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A camera phone is a
mobile phone A mobile phone, cellular phone, cell phone, cellphone, handphone, hand phone or pocket phone, sometimes shortened to simply mobile, cell, or just phone, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link whil ...
which is able to capture
photograph A photograph (also known as a photo, image, or picture) is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor, such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are now create ...
s and often record
video Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) syste ...
using one or more built-in
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
s. It can also send the resulting image wirelessly and conveniently. The first commercial phone with color
camera A camera is an Optics, optical instrument that can capture an image. Most cameras can capture 2D images, with some more advanced models being able to capture 3D images. At a basic level, most cameras consist of sealed boxes (the camera body), ...
was the
Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommuni ...
Visual Phone VP-210, released in Japan in May 1999. Most camera phones are smaller and simpler than the separate digital cameras. In the
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
era, the steady sales increase of camera phones caused
point-and-shoot camera A point-and-shoot camera, also known as a compact camera and sometimes abbreviated to P&S, is a still camera designed primarily for simple operation. Most use focus free lenses or autofocus for focusing, automatic systems for setting the exposu ...
sales to peak about 2010 and decline thereafter. The concurrent improvement of smartphone camera technology, and its other multifunctional benefits, have led to it gradually replacing compact point-and-shoot cameras. Most modern smartphones only have a menu choice to start a camera application program and an on-screen button to activate the shutter. Some also have a separate camera button, for quickness and convenience. A few such as the 2009 Samsung i8000 Omnia II have a two-level shutter button as in dedicated
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
s. Some camera phones are designed to resemble separate low-end digital compact cameras in appearance and to some degree in features and picture quality, and are branded as both mobile phones and cameras—an example being the 2013
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is a phone with camera hybrid with a 10x optical zoom (24–240 mm 35 mm equivalent) with f/3.1-6.3 lens with built-in optical image stabilizer and a standard xenon flash. It was introduced in July 2013. The ...
. The principal advantages of camera phones are cost and compactness; indeed for a user who carries a mobile phone anyway, the addition is negligible. Smartphones that are camera phones may run
mobile application A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on de ...
s to add capabilities such as
geotagging Geotagging, or GeoTagging, is the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as a geotagged photograph or video, websites, SMS messages, QR Codes or RSS feeds and is a form of geospatial metadata. This data u ...
and
image stitching Image stitching or photo stitching is the process of combining multiple photographic images with overlapping fields of view to produce a segmented panorama or high-resolution image. Commonly performed through the use of computer software, most app ...
. Also, modern smartphones can use their
touch screen A touchscreen or touch screen is the assembly of both an input ('touch panel') and output ('display') device. The touch panel is normally layered on the top of an electronic visual display of an information processing system. The display is ofte ...
s to direct their camera to focus on a particular object in the field of view, giving even an inexperienced user a degree of focus control exceeded only by seasoned photographers using manual focus. However, the touch screen, being a general purpose control, lacks the agility of a separate camera's dedicated buttons and dial(s). Starting in the mid-2010s, some advanced camera phones feature
optical image stabilisation Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure. Generally, it compensates for pan and tilt (angular movement, equivalent to yaw and pit ...
(OIS), larger sensors, bright lenses, 4K video and even optical zoom, for which a few use a physical zoom lens. Multiple lenses and multi-shot night modes are also familiar. Since the late 2010s, high-end smartphones typically have multiple lenses with different functions, to make more use of a device's limited physical space. Common lens functions include an ultrawide sensor, a
telephoto A telephoto lens, in photography and cinematography, is a specific type of a long-focus lens in which the physical length of the lens is shorter than the focal length. This is achieved by incorporating a special lens group known as a ''telephoto ...
sensor, a macro sensor, and a depth sensor. Some phone cameras have a label that indicates the lens manufacturer, megapixel count, or features such as autofocus or zoom ability for emphasis, including the
Samsung Omnia II The Samsung Omnia II GT-I8000(H/L/U) is a multimedia smartphone announced at Samsung Mobile Unpacked on June 15, 2009. Earlier Omnia II releases run Windows Mobile 6.1, however they are upgradable to version 6.5 Professional. There is also an u ...
(2009),
Samsung Galaxy S II The Samsung Galaxy S II (or Galaxy S2) is a touchscreen-enabled, slate-format Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics, as the second smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series. It has additional software feat ...
(2011), Sony Xperia Z1 (2013) and some successors, Nokia Lumia 1020 (2013), and the
Samsung Galaxy S20 The Samsung Galaxy S20 is a series of Android-based smartphones designed, developed, marketed, and manufactured by Samsung Electronics as part of its Galaxy S series. They collectively serve as the successor to the Galaxy S10 series. The first ...
(2020).


