor at any distance. I had wanted to record my LCA mini-conf talks with my phone but unfortunately forgot to bring the adapter for the external microphone. It’s a pity that the phone doesn’t have a standard microphone socket as I have misplaced my Viewty microphone, when designing the phone they should assume that misplacing attachments is a common occurrence and design it to use common parts.

I recently spoke to a journalist who uses his mobile phone to record interviews. He said that his phone supported phone calls, voice recording, and taking pictures – all the essential tasks for his work. It seems that the Viewty would be better than most phones for journalistic work apart from the issue of low quality voice recording when you have misplaced your external microphone.

The text editor is unfriendly in the keyboard mode (I have not tried hand-writing recognition), one thing I don’t like is the fact that the letters jump when you press them. This does allow changing a letter by moving the stylus before releasing the press (some people consider this a great feature). There are no cursor control keys (which is a serious omission), and the keyboard doesn’t resemble a real keyboard. My iPaQ is far better for writing (I once wrote a full-length magazine article on an iPaQ).

The stylus is quite strange and interesting. In the picture of the front of the phone the stylus is compacted with it’s lid on. In the picture of the back of the phone the stylus is extended with the lid off. The end of the stylus clips in to the lid so that removing the lid drags the central part out of the body. It’s an interesting design and with the string on the lid allows the stylus to be attached to the phone when it’s not being used. But I have never used it. Even with an iPaQ (which had a proper stylus that attached firmly inside the body of the device) I often used a fingernail on the touch screen. I have not felt the need to ever use a stylus with my Viewty.

One final noteworthy thing is the support for Google services. It seems to have client support for YouTube, Google Maps, GMail, and Blogger. This seems to be a major win for Google, the Viewty is one of the most popular phones at the moment and I expect that lots of people who buy them will now have an incentive to use the Google services. Between these sorts of deals and the Android I think that it will be necessary to have some sort of anti-trust action against Google. Google are generally doing good things for the users. I have been quite satisfied to use Google search, Google advertising on my blog, and Gmail. Also I have been moderately happy with Blogger (it was good when I started blogging) and Google Maps is useful on occasion. So generally I am happy with Google, but monopolies are bad for the users so I think that if things continue on their current trend then Google may have to be split into several little Googlets some time in the next few years.

• [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viewty