The Nokia 6120 Camera Phone

Nowadays, even the cheapest mobile phones have a small camera - does it have practical usages, or it is just a toy? I recently bought a Nokia 6120 phone, that has a 2 megapixel camera module - this is a pretty basic unit, with a fixed focus 4.9mm f/3.2 lens and a small CCD sensor. I did not expected to get something usable, and I have been positively surprised by the image quality - of course, it can not be compared with a "real" camera; nevertheless, it captures enough detail for a good 10x15 centimeters (5x7") print.

The sharpness of the little lens is pretty good; the main problems are due to the in-camera image processing - the phone applies an exaggerated noise reduction to all photos, and the color rendition is quite poor, it is easy to get green and magenta casts, in particular with overcast skies and indoors. Indeed, if you convert the photo to black and white, they looks much better - the noise becomes less visible and overall the image has a much more pleasing look.

Perino waterfall in winter - photo taken with Nokia 6120

Sadly, the Nokia does not offer RAW format, so there is no way to avoid the in-camera processings, and you have to live with JPEG artefacts - even if you set the JPEG quality on the hightest value, the compression is still quite strong. The dynamic range is about 4-5 stops, so it is easy to blown out the highlights. The shadows have a good detail, but often shows some noise due to the in-camera processing that brightens up the shadows. Overall, I think that the image quality of the Nokia 6120 is enough for good 10x15cm prints; you may even manage to make 20x30 centimeters prints if the photo had been taken in optimal conditions and you convert the photo to Black and White.

Perino waterfall in winter - photo taken with Nokia 6120

Storage is not a problem: the Nokia 6120 taken MicroSD cards, that are pretty cheap and ranges from 1 to 8 GB - considering that the average file size is about 250kb, you can store thousands of photos, and you will never fill up the memory card.

To conclude this unusual review, I have made a "just for fun" comparison between the state of art of digital photography - my 21 megapixel Canon 1Ds MarkIII - and the small Nokia. The 1Ds3 image has been from the sides cropped to about 16 megapixel, to get the same 4:3 ratio of the Nokia camera. First, let's give a look to the whole photos!

Perino waterfall in winter - photo taken with Canon 1Ds Mark III

Perino waterfall in winter - photo taken with Nokia 6120

At web resolution, the difference is impressively small - the Nokia photo shows a little less dynamic range and more noise in the shadows, bu overall there is not a night and day difference. What about 100% crops?

Perino waterfall in winter - 100% crop photo taken with Canon 1Ds Mark III

Perino waterfall in winter - 100% crop from photo taken with Nokia 6120

Now, the difference is (obviously) huge - both in terms of detail (of course 21 megapixels gives way more "magnification" than 2 megapixel) and in terms of crispness (the 1Ds3 captures even the finest details without artefacts, while in the Nokia photo the detail is smeared by noise reduction and affected by JPEG and sharpening artefacts). But seriously, we are comparing two completely different things, and for snapshows even the image quality of the Nokia is ok.

The Nokia 6120 has a very good price-performances ratio, but it is not the state of art: both Nokia and other manufacturers offers much more advanced camera phones, with resolution up to 5 megapixel (Nokia E95, available worldwide) or even 10 megapixel (Samsung B600, avaible only in Korea); some have optical zoom lenses with autofocus, and advanced controls on exposure and shutter speed.

What is the role of camera phones in digital photography? Thanks to the fast progress of technology, we have already reached an image quality that is enough for snapshots; 3-5 megapixel camera phones have already killed the low-end digicams, while DSLRs are getting cheaper and cheaper, and they have killed high-end digicams. I think that in 5-10 years the future will be divided between camera phones and DSLRs, with only superzoom and other specialized digicams still around.

Camera phones have already reached and excellent resolution - 5 megapixel are really all what you need for snapshots; if you are more serious about photography and you are picky about image quality you can get an excellent 6-8 megapixels DSLR around $400, that it way better than every digicam. Camera phones have still long way to go in order to reduce noise, and to get crisper images, with less processing and JPEG artefacts, but the technology is growing quickly - until few years ago, camera phones didn't even exist! Other than that, nowadays the camera phones have fixed focal length lenses, or very limited optical zooms, no more than 2x or 3x. In 5-10 years, I except to see 5x or even 7x and 10x zooms, with image stabilization - the two years old Nikon S10 digicam already had an extremely compact and stabilized 10x optical zoom, and in my opinion it is just matter of time until a similar lens will be realized for a camera phone, without compromising size and slim design.

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