Technology


Camera

Mobile phone cameras typically feature CMOS active-pixel
image sensors An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of curr ...
(CMOS sensors) due to largely reduced power consumption compared to
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD) type cameras, . Some use CMOS
back-illuminated sensor Comparison of simplified back-illuminated and front-illuminated pixel cross-sections A back-illuminated sensor, also known as backside illumination (BI) sensor, is a type of digital image sensor that uses a novel arrangement of the imaging eleme ...
s, which use even less energy, at higher price than CMOS and CCD. The usual
fixed-focus A photographic lens for which the focus is not adjustable is called a fixed-focus lens or sometimes focus-free. The focus is set at the time of lens design, and remains fixed. It is usually set to the hyperfocal distance, so that the depth of fie ...
lenses and smaller sensors limit performance in poor lighting. Lacking a physical shutter, some have a long
shutter lag In photography, shutter lag is the delay between triggering the shutter and when the photograph is actually recorded. This is a common problem in the photography of fast-moving objects or animals and people in motion. The term narrowly refers only t ...
.
Photoflash A flash is a device used in photography that produces a brief burst of light (typically lasting 1/1000 to 1/200 of a second) at a color temperature of about 5500  K to help illuminate a scene. A major purpose of a flash is to illuminate a ...
by the typical internal LED source illuminates less intensely over a much longer exposure time than a
flash Flash, flashes, or FLASH may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional aliases * Flash (DC Comics character), several DC Comics superheroes with super speed: ** Flash (Barry Allen) ** Flash (Jay Garrick) ** Wally West, the first Kid ...
strobe, and none has a
hot shoe Canon EOS 350D Hot shoe Proprietary hot shoe used by Minolta and older Sony cameras (Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D">Sony.html" ;"title="Minolta and older Sony">Minolta and older Sony cameras (Konica Minolta Maxxum 7D) A hot shoe is a mounting poin ...
for attaching an external flash.
Optical zoom A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length (and thus angle of view) can be varied, as opposed to a fixed-focal-length (FFL) lens (see prime lens). A true zoom lens, also called a parfocal lens, is one th ...
and tripod screws are rare and some also lack a
USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...
connection or a removable
memory card A memory card is an electronic data storage device used for storing digital information, typically using flash memory. These are commonly used in digital portable electronic devices. They allow adding memory to such devices using a card in a so ...
. Most have
Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
and
WiFi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...
, and can make
geotagged photograph A geotagged photograph is a photograph which is associated with a geographic position by geotagging. Usually this is done by assigning at least a latitude and longitude to the image, and optionally elevation, compass bearing and other fields may ...
s. Some of the more expensive camera phones have only a few of these technical disadvantages, but with bigger
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of curr ...
s (a few are up to 1", such as the
Panasonic Lumix DMC-CM1 The Panasonic Lumix DMC-CM1 is a large-sensor camera smartphone announced by Panasonic on 15 September, 2014 and released in December of the same year in Germany, France and Great Britain only. It was also released in the USA later, in summer 201 ...
), their capabilities approach those of low-end
point-and-shoot camera A point-and-shoot camera, also known as a compact camera and sometimes abbreviated to P&S, is a still camera designed primarily for simple operation. Most use focus free lenses or autofocus for focusing, automatic systems for setting the exposu ...
s. The few hybrid camera phones such as Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom and K Zoom were equipped with real
optical zoom A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length (and thus angle of view) can be varied, as opposed to a fixed-focal-length (FFL) lens (see prime lens). A true zoom lens, also called a parfocal lens, is one th ...
lenses. As camera phone technology has progressed, lens design has evolved from a simple
double Gauss The double Gauss lens is a compound lens used mostly in camera lenses that reduces optical aberrations over a large focal plane. Design The double Gauss lens consists of two back-to-back Gauss lenses (a design with a positive meniscus lens o ...
or
Cooke triplet The Cooke triplet is a photographic lens designed and patented (patent number GB 22,607) in 1893 by Dennis Taylor who was employed as chief engineer by T. Cooke & Sons of York. It was the first lens system that allowed elimination of most of th ...
to many molded plastic
aspheric lens An aspheric lens or asphere (often labeled ''ASPH'' on eye pieces) is a lens (optics), lens whose surface profiles are not portions of a sphere or Cylinder (geometry), cylinder. In photography, a camera lens, lens assembly that includes an aspheri ...
elements made with varying dispersion and refractive indexes. Some phone cameras also apply
distortion (optics) In geometric optics, distortion is a deviation from rectilinear projection; a projection in which straight lines in a scene remain straight in an image. It is a form of aberration in optical systems, optical aberration. Radial distortion Al ...
,
vignetting In photography and optics, vignetting is a reduction of an image's brightness or saturation toward the periphery compared to the image center. The word ''vignette'', from the same root as ''vine'', originally referred to a decorative border ...
, and various
optical aberration In optics, aberration is a property of optical systems, such as lenses, that causes light to be spread out over some region of space rather than focused to a point. Aberrations cause the image formed by a lens to be blurred or distorted, with th ...
corrections to the image before it is compressed into a
jpeg JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
format.
Optical image stabilization Image stabilization (IS) is a family of techniques that reduce blurring associated with the motion of a camera or other imaging device during exposure. Generally, it compensates for pan and tilt (angular movement, equivalent to yaw and pit ...
allows longer exposures without blurring, despite trembling. The earliest known smartphone to feature it on the rear camera is in late 2012 on the
Nokia Lumia 920 Nokia Lumia 920 is a smartphone developed by Nokia that runs the Windows Phone 8 operating system. It was announced on September 5, 2012, and was first released on November 2, 2012. It has a 1.5 GHz dual-core Qualcomm Krait CPU and a 4.5" IP ...
, and the first known front camera to feature one is on the
HTC 10 The HTC 10 is an Android smartphone manufactured and marketed by HTC. It was announced on April 12, 2016. History In 2015, HTC released the HTC One M9 smartphone, which was praised for its design, but criticized for being too similar to its pr ...
from early 2016. Few smartphones such as LG initially with the 2014 G3 are equipped with a
time-of-flight camera A time-of-flight camera (ToF camera), also known as time-of-flight sensor (ToF sensor), is a range imaging camera system for measuring distances between the camera and the subject for each point of the image based on time-of-flight, the round tr ...
with infrared laser beam assisted auto focus. A
thermal imaging camera A thermal imaging camera (colloquially known as a TIC) is a type of the thermographic camera used in firefighting. By rendering infrared radiation as visible light, such cameras allow firefighters to see areas of heat through smoke, darkness, o ...
has initially been implemented in 2016 on the Caterpillar S60.
High dynamic range imaging In photography and videography, multi-exposure HDR capture is a technique that creates extended or high dynamic range (HDR) images by taking and combining multiple exposures of the same subject matter at different exposure levels. Combining mu ...
merges multiple images with different exposure values for a balanced brightness across the image and was first implemented in early 2010s smartphones such as the
Samsung Galaxy S III The Samsung Galaxy S III (or Galaxy S3) is an Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Launched in 2012, it had sold more than 80 million units overall, making it the most sold phone in the S series. I ...
and
iPhone 5 The iPhone 5 is a smartphone that was designed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is the 6th generation iPhone, succeeding both the iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S, and preceding both the iPhone 5S and 5C. It was formally unveiled as part of a press e ...
. The earliest known smartphone to feature high dynamic range filming is the
Sony Xperia Z The Sony Xperia Z was announced by Sony at CES 2013 and was released on 9 February 2013 in Japan and 1 March 2013 in Singapore and the UK. The Xperia Z was initially shipped with the Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) operating system. The smartphone h ...
, 2013, where frames are arrayed by changing the exposure every two lines of pixels to create a spatially varying exposure (''SVE''). As of 2019, high-end camera phones can produce video with up to 4K resolution at 60 frames per second for smoothness.


Zooming

Most camera phones have a
digital zoom Digital zoom is a method of decreasing the precise angle of view of a digital photograph or video image. It is accomplished by cropping an image down to an area with the same aspect ratio as the original, and scaling the image up to the dimen ...
feature, which may allow zooming without quality loss if a lower resolution than the highest image sensor resolution is selected, as it makes use of image sensors' spare resolution. For example, at twice digital zoom, only a quarter of the image sensor resolution is available. A few have
optical zoom A zoom lens is a mechanical assembly of lens elements for which the focal length (and thus angle of view) can be varied, as opposed to a fixed-focal-length (FFL) lens (see prime lens). A true zoom lens, also called a parfocal lens, is one th ...
, and several have a few cameras with different field of view, combined with digital zoom as a hybrid zoom feature. For example, the Huawei P30 Pro uses a "periscope" 5x telephoto camera with up to 10x
digital zoom Digital zoom is a method of decreasing the precise angle of view of a digital photograph or video image. It is accomplished by cropping an image down to an area with the same aspect ratio as the original, and scaling the image up to the dimen ...
, resulting in 50x hybrid zoom. An external camera can be added, coupled
wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
ly to the phone by
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wave ...
. They are compatible with most smartphones.
Windows Phone Windows Phone (WP) is a discontinued family of mobile operating systems developed by Microsoft for smartphones as the replacement successor to Windows Mobile and Zune. Windows Phone featured a new user interface derived from the Metro design la ...
s can be configured to operate as a camera even if the phone is asleep.


Physical location

When viewed vertically from behind, the rear camera module on some mobile phones is located in the top center, while other mobile phones have cameras located in the upper left corner. The latter has benefits in terms of
ergonomy Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
due to the lower likelihood of covering and soiling the lens when held horizontally, as well as more efficient packing of tight physical device space due to neighbouring components not having to be built around the lens.


Image format and mode

Images are usually saved in the
JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
file format. Since the mid-2010s, some high-end camera phones have a RAW photography feature, HDR, and "
Bokeh In photography, bokeh ( or ; ) is the aesthetic quality of the blur produced in out-of-focus parts of an image. Bokeh has also been defined as "the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light". Differences in lens aberrations and ...
mode". Phones with Android 5.0 Lollipop and later versions can install phone apps that provide similar features. Since
iOS 11 iOS 11 is the iOS version history, eleventh major release of the iOS mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc., being the successor to iOS 10. It was announced at the company's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Developers C ...
(
HEIC High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video. HEIF ...
), Android 8 (Oreo) (
HEIF High Efficiency Image File Format (HEIF) is a container format for storing individual digital images and image sequences. The standard covers multimedia files that can also include other media streams, such as timed text, audio and video. HEIF ...
),
Android 10 Android 10 ( codenamed Android Q during development) is the tenth major release and the 17th version of the Android mobile operating system. It was first released as a developer preview on March 13, 2019, and was released publicly on Septembe ...
(HEIC) and
Android 12 Android 12 is the twelfth major release and 19th version of Android, the mobile operating system developed by the Open Handset Alliance led by Google. The first beta was released on May 18, 2021. Android 12 was released publicly on October 4 ...
(
AVIF AV1 Image File Format (AVIF) is an image file format specification for storing images or image sequences compressed with AV1 in the HEIF container format. It competes with HEIC, which uses the same container format built upon ISOBMFF, but HEVC ...
), HEIC and AVIF compression formats in HEIF container format are available. HEIC support on Android requires hardware support.


