We’ve had a little bit of new snow, but it’s not really the big transformation I’m waiting for so I’m feeling unusually uninspired and left the camera at home today. Except, I’m not really ever totally camera-less – I keep the mobile phone with me and it has a camera. It’s one of those semi-smart phones and the camera is just one of the things it doesn’t do very well. But as they say, your best camera is the one you have with you, so instead of walking away while trying to kick myself for missing an opportunity, I decided to make the most of what I got.

I won’t even go into a discussion of comparing a phone camera to an SLR. Can they be compared at all, anyway? Apples and oranges… anyway, with all the shortcomings in mind, I reckon the results aren’t always terribly bad. Not terribly good either, granted, but for those occasions when you’re not carrying and SLR with you, then the phone camera is indeed the best camera you have with you. One thing that surprised me though is how it seems like it does a good job with some pictures while other ones fail. For example, I think the sharpness in the ”Glove” and ”Loos” pictures is quite acceptable. I was sure that the ”Arches” picture below would be sharp as well, and part of it is, but then part of it is somehow muddy. Not out of focus, just… not sharp. Kinda like part of the picture is compressed harder than the rest of it.

I was also surprised about white balance. It actually does a good job at auto WB! But it doesn’t help much when there’s so much noise. The noise is very obvious in the first picture – even if you can’t see the grain in this small version, you can see the colour distortions. Just like the sharpness in ”Arches”, the colour noise varies in strength across the picture. Seems to be worse on the right side. In order to get over this handicap, I tried a black&white conversion. The ”Loos” picture worked pretty well as colour, but the b&w treatment suits it better. ”Arches” look awful with the colour noise, so the b&w conversion definitely rescued it. Except for the problem with the sharpness, obviously.

I’ve had the mobile phone for … two years now? And this is the first time I’ve seriously tried to take any pictures with it. With these results, I think I will stick to my SLR though (surprise!). I just have to get more disciplined about carrying it with me even when I’m not feeling inspired, because you never know what you find. For example those snow arches, I am kicking myself for a missed opportunity. The camera I had with me was not the best one…