Camera and imaging technology are moving fast — very fast. Affordable digital cameras, for example, have only been around for a few years, yet today we have 4-megapixel digital cameras that take photo-quality pictures.
Imaging technology is moving at lightning speed, too. Anyone with a computer and a digital camera can send pictures as e-mail attachments to anyone on the planet with access to the Internet — in a matter of seconds.
The latest news in cameras and imaging technology is, as my 11-year-old son would say, "awesome." Today, cameras and imaging technology are available in another device that many people own, and take with them just about everywhere: cell phones.
AT&T Wireless, T-Mobil and Sprint now offer, or soon will offer, phones in the United States capable of taking, sending and receiving pictures — as long as you are in an area that offers Web browsing from the phone. (Cell phones with cameras have been available in Japan for a few years. Industry experts say about 5 million of them are in use in Japan.) Nokia, Samsung, Sanyo, Sharp and Sony-Ericsson are producing the phones, which sell from $200 to $400. All have color display panels.
The image quality from camera-equipped phones is not great for printing, but the low-resolution images are acceptable for viewing on line. What's low? The Sanyo SCP-5300, for example, offers three settings that are all relatively low: High (VGA: 640 x 480), Med (QVGA: 320 x 240), Low (QQVGA: 160 x 120). Even at the High setting, a 3x5-inch print would look grainy. But again, that's fine for e-mailing and Web viewing.
Because the photos are taken at a low-resolution, however, many pictures can be stored in-camera. The Sharp J-SH09, for example, can store 1,000 pictures taken at the lowest-quality setting in its 5MB memory.
In choosing a camera-equipped cell phone, serious picture-takers (who like to have fun) should consider camera features. Sprint's PCS Vision model, for example, includes a zoom function, white balance, color tone (color, sepia and black and white) and flash.
Of course, you can make phone calls with the camera-equipped phones, if you are in the phone's network service area. You need to be in a Web network area to send and receive photos.
So, is there a camera-equipped cell phone in your future? Probably so. Some industry experts predict that by 2007, camera-equipped cell phones will outsell digital cameras. One reason might be that by then, we may easily be able to view the pictures from camera-equipped cell phones on our television sets.
Readers of this column know that one of my favorite photo expressions is, "Cameras don't take pictures, people do." In other words, it's up to the person taking the picture to compose a picture and follow the basic rules of photography.
I guess I have to modify that saying for this week's column: "Cell phones don't take pictures, people do."