New York Times' iPhone photos good in good lighting, poor otherwise

The New York Times' technology writer David Pogue posted ten photos he shot with the Apple iPhone's two megapixel camera as part of his overall review of the phone.

Bottom line:  Under good lighting conditions when the subject isn't moving (see below), the photos he posted look rather good.  Under other conditions, though, the photos are poor.

The photo of the dog and other photos under good conditions look excellent for a two megapixel camera phone.  But in low light the photos "tend to fall to pieces" (see below) as Pogue says.

The photos also are blurred when the subject is moving (see below).

No surprise

None of these results is surprising.

Two megapixel camera phones can produce rather good photos -- good enough to print -- if the light is sufficiently bright and the subject (and camera) remain(s) steady.

Camera phones have an especially difficult time taking photos in low light conditions.  One reason is the shutter stays open longer so there's a much greater chance the camera or the subject will move.  Also, many camera phones don't offer any way to manually increase (or decrease) the exposure level or the shutter speed.

But sometimes it's possible to take very interesting -- indeed, artistic -- camera phone photos in low light if you care to do so and know what you're doing.  In addition, some camera phones offer a variety of modes for "sports" (fast-moving subjects), "portrait" (foreground is sharp and background is blurred), "landscape" (distance is sharp), etc.

Camera as stepchild

The camera in the iPhone seems to be something of a feature stepchild.  There's no flash, no optical zoom and no video recording.  Given the iPhone's emphasis on multimedia, including viewing photos and videos, as well as the worldwide ramifications of wireless imaging, it's a bit strange that the camera functionality is so basic.

However, this is version 1.0 of the iPhone, and Apple has many objectives with its first phone besides just offering a camera.  Certainly I'd love to have the iPhone now -- regardless of the version! -- but to use my own money to purchase it I'm waiting until 2008 when I assume the handset will have HSDPA for the U.S. and incorporate a multitude of hardware tweaks and software additions.