In the final part, number eight, of my Camera Nitty Gritty series, I look at some of the top smartphone cameras again, but this time looking at their video capture potential, covering the Nokia N82, N93, E90, the Samsing INNOV8, the Sony Ericsson K850i and the HTC TyTN II. Obviously just a snapshot of the phone video capture world but hopefully nonetheless interesting. Your comments welcome if you can add any comparisons of your own!

"So far in this series, I've been concerned primarily with still photo capture, but all of these phone cameras have another party trick, of course - capturing video. I don't claim that the phones in the example clip and ratings below are a definitive hardware set in any way - they simply represent the hardware I had to hand. What I want to do is demonstrate the huge, and I mean huge gulf between good and bad video recording. 

It has to be said that Nokia's Nseries phones have led the way in the mobile world in terms of video capture. The unique N93, with its stereo microphones, was the first to capture video at VGA resolution at up to 30 frames per second, and the N95 carried on the VGA flag with much more conventional form factor. The N82 then came along, packaging the N95's camera into a robust candybar form factor, a long way from the twisting, bending N93. Newer phones like the N85 and N96 have yet to prove their video recording mettle, I suspect firmware improvements are needed for each."

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