How to Find a Smartphone with Good Camera

As you know that Smartphone is a mobile device that can do number of advanced things besides taking and receiving calls. We can do internet, perform complex tasks, chat, control TVs, ACs using Infrared Blaster / Port, click high resolution photos, record HD videos and much more. Camera is an important part of a smartphone and the quality of camera varies from one phone to other. Some people are very particular or obsessed with the camera and they want the best camera in their phones.  So here in this I will guide you on how you can select a smartphone with good camera.

What makes a Good Camera Phone?

Here are the most important technical things that you must keep in mind when choosing a smartphone with good camera.

Camera Sensor Size

This is the most important thing when choosing a smartphone having good camera performance. The bigger the size of the sensor, the more amount of light it will gather thus producing high quality images. The bigger sensor in turn also increases the megapixel of the camera. It must also be noted bigger sensor does increases the thickness, size and price of the smartphone.

 

Sensor size is measured in fractions in inches, for example 1/3 inches, 1/2 inches and so on.

iPhone 5 uses 1/3.2 inch sensor (4.54 x 3.42 mm),  HTC One uses 1/3-inch sensor (4.8 x 3.6 mm), Nokia 808 uses 1/1.2 inch sensor (10.67 x 8 mm) and the latest Nokia Lumia 1020 uses a mammoth sensor of 1/1.5 inch.

Advantages of Bigger Sensor

• Captures high quality images
• Better Pictures even in low light conditions
• Reduced noise in images

Disadvantages of Bigger Sensor

• Increases the thickness & size of Smartphone
• Phones with bigger camera sensors are relatively expensive

Lens Aperture Size

The next major technical factor to consider is the Aperture size. Aperture is just a hole in the lens through which the light passes to the camera sensor.

The Aperture is measured or expressed in f-numbers (for example f/2.0 or f/5.6). The larger the number the smaller will aperture and smaller the number the greater will be the aperture of the lens.

For example f/1.4 is greater than f/2.0 and f/4.0

f/1.4 > f/2.0 > f/4.0 > f/5.6 > f/8.0

The greater the aperture the better will be quality of images and also greater will be the depth of field. The depth of field is defined as the sharpness of the image that we want to focus on. The focused image with greater depth of field will be sharper with the background blurred out.

In the below picture, the picture taken with f/2.8 aperture has the image (that we want to take) more focused with background blurred out and the one taken with f/8.0 aperture has almost all the background clearly visible.

Also lens with bigger aperture has faster shutter speed and it also takes better pictures in low light conditions. This is because bigger aperture will allow more light to pass through it. So look for a smartphone with bigger aperture. Aperture size of f/2.2 is good enough and a popular choice in smartphones.

Megapixel

It must be noted Megapixel is not an important factor for measuring camera performance and its quality. Megapixel refers to the size of the image and its resolution. It is the total amount of pixels present in an image. One Megapixel means one million, so a camera having 2 MP lens will produce an image having 2 million pixels and a 5 MP camera will produce an image consisting of 5 million pixels.

Megapixel is important only when you want to capture even the smallest details in an image. An image with greater megapixel will be larger in size and have higher resolution. So here I would like to say that a camera with higher resolution does not means better image quality. A 5 megapixel camera with better lens and sensor can easily outperform a 13 megapixel camera with inferior lens and sensor.

Single or Dual Lens

Majority or almost all smartphones comes with single lens camera but with the advancement of technology we do have some smartphones with dual lens camera system at the rear. The dual lens camera system has two lenses of different focal length at the rear. Here one lens is used to capture the depth of field and the other one takes the picture. This produces high quality images with greater depth of field just like the ones clicked with a DSLR camera. So if you can find a dual lens camera phone that fits in your budget then you can go for it otherwise a single lens camera phone is also good if you take in account all the factors discussed above.

Lens Quality

Well lens quality does have little to some impact on camera. Carl Zeiss lens is a very good and top of the range camera lens that is found in mid to high-end smartphones only. So you may also take this factor into consideration when choosing a smartphone with good camera.

Dual LED Flash

If you click lot of pictures in low light conditions or at night then your smartphone should be equipped with good flash. Here look for a smartphone equipped with Dual Tone LED Flash because it produces images with better and accurate color reproduction in low light conditions or at night.

Where to Find these Technical Details?

You can find all the technical details about the smartphone camera mentioned above on the smartphone’s manufacturer website, and if some details are missing on the website then you can ask their customer support by mailing or calling them.

See also:

• Best Selfie Camera Phones with Front Flash