Audio recording

Mobile phones with multiple
microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and public ...
s usually allow video recording with stereo audio. Samsung, Sony, and HTC initially implemented it in 2012 on their
Samsung Galaxy S3 The Samsung Galaxy S III (or Galaxy S3) is an Android smartphone designed, developed, and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Launched in 2012, it had sold more than 80 million units overall, making it the most sold phone in the S series. I ...
,
Sony Xperia S The Sony Xperia S (also known as the Sony Ericsson Xperia NX in Japan) is an Android smartphone from Sony launched at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show. It is the first Sony-only branded smartphone after Sony acquired Ericsson's stake in Sony ...
, and
HTC One X The HTC One X is a touchscreen-based, slate-sized smartphone designed and manufactured by HTC. It was released running Android 4.0.3, (upgradeable to 4.2.2) with the HTC Sense 4.0 skin (later upgradeable to 5.0). The One X is powered by the NVID ...
. Apple implemented stereo audio starting with the 2018 iPhone Xs family and
iPhone XR The iPhone XR (stylized and marketed as iPhone Xʀ; Roman numeral "X" pronounced "ten") is a smartphone designed and manufactured by Apple Inc. It is part of the twelfth generation of the iPhone. Pre-orders began on October 19, 2018, with an ...
.


Files and directories

Like dedicated (''stand-alone'')
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
s, mobile phone camera software usually stores pictures and video files in a
directory Directory may refer to: * Directory (computing), or folder, a file system structure in which to store computer files * Directory (OpenVMS command) * Directory service, a software application for organizing information about a computer network's u ...
called DCIM/ in the internal memory, with numbered or dated file names. The former prevents missing out files during
file transfer File transfer is the transmission of a computer file through a communication channel from one computer system to another. Typically, file transfer is mediated by a communications protocol. In the history of computing, numerous file transfer protocol ...
s and facilitates counting files, whereas the latter facilitates searching files by date/time, regardless of file attribute resets during transfer and possible lack of in-file
metadata Metadata is "data that provides information about other data", but not the content of the data, such as the text of a message or the image itself. There are many distinct types of metadata, including: * Descriptive metadata – the descriptive ...
date/time information . Some can store this media in external memory (
secure digital card Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...
or
USB on the go USB On-The-Go (USB OTG or just OTG) is a specification first used in late 2001 that allows USB devices, such as tablets or smartphones, to act as a host, allowing other USB devices, such as USB flash drives, digital cameras, mouse or keyboar ...
pen drive).


Multimedia Messaging Service

Camera phones can share pictures almost instantly and automatically via a sharing infrastructure integrated with the carrier network. Early developers including Philippe Kahn envisioned a technology that would enable service providers to "collect a fee every time anyone snaps a photo". The resulting technologies,
Multimedia Messaging Service Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia ...
(MMS) and
Sha-Mail was a 2G mailing and picture messaging service provided by J-Phone (now Softbank). The term derives from ''sha'', the first part of the Japanese word , and mail (from email). In 2002 Vodafone, which had by that point acquired J-Phone, launched ...
, were developed parallel to and in competition to open
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
-based mobile communication provided by
GPRS General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) is a packet oriented mobile data standard on the 2G and 3G cellular communication network's global system for mobile communications (GSM). GPRS was established by European Telecommunications Standards Insti ...
and later 3G networks. The first commercial camera phone complete with infrastructure was the
J-SH04 The J-SH04 was a mobile phone made by Sharp Corporation and released by J-Phone ( SoftBank Mobile). It was only available in Japan, and was released in November 2000. It was Japan's first phone with a built-in, back-facing camera. It has a 110,0 ...
, made by
Sharp Corporation is a Japanese multinational corporation that designs and manufactures electronic products, headquartered in Sakai-ku, Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. Since 2016 it has been majority owned by the Taiwan-based Foxconn Group. Sharp employs more than 5 ...
; it had an integrated
CCD sensor A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
, with the
Sha-Mail was a 2G mailing and picture messaging service provided by J-Phone (now Softbank). The term derives from ''sha'', the first part of the Japanese word , and mail (from email). In 2002 Vodafone, which had by that point acquired J-Phone, launched ...
(Picture-Mail in Japanese) infrastructure developed in collaboration with Kahn's LightSurf venture, and marketed from 2001 by J-Phone in Japan today owned by
Softbank is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs the ...
. It was also the world's first cellular mobile camera phone. The first commercial deployment in North America of camera phones was in 2004. The Sprint wireless carriers deployed over one million camera phones manufactured by Sanyo and launched by the PictureMail infrastructure (Sha-Mail in English) developed and managed by LightSurf. While early phones had Internet connectivity, working
web browsers A web browser is application software for accessing websites. When a User (computing), user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its Computer file, files from a web server and then displays the page on the user' ...
and email-programs, the phone menu offered no way of including a photo in an email or uploading it to a web site. Connecting cables or removable media that would enable the local transfer of pictures were also usually missing. Modern
smartphones A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...
have almost unlimited connectivity and transfer options with photograph attachment features.


External camera

During 2003 (as camera phones were gaining popularity), in Europe some phones without cameras had support for
MMS MMS may refer to: Science and technology Network communication protocols * Multimedia Messaging Service for mobile phones * Microsoft Media Server, a content-streaming protocol (mms://) * Manufacturing Message Specification for real time proces ...
and external cameras that could be connected with a small cable or directly to the data port at the base of the phone. The external cameras were comparable in quality to those fitted on regular camera phones at the time, typically offering
VGA Video Graphics Array (VGA) is a video display controller and accompanying de facto graphics standard, first introduced with the IBM PS/2 line of computers in 1987, which became ubiquitous in the PC industry within three years. The term can no ...
resolution. One of these examples was the Nokia Fun Camera (model number PT-3) announced together with the
Nokia 3100 The Nokia 3100 is a triband-GSM mobile phone announced on 17 June 2003 as an entry-level phone from Nokia and released in September 2003, designed primarily for the newer generation of marketing audience. The Nokia 3100 was developed from the N ...
in June 2003. The idea was for it to be used on devices without a built-in camera (connected via the
Pop-Port The Pop-Port interface (originally code-named "Tomahawk") was a proprietary plug-in port for accessories and data synchronisation, available with many Nokia mobile phones. The port consists of one metal pin on either end, and a plastic tab conta ...
interface) and be able to transfer images taken on the camera (VGA resolution and a flash) directly to the phone to be stored or sent via MMS. In 2013-2014 Sony and other manufacturers announced add-on camera modules for
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
s called lens-style cameras. They have larger sensors and lenses than those in a camera phone but lack a viewfinder, display and most controls. They can be mounted to an Android or
iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
phone or tablet and use its display and controls. Lens-style cameras include: * Sony SmartShot QX series, announced and released in mid 2013. They include the DSC-QX100/B, the large
Sony ILCE-QX1 The Sony ILCE-QX1 is a mobile device mountable, Wi-Fi-controlled, lens-type compact camera manufactured by Sony and was announced on 3 September 2014. Part of the Sony α family, it is one of Sony's ''"Smart Lens"'' cameras, alongside the '' ...
, and the small
Sony DSC-QX30 The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-QX30 is an ultrazoom, mobile device-mountable, lens-type compact camera manufactured by Sony. Announced on September 3, 2014, the QX30 is one of Sony's ''"Smart Lens"'' cameras, alongside the '' QX1'', '' QX10'' and '' QX1 ...
. *
Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
PixPro smart lens camera series, announced in 2014. * Vivicam smart lens camera series from Vivitar/Sakar, announced in 2014. *
HTC RE HTC RE refers to a series of products made by HTC, including the RE Camera camera device, Vive Vive may refer to: * Vive, Viva, a Romance language expression * ''Vive'' (José José album), 1974 * ''Vive'' (Lucía Méndez album), 2004 *Vive (a c ...
HTC also announced an external camera module for smartphones, which can capture 16 MP still shots and Full HD videos. The RE Module is also waterproof and dustproof, so it can be used in a variety of conditions. External cameras for
thermal imaging Infrared thermography (IRT), thermal video and/or thermal imaging, is a process where a thermal camera captures and creates an image of an object by using infrared radiation emitted from the object in a process, which are examples of infrared i ...
also became available in late 2014. Microscope attachments were available from several manufacturers in 2019, as are adapters for connecting an astronomical telescope.


