Your Cellphone as a Digital Camera

History

If you own a cell phone, it probably includes a digital camera. The first mobile phone with a built-in camera went on sale in the late 1990s. At that time, the photos produced by such phones were impressive only because they were taken with a cell phone and could instantly be electronically transmitted to other people. Still, the concept immediately caught on and by 2006 most cell phones included some kind of camera. Today the world-wide total of digital camera phones has topped a billion. As the market became saturated, manufacturers began to improve the quality as a selling factor.

Quality

The digital camera included in most smart phones today is as good as many stand-alone point-and-shoot cameras. Even some of the least expensive cell phones now boast a 5 megapixel camera. Recent high-end phones have digital cameras ranging from 8 to 12 megapixels. The cell phone is rapidly becoming the most common type of point-and-shoot digital camera with recent models adding zoom capabilities along with multiple shooting modes and flash possibilities.

Editing

Many providers are including photo editing software with the phone operating system. Of course, those are usually very simple versions and there are many other Apps available. These range from free to expensive and vary by manufacturer. Of course, the App Store for iPhones is still the most prolific with thousands of apps to choose from. However Blackberry App World currently has five pages of photo related apps as well. Finding Android apps is more complex because it is an open platform and there are several vendors offering fun camera software. Android Market is still the main one, but AmazonÍs new Android App Store went online in March of 2011 and has dozens of fully tested camera apps.

Today's cell phones give regular point-and-shoot digital cameras serious competition

by Answers.com Author, Electronics writer