Pros and cons: Xenon vs LED vs dual LED flash

[slitchfield]

In the second part of my 'Camera Nitty Gritty' series, I look at the relative advantages and disadvantages of the different flash technologies used in phone cameras: Xenon, LED and dual LED. With examples, I demonstrate the increased illumination from LED to Xenon and also show the differences in the speed of capture.

Read on in the full article.

[Tzer2]

...and there are still people who say that Xenon flash makes no difference!

The photos of the drum kits make it pretty clear what Xenon's advantage is, this is the kind of down-to-earth example that manufacturers ought to use when advertising phones with Xenon flashes.

(Nice composition on the drummer photos with the lager cans by the way...)

I wish Nokia would come up with a way of connect a seperate flash to their phones, like I do with my stand-alone camera and a very bright 20 meter flash. Especially as phone cameras become more powerfull and functional. I would love to be able to flash my subject from a different angle to the camera. I would also love it if I could control the shutter time in order to take some long exposure photography so that I could paint in some light with a bright torch and the flash. I like my stand alone camera but I'm looking forward to total camera convergence with my phone

Sorry, just to add to my last comment, it might be a good idea if someone could come up with a flash that could be controlled with bluetooth. That would get past the need for more plugs and cables and the flash would be a truely free agent. Imagine the photo possibilities.
Thanks, Doonit.

@unregistered,

You can get all of the things you asked for by purchasing a normal camera and realizing that a camera phone is just that a camera phone. Did you remotely think about how utterly rediculous your post sounds before you hit the enter key? Why not ask for interchangable lenses as well, or braketing functions, how about the ability to shoot in RAW? Your post is well, stupid, stupid, stupid. The object oh having the camera in the phone is to allow you to shoot on the go, not to have a studio in your pocket. Get real will you.

[Tzer2]

Did you remotely think about how utterly rediculous your post sounds before you hit the enter key? Your post is well, stupid, stupid, stupid.

Did you think about how nasty your post sounds before you hit the enter key?

The original poster's idea is perfectly fair, there are S60 cameraphones out now which are primarily aimed at photographers (for example Nokia's N82 and Samsung's INNOV8) so it's reasonable to ask if they can become even more camera-like. You can attach external keyboards and joysticks and GPS receivers to phones, why not camera flashes? And controlling shutter time is even more plausible, it might even be possible on existing autofocus phones with a firmware update.

Even if you don't agree with this, there's no need to be so unpleasant about it. At the end of the day we're just talking about gadgets here, it's not a hugely serious topic.

[dougalzene]

@1st unregistered

I suspect a xenon flash would be powerful enough to trigger a wireless slave flash. LED flash would not.

If you already have a flash unit with a hot shoe, you could buy a "Wireless Hot Shoe Sync Adapter" for a fiver on eBay.

I find that Nokia has an algorithm for taking close up shots with the Xenon flash. Usually if properly focused, the flash will not result in overexposure.

Unlike the K800i for example, the flash is just terrible for close ups. It's like as if the flash and the shutter speed control software (?) are not communicating directly.

It seems like the Xenon Flash's pre-flash (just before the 2nd and last flash in the Auto Flash Mode) does meter the exposure before actually taking a picture.

[icebox]

Bluetooth is to slow to trigger flash. Anyways better than carring around an extra flash for the phone camera (which is still a small small small sensor) i'd better carry around a pocketable digital camera - even the 100$ models give way better results than the 300+ phones even coupled with an imaginary 100+ remote flash...

I have never seen nor used a phone more than just shooting friends for contacts images and no matter how good the camera was it was still worse than my first digital camera (2 mp, fuji fine pix in 2001)

[argh]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Why not ask for interchangable lenses as well, or braketing functions, how about the ability to shoot in RAW?

Okay, I agree that a separate flash and interchangable lenses are probably overboard. The advantage of a cameraphone is that it is an "all in one" device. That you will generally always have on you. Most people don't want to have the other components stuffed in their pockets - that's why they bought a convergence device.

I don't see why software functionality needs to be limited though. With the large storage on modern devices (both internal and external), RAW pictures are not out of the question.

The ability to set the exposure in the camera application is already available and has been used to produce passable HDR photos with the N95 (rather limited by the compression and the technique with which it needs to be done, requiring multiple very still photos with manual alteration of settings in between each one). So there's no real reason why bracketing couldn't also be included.

In fact, I was disappointed to see that the C++ API (and therefore also the Python API) doesn't allow access to the exposure compensation - it looks like it's done with a closed API that only the on-board camera has access to. I was hoping to remove the need for a bluetooth input device to alter the settings so that the camera stayed still between shots.

With the stupid keyboard on the N82, the dual LED flash on the N85 and N79, and the presence of Xenon on the 6620 Classic but lack of various other things on it, Nokia is determined not to let us have the perfect phone. Why? Because one handset would triumph over the rest and kill the diversity of their range of phones. But don't ever believe it's due to technical, economic, or battery reasons, because it's not. If they wanted to make the perfect phone, they could easily.

Good article!

The Xenon flash is a great thing and really makes the n82 a solid camera phone but I would like to see shooting in RAW as well.

I don't know what's so bad with the n82 keyboard - I prefer it to the n95's keyboard. I often wonder if people complain about features that they have never tried... but I guess everyone likes something different.

I do think that the current top of the range phones should have the best features. Whilst Xenon flash may use up the battery quicker - it only does this if you actually use it so I don't really see that as a big issue. As for the dual led being good for video - i can't really comment but I would assume its not very bright and therefore only good for close objects - is this true?

As for interchangable lenses and flashes i think these are a bit overkill for a camera phone - many point and shoot cameras don't offer these but maybe Nokia could add a thread to the lens cover to allow add on lenses...I doubt it is something i would use though.

For me the next Nokia cameraphone should offer the optical zoom of the N93, the Xenon flash of the N82, optical stabilization as well as the ability to capture in RAW but it will probably just offer more Megapixels to keep up with the competition...

Convergence has done away with almost all of my old gadgets.i see no reason why future technology cant do away with all but the high end professional digital cameras. Then, quite possibly, we can all have a photo studio in our pockets.

I found the second unregistered commentators outbursts embarrassing. Why must some people be so rude?

[malerocks]

I agree on bluetooth been slow. Even on bluetooth headsets, it takes about half a second for the headset to fire up the volume when a call comes at the phone.

@Tzer2,

Sorry about the harsh tone. Just got in an arguement with my boss for something that was his fault. Blame dispersal at its finest.

For this I retract the harsh tone but, I still think it is WAY over the top what the OP was requesting.