Limitations

*
Mobile phone form factor The form factor of a mobile phone is its size, shape, and style, as well as the layout and position of its major components. With one non-movable section Bar A bar (also known as a slab, block, candybar) phone takes the shape of a cuboid, usuall ...
s are small. They lack space for a large
image sensor An image sensor or imager is a sensor that detects and conveys information used to make an image. It does so by converting the variable attenuation of light waves (as they pass through or reflect off objects) into signals, small bursts of curr ...
and dedicated knobs and buttons for easier
ergonomy Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...
. * Controls work by a touchscreen menu system. The photographer must look at the menu instead of looking at the target. * Dedicated cameras have a compartment housing the memory card and battery. For most it is easily accessible by hand, allowing uninterrupted operation when storage or energy is exhausted (
hot swapping Hot swapping is the replacement or addition of components to a computer system without stopping, shutting down, or rebooting the system; hot plugging describes the addition of components only. Components which have such functionality are said ...
). Meanwhile, the battery can be charged externally. Most mobile phones have a non-replaceable battery and many lack a memory card slot entirely. Others have a memory card slot inside a tray, requiring a tool for access. * Mobile phone
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s are not able to
boot A boot is a type of footwear. Most boots mainly cover the foot and the ankle, while some also cover some part of the lower calf. Some boots extend up the leg, sometimes as far as the knee or even the hip. Most boots have a heel that is cle ...
immediately like the
firmware In computing, firmware is a specific class of computer software that provides the low-level control for a device's specific hardware. Firmware, such as the BIOS of a personal computer, may contain basic functions of a device, and may provide h ...
s of dedicated digital cameras/
camcorder A camcorder is a self-contained portable electronic device with video and recording as its primary function. It is typically equipped with an articulating screen mounted on the left side, a belt to facilitate holding on the right side, hot-swa ...
s, and are prone to interference from
process A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic. Things called a process include: Business and management *Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...
es running in background. * Dedicated digital cameras, even low-budget ones, are typically equipped with a
photoflash capacitor A photoflash capacitor is an electrolytic capacitor used in flash cameras, professional flashes, and also in solid-state laser power supplies. Their usual purpose is to briefly power a high-voltage flash tube, used to illuminate a photographic su ...
-discharging
Xenon flash A flashtube (flashlamp) is an electric arc lamp designed to produce extremely intense, incoherent, full-spectrum white light for a very short time. A flashtube is a glass tube with an electrode at each end and is filled with a gas that, when tr ...
, larger and by far more powerful than
LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...
lamps found on mobile phones. * Due to the default orientation of mobile phones being vertical, inexperienced users might intuitively be encouraged to film vertically, making a
portrait mode Page orientation is the way in which a rectangular page is oriented for normal viewing. The two most common types of orientation are ''portrait'' and ''landscape''. The term "portrait orientation" comes from visual art terminology and describes ...
poorly suited to the usual horizontal screens used at home. * Due to their comparatively thin form factor, smartphones are typically unable to stand upright on their own and must be leaned, whereas dedicated digital cameras and camcorders typically have a flat bottom that lets them stand upright. * Smartphones lack dedicated stable tripod mounts, and can only be mounted through a less stable device that grips the unit's edges.


Software

Users may use bundled camera software, or install alternative software. Bundled software may be optimized by the vendor for performance, whereas alternative software may offer functionality and controls and customization missing in bundled software. The
graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
typically features a virtual on-screen shutter button located towards the usual home button and charging port side, and a thumbnail previewing the last photo, and some status icons that may display settings such as selected resolution, scene mode, stabilization, flash, and a battery indicator. The camera software may indicate the estimated number of remaining photographs until exhausted space, the current video
file File or filing may refer to: Mechanical tools and processes * File (tool), a tool used to ''remove'' fine amounts of material from a workpiece **Filing (metalworking), a material removal process in manufacturing ** Nail file, a tool used to gent ...
size, and remaining space storage while recording, as done on early-2010s Samsung smartphones. Shortcuts to settings in the camera viewfinder may be customizable. In September 2013, Apple introduced a camera viewfinder layout with iOS 7 that would be implemented by several other major vendors towards the late 2010s. This layout has a circular and usually solid-colour shutter button and a camera mode selector using perpendicular text and separate camera modes for photo and video. Vendors that have ditched their layout to implement variations of Apple's layout include Samsung, Huawei, LG, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and UleFone. There may be an option to utilize volume keys for photo, video, or zoom. Specific objects can usually be focused on by tapping on the viewfinder, and exposure may adjust accordingly; there may be an option to capture a photo with each tap.
Exposure value In photography, exposure value (EV) is a number that represents a combination of a camera's shutter speed and f-number, such that all combinations that yield the same exposure have the same EV (for any fixed scene luminance). Exposure value is a ...
may be adjustable by swiping vertically after tapping to focus or through a separate menu option. It may be possible to lock focus and exposure by holding the touch for a short time, and exposure value may remain adjustable in this state. These gestures may be available while filming and for the front camera. Retaining focus also has in the past been implemented through holding the virtual shutter button. Another common use of holding the shutter button is
burst shot Burst mode, also called continuous shooting mode, sports mode, continuous mode, or burst shot, is a shooting mode in still cameras where several photos are captured in quick succession by either pressing the shutter button or holding it down. ...
, where multiple photos are captured in quick succession, with varying resolutions, speeds, and sequential limits among devices, and possibly with an option to adjust between speed and resolution.
Shutter lag In photography, shutter lag is the delay between triggering the shutter and when the photograph is actually recorded. This is a common problem in the photography of fast-moving objects or animals and people in motion. The term narrowly refers only t ...
varies depending on computing speed, software implementation, and environmental brightness. A shutter animation such as skeuomorphic aperture diaphragm blades or a simple short black-out may be featured. A haptic (vibration) feedback may be used to signify a captured photograph, which is of use when holding the smartphone in an angle with poor visibility of the screen.
Lock screen A lock screen is a computer user interface element used by various operating systems. They regulate immediate access to a device by requiring the user to perform a certain action in order to receive access, such as entering a password, using a cert ...
s typically allow the user to launch the camera without unlocking to prevent missing moments. This may be implemented through an icon swiped away from. Launching from anywhere may be possible through double-press of power/stand-by or home button, or a dedicated shutter button if present. Camera software on more recent and higher-end smartphones (e.g. Samsung since 2015) allows for more manual control of parameters such as exposure and focus. This was first featured in 2013 on the camera-centric
Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom The Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom is a phone with camera hybrid with a 10x optical zoom (24–240 mm 35 mm equivalent) with f/3.1-6.3 lens with built-in optical image stabilizer and a standard xenon flash. It was introduced in July 2013. The ...
and Nokia Lumia 1020, but was later expanded among smartphones. Few smartphones' bundled camera software such as that of the
LG V10 The LG V10 is an Android smartphone manufactured by LG Electronics as part of the LG V series. Announced in September 2015 and released in October 2015, the device shares many similarities with the earlier LG G4. Its main feature is a customizab ...
features an
image histogram An image histogram is a type of histogram that acts as a graphical representation of the tonal distribution in a digital image. It plots the number of pixels for each tonal value. By looking at the histogram for a specific image a viewer will ...
, a feature known from higher-end dedicated cameras.


