My camera also has lots of other bells and whistles. It comes with bluetooth, which allows me to very easily transfer my photos to a PictBridge compatible printer. This is really very convenient. In fact, it also has other wireless data transfer capabilities such as InfraRed and 802.11b/g Wireless LAN support. I can sync my freshly taken photos directly with Flickr and a variety of online photo sharing websites. Built-in GPS features also let me geo-tag the photos taken.
The wireless network capabilities make this camera gadget really powerful. Included in the built-in software are applications like a full-fledge web browser. Yes, wireless web-surfing with from this little gadget. In fact, it has a whole lot more things: appointment scheduler, address book, VOIP internet phone client, MSN Messenger client, etc.
Okay, if you still haven’t gotten a sense of where I’m headed… here’s a big clue about what my camera gadget is: It also features quad-band GSM with UMTS/HSDPA capabilities, so that I can even make phone calls and video calls with this thing.
Have you gotten it yet? It’s a camera phone actually. More specifically, my Nokia N95 8GB.
Yes, camera phones like the Nokia N95 8GB does work pretty well as a camera. In fact, I like it so much more than a DSLR or even a compact camera because a camera phone is always with me, always on-hand to take photos at a moment’s notice.
Camera phones don’t yet have the speed, image quality, flash lighting capability, lens flexibility and other accessories to match the big DSLR cameras. But how useful is a camera if it is not there when you need to take a photo?
The camera phone has also become quite indispensable at work. I think companies should probably buy camera phones for their employees, or pay/subsidize one that they employee buys, much like how many companies give their employees notebook computers. I find myself taking lots of photos for work related purposes: capture evidence of work done, or work not done, or violation or infringing work, etc. Sometimes it is to just capture images for asset tags, serial numbers, etc, so that I can batch compile them later. How about photographing all the nonsense scribbled on a whiteboard during a meeting for later transcription? Photographing or video recording an activity to document a “situation” for reporting? Documenting the “before” and “after” of an activity? There’s a whole lot of work-related need for a camera phone eh!