My GPS Camera Phone

I’m fairly certain that the thought of shooting photos at night is rarely given consideration by the average photographer, who rightfully expects a bad exposure. I am supremely confident, however, that the idea of shooting at night with a camera phone is laughable, causing the photographer many years of humiliation and painful, underexposed memories.

In an attempt to test this theory of laughability, I took a series of photos in a dark parking lot illuminated only by a pair of floodlights and a nearby streetlight. While many of the photos turned out awful, some of them were surprising, given the poor lighting conditions.

Here’s six tips I picked out from my nighttime experience that you might find useful. The last two are editing tips, but I think they’re valid points.

Tip 1: LED flashes are useless.

Personally, I’m partial to photography using natural light, but that’s probably because I don’t know how to effectively use a flash. However, calling a tiny LED light next to the camera lens a “flash” is ridiculous and bit of an overstatement. You would probably have better results using a flashlight. A little trial and error will give you an idea of what dark conditions work best for your phone.

Tip 2: Don’t move.

This is a no-brainer, but seriously, don’t move. Try to position the shot so you have something solid to brace yourself against, like a wall or a tree. Trying to freehand a night shot (or any low-light shot) is hard enough – doing it with a camera phone is nearly impossible.

Tip 3: Avoid extreme light/dark situations.

If your camera phone isn’t that great, chances are good that two extremes of light will confound it to no end. The shot becomes under or over exposed, depending on how the camera feels at that moment. Instead, try to go with a middle ground to achieve decent results. (Note: In my experience, this problem is not nearly as bad in the daytime.)

Tip 4: Even in darkness, there are shadows.

Work with as much as the night is willing to give you. In many cases, there will be a light source somewhere, which means that shadows will probably be present. Use them to your advantage. Shadows add mystique any photo, but night shadows are even more mysterious.

Tip 5: Don’t auto correct in Photoshop.

Once you get the photos into your favorite editing software (Photoshop in my case), don’t reach for the “Auto Levels” adjustment. If you do, Photoshop will compensate way too much, thinking the photo is underexposed. Instead, take it into manual and try various level adjustments yourself until you find a happy medium. You took the photo at night for a reason, so don’t let Photoshop try to make it daytime.

Tip 6: Desaturate.

Since most of the color will be lost with a night shot, you might find it easier to manipulate the photo after desaturating it or changing the color mode to grayscale. Doing this turns the editing job into a simpler brightness/contrast edit and eliminates any poorly resolved color in the photo. We are talking about a camera phone, so simplifying the editing process makes for a better final product.

I’m speaking from a 2 mega-pixel camera perspective, so if you’ve got a better camera phone, try some night photos and let me know how they turn out. Now get out there and shoot!

My time with the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic is winding down and I anticipate an e-mail from the folks at WOM World any day now regarding the return of the phone. Since I’ve had the phone, I’ve put it through a rigorous test to see if it can come anywhere near my photo quality standards. Since pictures speak louder than words, I’ve pulled together a few representative photos from the Nokia 5310 and my Casio G’zOne Type-V as a control so you can see the difference in image quality for yourself.

The four images below are untouched (except for re-sizing) and directly out of the camera using default settings. I’ve attempted to shoot objects that cover four areas: bright, medium and low light, and contrasting colors. All images are shot in 1200×1600 resolution. Let’s start with the first image.

Bright light/color tones:

As previously experienced, the Casio tends to overexpose, possibly mistaking the actual light conditions with a dark object in the image. In this case, the trees at the bottom might be confusing the light meter. The Nokia 5310, however, seems to read the light level accurately and manages to capture the subtle details in the clouds without exposure problems.

The winner: Nokia 5310.

Medium light/color tones:

The office building I work in is painted this horrific color all over. Any time I’ve tried to include it in a camera phone photo, I’ve had problems where the center is a different color than the rest of the wall. This can easily be seen on the left in the sample image from the Casio. The right side depicts the photo from the Nokia 5310, which is incredibly crisp and evenly colored. The red, white and black pop against the earth-tone background and there’s no deterioration or bleeding of color, unlike the Casio image which is washed out and just blah.

The winner: Nokia 5310.

Low light/color tones:

In this case, the two exposures come out pretty close, with no major differences. The driveway lettering in the contrasting off-white appears similarly in both images, however, with a bit of that color issue coming through in the Casio image. In spite of that, I’m going to leave it up to personal preference. For a true “dark” image, see the post on shooting fireworks at night with a camera phone.

The winner: Tie

Contrasting colors:

Although this isn’t the best image, it reinforces the point about the Casio and earth tones. The Casio captured the image somewhat nicely, but still overexposed the concrete, resulting in missing details and washed-out green grass. The Nokia was able to precisely measure the contrast and compensate accordingly, resulting in a nice deep green alongside the grayish concrete, complete with the little details clearly visible in the grass and the concrete.

The winner: Nokia 5310.

Surprisingly, the Nokia 5310 comes out on top. I fully expected a phone that was so dedicated to music to be inferior in the photo department, but I was wrong. You can rock out and still take decent pictures, which raises the appeal of this phone significantly.

One interesting thing about the Nokia 5310 camera settings is that it saves a 1200×1600 image as a 4″ x 5.33″ file at 300dpi, which is the recommended resolution for printing. Most others usually default to a 16.67″ x 22.22″ file at 72dpi. (Thanks, Dan!)

Overall, the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic is a solid choice for a camera phone, providing quality images in variable light conditions. The added benefit of the removable microSD card (up to 4GB) and a simple USB connection makes high resolution photography a breeze, with no worries about available storage or file transfers.

So, get your groove on and shoot some great photos with the Nokia 5310. You won’t be disappointed.

Disclaimer: No compensation was received for this review nor is there any affiliation between T-Mobile/Nokia or Verizon/Casio and this web site. All reviews and statements herein are based on a trial/regular usage and personal experience.

Rather than bore you with a post about how to capture great shots of fireworks, I’ll fill you in on the fireworks between the Nokia 5310 XpressMusic and my Casio G’zOne type-V.

As a precursor to the July 4th holiday, my girls and I went outside and tested some sparklers to make sure the worked. I took the chance to run some night photography testing between the Nokia and the Casio to see how well (or how bad) they handled low-light situations. I lit some of those cool sparklers that shoot sparks and started shooting.

The Casio G’zone fared as expected, which is not that great. The Casio tends to compensate for the lack of light by overexposing, making for a pixellated and digitized-looking image. The settings for this shot were standard, with no brightness or filter changes. The Casio did manage to capture the spark trails, though, but the effect is lost with the overexposed background. I’d say it’s not the best camera phone for low-light shots.

The Nokia 5310, however, fared much better. I’m surprised at the quality of the image, since most camera phones I’ve seen are terrible at low-light photos. In this case, the 5310 shines. The spark trails are captured as I had hoped, without compromising the rest of the image. The background remains dark, but light enough to see the subject. As with the Casio, the shot was taken with the standard presets.

If fireworks are in your plans tonight, be it a large display or some sparklers in your yard, break out the camera phone and see what you can capture. If anything, it will make a great wallpaper for your phone.

Disclaimer: No compensation was received for this review nor is there any affiliation between T-Mobile/Nokia or Verizon/Casio and this web site. All reviews and statements herein are based on a trial usage and personal experience.