Video recording

Video recording may be implemented as a separate camera mode, or merged on the first viewfinder page as done since the
Samsung Galaxy S4 The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...
until the S9. Specific resolutions may be implemented as separate camera mode, like Sony has done with 4K (2160p) on the
Xperia Z2 The Sony Xperia Z2 is an Android-based smartphone unveiled, manufactured, and marketed by Sony and was released in April 2014. Under the codename "Sirius", Xperia Z2 serves as the successor to the Sony Xperia Z1. Like its predecessor, the Xperi ...
. During video recording, it may be possible to capture still photos, possibly with a higher resolution than the video itself. For example, the
Samsung Galaxy S4 The Samsung Galaxy S4 is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics as the fourth smartphone of the Samsung Galaxy S series and was first shown publicly on March 14, 2013, at Samsung Mobile Unpacked in New York City. It is the succes ...
captures still photos during video recording at 9.6 Megapixels, which is the largest 16:9 aspect ratio crop of the 13-Megapixel 4:3 image sensor. Parameters adjustable during video recording may include
flashlight A flashlight ( US, Canada) or torch ( UK, Australia) is a portable hand-held electric lamp. Formerly, the light source typically was a miniature incandescent light bulb, but these have been displaced by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) since the ...
illumination, focus, exposure, light sensitivity (ISO), and white balance. Some settings may only be adjustable while idle and locked while filming, such as light sensitivity and exposure on the
Samsung Galaxy S7 The Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and Samsung Galaxy S7 Active are Android-based smartphones manufactured, released and marketed by Samsung Electronics. The S7 series serves as the successor to the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and ...
. Recording time may be limited by software to fixed durations at specific resolutions, after which recording can be restarted. For example, 2160p (4K) recording is capped to five minutes on Samsung flagship smartphones released before 2016, ten minutes on the Galaxy Note 7, four minutes on the
Galaxy Alpha The Samsung Galaxy Alpha (SM-G850x) is an Android smartphone produced by Samsung Electronics. Unveiled on 13 August 2014, the device was released in September 2014. A high-end device, the Galaxy Alpha is Samsung's first Android-powered smartphon ...
, and six minutes on the
HTC One M9 The HTC One M9 is an Android smartphone manufactured and marketed by HTC. The third-generation One was officially unveiled in a press conference at Mobile World Congress on March 1, 2015, and it was released worldwide on April 10, 2015. It is t ...
. The camera software may temporarily disable recording while a high device temperature is detected. "
Slow motion Slow motion (commonly abbreviated as slo-mo or slow-mo) is an effect in film-making whereby time appears to be slowed down. It was invented by the Austrian priest August Musger in the early 20th century. This can be accomplished through the use o ...
" (high frame rate) video may be stored as real-time video which retains the original image sensor frame rate and audio track, or slowed down and muted. While the latter allows slow-motion playback on older
video player Media player software is a type of application software for playing multimedia computer files like audio and video files. Media players commonly display standard media control icons known from physical devices such as tape recorders and CD play ...
software which lacks playback speed control, the former can act both as real-time video and as slow-motion video, and is preferable for editing as the playback speed and duration indicated in the video editor are real-life equivalent.


Settings menu

Camera settings may appear as a menu on top of an active viewfinder in the background, or as a separate page, the former of which allows returning to the viewfinder immediately without having to wait for it to initiate again. The settings may appear as a grid or a list. On
Apple iOS iOS (formerly iPhone OS) is a mobile operating system created and developed by Apple Inc. exclusively for its hardware. It is the operating system that powers many of the company's mobile devices, including the iPhone; the term also includes ...
, some camera settings such as video resolution are located separately in the system settings, outside the camera application. The range of selectable resolution levels for photos and videos varies among camera software. There may be settings for frame rate and bit rate, as on the
LG V10 The LG V10 is an Android smartphone manufactured by LG Electronics as part of the LG V series. Announced in September 2015 and released in October 2015, the device shares many similarities with the earlier LG G4. Its main feature is a customizab ...
, where they are implemented independently within a supported pixel rate (product of resolution and frame rate). When the selected photo or video resolution is below that of the image sensor,
digital zoom Digital zoom is a method of decreasing the precise angle of view of a digital photograph or video image. It is accomplished by cropping an image down to an area with the same aspect ratio as the original, and scaling the image up to the dimen ...
ing may allow limited magnification without quality loss by cropping into the image sensor's spare resolution. This is known as "lossless digital zoom". Zooming is typically implemented through pinch and may additionally be controllable through a
slider Slider or Sliders may refer to: Arts * K.K. Slider, a fictional character within the ''Animal Crossing'' franchise * '' The Slider'', a 1972 album by T. Rex * ''Sliders'' (TV series), an American science fiction and fantasy television series * ...
. On early-2010s Samsung Galaxy smartphones, a square visualizes the magnification.


Other functionality

;Capturing in both directions The ability to take photographs and film from both front and rear cameras simultaneously was first implemented in 2013 on the Samsung Galaxy S4, where the two video tracks are stored picture-in-picture. An implementation with separate video tracks within a file or separate video files is not known yet. ;Voice commands
Voice command Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers with the ma ...
s were first featured in 2012 on the camera software of the Samsung Galaxy S3, and the ability to take a photo after a short countdown initiated by hand gesture was first featured in 2015 on the Galaxy S6. ;Camera controls Camera software may allow locking and unlocking touch input using the power button to prevent accidentally exiting or otherwise undesirably interfering with the viewfinder while recording video or keeping the camera idle in pocket for quicker access. Camera software may have an option for automatically capturing a photograph or video when launched. ;"Live photo" / "Motion photo" Some smartphones since the mid-2010s have the ability to attach short videos surrounding or following the moment to a photo. Apple has branded this feature as "live photo", and Samsung as "motion photo". ;Remote viewfinder A "remote viewfinder" feature has been implemented into few smartphones' camera software (Samsung Galaxy S4, S4 Zoom, Note 3, S5, K Zoom, Alpha), where the viewfinder and camera controls are cast to a supported device through
WiFi Direct Wi-Fi Direct (formerly Wi-Fi Peer-to-Peer) is a Wi-Fi standard for peer-to-peer wireless connections that allows two devices to establish a direct Wi-Fi connection without an intermediary wireless access point, router, or Internet connection. Wi- ...
. ;High dynamic range (HDR)
High-dynamic-range imaging In photography and videography, multi-exposure HDR capture is a technique that creates extended or high dynamic range (HDR) images by taking and combining multiple exposures of the same subject matter at different exposure levels. Combining mu ...
, also referred to as "rich tone", keeps brightness across the image within a visible range. Camera software may have an option for turning HDR off, to avoid possible
shutter lag In photography, shutter lag is the delay between triggering the shutter and when the photograph is actually recorded. This is a common problem in the photography of fast-moving objects or animals and people in motion. The term narrowly refers only t ...
and ghosting. Some software allows retaining both HDR and non-HDR variants of the same photo. HDR may be supported for panorama shots and video recording, if supported by the image sensor. ;Visual effects and low light The camera effects introduced by Samsung on the Galaxy S3 or S4 including "best photo" which automatically picks a photo and "drama shot" for multiplying moving objects and "eraser" which can remove moving objects, were merged to "shot & more" on the Galaxy S5, allowing retrospectively applying them to a burst of eight images stored in a single file. In 2014, HTC implemented several visual effect features as part of their dual-camera setup on the One M8, including weather, 3D tilting, and focus adjustment after capture, branded "uFocus". The last was branded "Selective Focus" by Samsung, additionally with the "pan focus" option to make the entire depth of field appear in focus. Huawei has branded a dedicated camera feature for prolonged exposure "light painting", as the long exposure time allows creating trails of objects that emit light. A "handheld night shot" mode tries compositing a picture as clear as possible from many frames captured in a dark environment throughout several seconds. The user is instructed to hold the unit as steady as possible. ;Object tracking The earliest known smartphone to feature an
autofocus An autofocus (or AF) optical system uses a sensor, a control system and a motor to focus on an automatically or manually selected point or area. An electronic rangefinder has a display instead of the motor; the adjustment of the optical system ...
with the ability from dedicated camcorders to track objects is the
Galaxy S6 The Samsung Galaxy S6 is a line of Android-based smartphones manufactured, released and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Succeeding the Samsung Galaxy S5, the S6 was not released as a singular model, but instead in two variations unveiled and ...
. ;Augumented reality Starting in 2013 on the Xperia Z1, Sony experimented with real-time
augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...
camera effects such as floating text, virtual plants, volcano, and a dinosaur walking in the scenery. Apple later did similarly in 2017 with the
iPhone X The iPhone X (Roman numeral "X" pronounced "ten", also known as iPhone 10) is a smartphone designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc. It is part of the 11th generation of the iPhone. Available for pre-order from October 27, 2017, it was re ...
. ;Artificial intelligence An
artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...
that notifies of flaws after each photograph such as blinking eyes, misfocus, blur, and shake, was first implemented in 2018 on the
Samsung Galaxy Note 9 The Samsung Galaxy Note 9 (stylized as Samsung Galaxy Note9) is an Android-based phablet designed, developed, produced and marketed by Samsung Electronics as part of the Samsung Galaxy Note series. It was unveiled on 9 August 2018, as the succe ...
. Later phones from other manufacturers have more advanced IA features.


