Blinded by Science, Video Killed the Radio Star, and the Death of Traditional Camera Photography by Cell Phones. An Epiphany?

     Over the past year I've dabbled around with the family’s cell phone cameras. You can see examples of my cell phone photography above and at my website (http://www.BestDigitalShots.com). To my surprise, especially considering that the Android and Blackberry phones I use are not listed as “best” camera cell phones, the recorded images are quite pleasing. Since it is almost time for a new cell phone, I researched and discovered that I’m far behind the rest of the world in cell phone photography.

     Overall, while traditional camera sales have generally declined, more than a billion camera phones have been sold. Further, with social media, improved hardware technology, user familiarity, advertising, instant gratification, convenience, improved software technology, and (the list goes on), camera phone sales are rampant. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to find a cell phone without a camera. Camera phones are being used for journalism, art, interactive media, and most of the other tasks traditionally completed with traditional cameras. There are clubs, blogs, hosting sites, apps, hardware, software, and terms of art solely devoted to camera phone photography. I now know about iphoneography, Instagram, Photojojo phone lenses, Hipstamatic, geotagging, and much more. This doesn’t even touch on the video aspects of cell phones, the capabilities of cell phone photo editing apps, or the myriad of other issues and matters related to cell phone photography.

     Great leaps have been made in cell phone camera quality and performance. Look at some of the Apple iPhone 4S and iPhone 5 shots. The PureView imaging technology in Nokia’s Lumia cell phones (the Nokia Lumia 808 PureView and soon to be released Nokia Lumia 920 and 820) is amazing. Finally, Samsung with its Galaxy S3 and HTC with its One X are holding their own against the competition in the camera phone department.

     What a prima donna. I thought the only way to capture and share great pictures was with the use of a “real” camera. I was wrong. This brings me to the title of this piece. As “Video Killed the Radio Star” (first recorded by Wooley & the Camera Club with Thomas Dolby on keyboards and made famous by the Buggles) (you music aficionados know where I’m going) will cell phones kill traditional camera photography? Or, even though cell phone cameras are clearly “poetry in motion”, are we simply being blinded by science as in Thomas Dolby’s (yes the same Thomas Dolby) 1982 hit ”She Blinded Me with Science.”
   
      While the future isn’t certain, my take on it is that cell phone cameras will continue to make a huge in-road into the traditional camera field, but (and for a later article) the traditional camera itself is making huge transformations in both performance and cost. With this, I’ll leave you and go dust off my film cameras and shoot a few frames (sans film of course) to keep them working and ready in case I ever use them again. I’ll let you know which camera cell phone I purchase and I’ll share some shots from it. By the way, I also think I need a new 35mm digital camera. Hmmm.

See more camera phone photography at http://www.BestDigitalShots.com