History

The camera phone, like many
complex systems A complex system is a system composed of many components which may interact with each other. Examples of complex systems are Earth's global climate, organisms, the human brain, infrastructure such as power grid, transportation or communication s ...
, is the result of converging and enabling technologies. Compared to
digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile device ...
s, a consumer-viable camera in a mobile phone would require far less power and a higher level of camera electronics integration to permit the miniaturization. The metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS)
active pixel sensor An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOS field-effec ...
(APS) was developed by Tsutomu Nakamura at Olympus in 1985. The
complementary MOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss", ) is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFE ...
(CMOS) active pixel sensor (
CMOS sensor An active-pixel sensor (APS) is an image sensor where each pixel sensor unit cell has a photodetector (typically a pinned photodiode) and one or more active transistors. In a metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) active-pixel sensor, MOS field-effec ...
) "camera-on-a-chip" was later developed by
Eric Fossum Eric R. Fossum (born October 17, 1957) is an American physicist and engineer, which with the help of other JPL scientists, co-developed some features of the CMOS sensor, CMOS image sensor. He is currently a professor at Thayer School of Engineerin ...
and his team in the early 1990s. This was an important step towards realizing the modern camera phone as described in a March 1995 ''Business Week'' article. While the first camera phones (e.g.
J-SH04 The J-SH04 was a mobile phone made by Sharp Corporation and released by J-Phone ( SoftBank Mobile). It was only available in Japan, and was released in November 2000. It was Japan's first phone with a built-in, back-facing camera. It has a 110,0 ...
) successfully marketed by
J-Phone is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs th ...
in Japan used
charge-coupled device A charge-coupled device (CCD) is an integrated circuit containing an array of linked, or coupled, capacitors. Under the control of an external circuit, each capacitor can transfer its electric charge to a neighboring capacitor. CCD sensors are a ...
(CCD) sensors rather than CMOS sensors, more than 90% of camera phones sold today use CMOS image sensor technology. Another important enabling factor was advances in
data compression In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
, due to the impractically high
memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remembered, ...
and
bandwidth Bandwidth commonly refers to: * Bandwidth (signal processing) or ''analog bandwidth'', ''frequency bandwidth'', or ''radio bandwidth'', a measure of the width of a frequency range * Bandwidth (computing), the rate of data transfer, bit rate or thr ...
requirements of uncompressed media. The most important compression algorithm is the discrete cosine transform (DCT), a
lossy compression In information technology, lossy compression or irreversible compression is the class of data compression methods that uses inexact approximations and partial data discarding to represent the content. These techniques are used to reduce data size ...
technique that was first proposed by Nasir Ahmed while he was working at the
University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
in 1972. Camera phones were enabled by DCT-based compression standards, including the
H.26x The Video Coding Experts Group or Visual Coding Experts Group (VCEG, also known as Question 6) is a working group of the ITU Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T) concerned with standards for compression coding of video, images, audio, ...
and
MPEG The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...
video coding standards A video coding format (or sometimes video compression format) is a content representation format for storage or transmission of digital video content (such as in a data file or bitstream). It typically uses a standardized video compression algo ...
introduced from 1988 onwards, and the
JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
image compression Image compression is a type of data compression applied to digital images, to reduce their cost for storage or transmission. Algorithms may take advantage of visual perception and the statistical properties of image data to provide superior r ...
standard introduced in 1992.


Experiments

There were several early
videophone Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio and video signals by people in different locations for real time communication.McGraw-Hill Concise Ency ...
s and cameras that included communication capability. Some devices experimented with integration of the device to communicate
wireless Wireless communication (or just wireless, when the context allows) is the transfer of information between two or more points without the use of an electrical conductor, optical fiber or other continuous guided medium for the transfer. The most ...
ly with the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...
, which would allow instant media sharing with anyone anywhere. The DELTIS VC-1100 by Japanese company Olympus was the world's first digital camera with cellular phone transmission capability, revealed in the early 1990s and released in 1994. In 1995,
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
experimented with the Apple Videophone/PDA. There was also a digital camera with cellular phone designed by Shosaku Kawashima of Canon in Japan in May 1997. In Japan, two competing projects were run by
Sharp Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 19 ...
and
Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommuni ...
in 1997. Both had cell phones with integrated cameras. However, the Kyocera system was designed as a peer-to-peer video-phone as opposed to the Sharp project which was initially focused on sharing instant pictures. That was made possible when the Sharp devices was coupled to the Sha-mail infrastructure designed in collaboration with American technologist Kahn. The Kyocera team was led by Kazumi Saburi. In 1995, work by James Greenwold of Bureau Of Technical Services, in
Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin Chippewa Falls is a city located on the Chippewa River in Chippewa County in the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 14,778 in the 2021 census. Incorporated as a city in 1869, it is the county seat of Chippewa Cou ...
, was developing a
pocket video camera A pocket video camera is a tapeless camcorder that is small enough to be carried in one's pocket. A typical pocket video camera has an LCD screen of at least 1.5", the ability to capture either only standard video or both standard video and high ...
for surveillance purposes. By 1999, the Tardis recorder was in prototype and being used by the government. Bureau Of Technical Services advanced further by the patent No. 6,845,215,B1 on "Body-Carryable, digital Storage medium, Audio/Video recording Assembly". A camera phone was patented by Kari-Pekka Wilska, Reijo Paajanen, Mikko Terho and Jari Hämäläinen, four employees at Nokia, in 1994. Their patent application was filed with the Finnish Patent and Registration Office on May 19, 1994, followed by several filings around the world making it a global family of patent applications. The patent application specifically described the combination as either a separate digital camera connected to a cell phone or as an integrated system with both sub-systems combined in a single unit. Their patent application design included all of the basic functions camera phones implemented for many years: the capture, storage, and display of digital images and the means to transmit the images over the radio frequency channel. On August 12, 1998, the United Kingdom granted patent GB 2289555B and on July 30, 2002, the USPTO granted US Patent 6427078B1 based on the original Finnish Patent and Registration Office application to Wilska, Paajanen, Terho and Hämäläinen. On June 11, 1997,
Philippe Kahn Philippe Kahn (born March 16, 1952) is an engineer, entrepreneur and founder of four technology companies: Borland, Starfish Software, LightSurf Technologies, and Fullpower Technologies. Kahn is credited with creating the first camera phone, ...
instantly shared the first pictures from the maternity ward where his daughter Sophie was born. In the hospital waiting room he devised a way to connect his laptop to his digital camera and to his cell phone for transmission to his home computer. This improvised system transmitted his pictures to more than 2,000 family, friends and associates around the world. Kahn's improvised connections augured the birth of instant visual communications. Kahn's cell phone transmission is the first known publicly shared picture via a cell phone.


Commercialization

The first commercial camera phone was the
Kyocera is a Japanese multinational ceramics and electronics manufacturer headquartered in Kyoto, Japan. It was founded as in 1959 by Kazuo Inamori and renamed in 1982. It manufactures industrial ceramics, solar power generating systems, telecommuni ...
Visual Phone VP-210, released in Japan in May 1999. It was called a "mobile videophone" at the time, and had a 110,000-
pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...
front-facing camera A front-facing camera, commonly known as a selfie camera, is a common feature of cameras, mobile phones, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and some handheld video game consoles. While stand-alone cameras face forward, away from the operator, tab ...
. It stored up to 20
JPEG JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
digital images A digital image is an image composed of picture elements, also known as ''pixels'', each with ''finite'', '' discrete quantities'' of numeric representation for its intensity or gray level that is an output from its two-dimensional functions f ...
, which could be sent over
e-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...
, or the phone could send up to two images per second over Japan's
Personal Handy-phone System The Personal Handy-phone System (PHS), also marketed as the Personal Communication Telephone (PCT) in Thailand, and the Personal Access System (PAS) and commercially branded as ''Xiaolingtong'' () in Mainland China, was a mobile network system o ...
(PHS)
cellular network A cellular network or mobile network is a communication network where the link to and from end nodes is wireless. The network is distributed over land areas called "cells", each served by at least one fixed-location transceiver (typically thre ...
. The
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
SCH-V200, released in
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
in June 2000, was also one of the first phones with a built-in camera. It had a TFT
liquid-crystal display A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display A flat-panel display (FPD) is an electronic display used to display visual content such as text or images. It is present in consumer, medical, transportation, and industrial equipmen ...
(LCD) and stored up to 20
digital photo Digital photography uses cameras containing arrays of electronic photodetectors interfaced to an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) to produce images focused by a lens, as opposed to an exposure on photographic film. The digitized image is sto ...
s at 350,000-pixel resolution. However, it could not send the resulting image over the telephone function, but required a
computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...
connection to access photos. The first mass-market camera phone was the
J-SH04 The J-SH04 was a mobile phone made by Sharp Corporation and released by J-Phone ( SoftBank Mobile). It was only available in Japan, and was released in November 2000. It was Japan's first phone with a built-in, back-facing camera. It has a 110,0 ...
, a
Sharp Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 19 ...
J-Phone is a Japanese multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Minato, Tokyo which focuses on investment management. The Group primarily invests in companies operating in technology, energy, and financial sectors. It also runs th ...
model sold in Japan in November 2000. It could instantly transmit pictures via cell phone
telecommunication Telecommunication is the transmission of information by various types of technologies over wire, radio, optical, or other electromagnetic systems. It has its origin in the desire of humans for communication over a distance greater than that fe ...
. Cameras on cell phones proved popular right from the start, as indicated by the J-Phone in Japan having had more than half of its subscribers using cell phone cameras in two years. The world soon followed. In 2003, more camera phones were sold worldwide than stand-alone digital cameras largely due to growth in Japan and Korea. In 2005, Nokia became the world's most sold digital camera brand. In 2006, half of the world's mobile phones had a built-in camera. In 2006,
Thuraya Thuraya ( ar, الثريا, Gulf Arabic pron.: ; from the Arabic name for the constellation of the Pleiades, ''Thurayya'') is a United Arab Emirates-based regional mobile-satellite service (MSS) provider. The company operates two geosynchronous ...
released the first
satellite phone A satellite telephone, satellite phone or satphone is a type of mobile phone that connects to other phones or the telephone network by radio through orbiting satellites instead of terrestrial cell sites, as cellphones do. The advantage of a sa ...
with an integrated camera. The Thuraya SG-2520 was manufactured by Korean company APSI and ran
Windows CE Windows Embedded Compact, formerly Windows Embedded CE, Windows Powered and Windows CE, is an operating system subfamily developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows Embedded family of products. Unlike Windows Embedded Standard, which is base ...
. In 2008, Nokia sold more camera phones than
Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...
sold film-based simple cameras, thus becoming the biggest manufacturer of any kind of camera. In 2010, the worldwide number of camera phones totaled more than a billion. Since 2010, most mobile phones, even the cheapest ones, are being sold with a camera. High-end camera phones usually had a relatively good lens and high resolution. Higher resolution camera phones started to appear in the 2010s. 12-megapixel camera phones have been produced by at least two companies. To highlight the capabilities of the
Nokia N8 The Nokia N8 is a touchscreen-based smartphone developed by Nokia. Announced on 27 April 2010, the Nokia N8 was the first device to run on the Symbian^3 mobile operating system and it was the company's flagship device for the year. It was relea ...
(Big CMOS Sensor) camera, Nokia created a short film, ''The Commuter'', in October 2010. The seven-minute film was shot entirely on the phone's
720p 720p (1280×720 px; also called HD ready, standard HD or just HD) is a progressive HDTV signal format with 720 horizontal lines/1280 columns and an aspect ratio (AR) of 16:9, normally known as widescreen HDTV (1.78:1). All major HDTV broadcast ...
camera. A 14-megapixel
smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...
with 3× optical zoom was announced in late 2010. In 2011, the first phones with dual rear cameras were released to the market but failed to gain traction. Originally, dual rear cameras were implemented as a way to capture 3D content, which was something that electronics manufacturers were pushing back then. Several years later, the release of the
iPhone 7 The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are smartphones that were designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the tenth generation of the iPhone. They were announced on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Fr ...
would popularize this concept, but instead using the second lens as a wide angle lens. In 2012, Nokia announced
Nokia 808 PureView The Nokia 808 PureView is a Symbian-powered smartphone first unveiled on 27 February 2012 at the Mobile World Congress. It is the first smartphone to feature Nokia's PureView Pro technology, a pixel oversampling technique that reduces an im ...
. It features a 41-megapixel 1/1.2-inch sensor and a high-resolution f/2.4 Zeiss all-aspherical one-group lens. It also features Nokia's PureView Pro technology, a pixel oversampling technique that reduces an image taken at full resolution into a lower resolution picture, thus achieving higher definition and light sensitivity, and enables lossless zoom. In mid-2013, Nokia announced the Nokia Lumia 1020. In 2014, the HTC One M8 introduced the concept of having a camera as a depth sensor. In late 2016,
Apple An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
introduced the
iPhone 7 Plus The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are smartphones that were designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the tenth generation of the iPhone. They were announced on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Fran ...
, one of the phones to popularize a dual camera setup. The
iPhone 7 Plus The iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus are smartphones that were designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. They are the tenth generation of the iPhone. They were announced on September 7, 2016, at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Fran ...
included a main 12 MP camera along with a 12 MP telephoto camera which allowed for 2x optical zoom and
Portrait Mode Page orientation is the way in which a rectangular page is oriented for normal viewing. The two most common types of orientation are ''portrait'' and ''landscape''. The term "portrait orientation" comes from visual art terminology and describes ...
for the first time in a smartphone. In early 2018
Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...
released a new flagship phone, the
Huawei P20 Pro Huawei P20 and Huawei P20 Pro are Android smartphones manufactured by Huawei. Unveiled 27 March 2018, they succeed the Huawei P10 in the company's P series line. The P20 line is distinguished primarily by its cameras, which Huawei promoted as ...
, with the first triple camera lens setup. Making up its three sensors (co-engineered with Leica) are a 40 megapixel RGB lens, a 20 megapixel monochrome lens, and an 8 megapixel telephoto lens. Some features on the Huawei P20 Pro include 3x optical zoom, and 960 fps slow motion. In late 2018,
Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
released a new mid-range smartphone, the Galaxy A9 (2018) with the world's first quad camera setup. The quadruple camera setup features a primary 24MP f/1.7 sensor for normal photography, an ultra-wide 8MP f/2.4 sensor with a 120 degrees viewing angle, a telephoto 10MP f/2.4 with 2x optical zoom and a 5MP depth sensor for effects such as b`okeh.
Nokia 9 PureView The Nokia 9 PureView is a Nokia-branded flagship smartphone developed by HMD Global. It was introduced at the 2019 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain as a successor to the Nokia 8 Sirocco. It alludes to Nokia's previous camera-cen ...
was released in 2019 featuring penta-lens camera system. In 2019,
Samsung Electronics Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational corporation, multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of ...
announced the Galaxy A80, which has only rear cameras. When the user wants to take a selfie, the cameras automatically slide out of the back and rotate towards the user. This is known as a pop-up camera, and it allows smartphone displays to cover the entire front of the phone body without a notch or a punch hole on the top of the screen. Samsung,
Xiaomi Corporation (; ), commonly known as Xiaomi and registered as Xiaomi Inc., is a Chinese designer and manufacturer of consumer electronics and related software, home appliances, and household items. Behind Samsung, it is the second largest ma ...
, OnePlus, and other manufacturers adopted a system where the camera "pops" out of the phone's body. Also in 2019, Samsung developed and began commercialization of 64 and 108-megapixel cameras for phones. The 108 MP sensor was developed in cooperation with Chinese electronics company Xiaomi and both sensors are capable of
pixel binning Pixel binning, often called binning, is the process of combining adjacent pixels throughout an image, by summing or averaging their values, during or after readout. Charge from adjacent pixels in CCD image sensors and some other image sensors can b ...
, which combines the signals of 4 or 9 pixels, and makes the 4 or 9 pixels act as a single, larger pixel. A larger pixel can capture more light (resulting in a higher ISO rating and lower image noise). Under display cameras are under development, which would place a camera under a special display that would allow the camera to see through the display, such as
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 The Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 3 (stylized as Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3, sold as Samsung Galaxy Fold 3 in certain territories) is a foldable smartphone that is part of the Samsung Galaxy Z series. It was revealed by Samsung Electronics on August 11, 2 ...
.


Manufacturers

Major manufacturers of cameras for phones include
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
,
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure system ...
, ST Micro,
Sharp Sharp or SHARP may refer to: Acronyms * SHARP (helmet ratings) (Safety Helmet Assessment and Rating Programme), a British motorcycle helmet safety rating scheme * Self Help Addiction Recovery Program, a charitable organisation founded in 19 ...
,
Omnivision OmniVision Technologies Inc. is an American subsidiary of Chinese semiconductor device and mixed-signal integrated circuit design house Will Semiconductor. The company designs and develops digital imaging products for use in mobile phones, not ...
, and
Aptina Aptina Imaging Corporation was a company that sold CMOS imaging products. Their CMOS sensors were used in Nikon V1 (10.1 MP, CX format, 16.9x17.9 mm), Nikon J1, Nikon V2. By 2009 year Aptina had a 16% share of the CMOS image sensors mark ...
(Now part of
ON Semiconductor onsemi (stylized in lowercase; legally ON Semiconductor Corporation; formerly ON Semiconductor until August 5, 2021) is an American semiconductor supplier company, based in Phoenix, Arizona and ranked #483 on the 2022 ''Fortune'' 500 based on it ...
).


Social impact

Personal photography allows people to capture and construct personal and group memory, maintain social relationships as well as expressing their identity. The hundreds of millions of camera phones sold every year provide the same opportunities, yet these functions are altered and allow for a different user experience. As mobile phones are constantly carried, they allow for capturing moments at any time. Mobile communication also allows for immediate transmission of content (for example via
Multimedia Messaging Service Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) is a standard way to send messages that include multimedia content to and from a mobile phone over a cellular network. Users and providers may refer to such a message as a PXT, a picture message, or a multimedia ...
s), which cannot be reversed or regulated. Brooke Knight observes that "the carrying of an external, non-integrated camera (like a
DSLR A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera that combines the optics and the mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a digital imaging sensor. The reflex design scheme is the primary difference between ...
) always changes the role of the wearer at an event, from participant to photographer". The camera phone user, on the other hand, can remain a participant in whatever moment they photograph. Photos taken on a camera phone serve to prove the physical presence of the photographer. The immediacy of sharing and the liveness that comes with it allows the photographs shared through camera phones to emphasize their indexing of the photographer. While phones have been found useful by tourists and for other common civilian purposes, as they are cheap, convenient, and portable; they have also posed controversy, as they enable
secret photography Secret photography refers to the use of an image or video recording device to photograph or film a person who is unaware that they are being intentionally photographed or filmed. It is sometimes called covert photography. A person may be unawa ...
. A user may pretend to be simply talking on the phone or browsing the internet, drawing no suspicion while photographing a person or place in non-public areas where photography is restricted, or against that person's wishes. Camera phones have enabled everyone to exercise
freedom of speech Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recogni ...
by quickly communicating to others what they see with their own eyes. In most democratic free countries, there are no restrictions against photography in public and thus camera phones enable new forms of
citizen journalism Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, a ...
,
fine art photography Fine-art photography is photography created in line with the vision of the photographer as artist, using photography as a medium for creative expression. The goal of fine-art photography is to express an idea, a message, or an emotion. This stand ...
, and recording one's life experiences for facebooking or
blogging A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order ...
. Camera phones have also been very useful to
street photographers A street is a public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, ...
and
social documentary photographers Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives from ...
as they enable them to take pictures of strangers in the street without them noticing, thus allowing the artist/photographer to get close to subjects and take more lively photos. While most people are suspect of
secret photography Secret photography refers to the use of an image or video recording device to photograph or film a person who is unaware that they are being intentionally photographed or filmed. It is sometimes called covert photography. A person may be unawa ...
, artists who do street photography (like
Henri Cartier-Bresson Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as cap ...
did), photojournalists and photographers documenting people in public (like the photographers who documented the Great Depression in 1930s America) must often work unnoticed as their subjects are often unwilling to be photographed or are not aware of legitimate uses of secret photography like those photos that end up in fine art galleries and journalism. As a network-connected device, megapixel camera phones are playing significant roles in crime prevention, journalism and business applications as well as individual uses. They can also be used for activities such as
voyeurism Voyeurism is the sexual interest in or practice of watching other people engaged in intimate behaviors, such as undressing, sexual activity, or other actions of a private nature. The term comes from the French ''voir'' which means "to see". A ...
,
invasion of privacy The right to privacy is an element of various legal traditions that intends to restrain governmental and private actions that threaten the privacy of individuals. Over 150 national constitutions mention the right to privacy. On 10 December 194 ...
, and
copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, s ...
. Because they can be used to share media almost immediately, they are a potent personal content creation tool. Camera phones limit the "right to be let alone", since this recording tool is always present. A
security bug Security is protection from, or resilience against, potential harm (or other unwanted Coercion, coercive change) caused by others, by restraining the freedom of others to act. Beneficiaries (technically referents) of security may be of persons an ...
can allow attackers to spy on users through a phone camera. In January 2007, New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
announced a plan to encourage people to use their camera phones to capture crimes happening in progress or dangerous situations and send them to emergency responders. The program enables people to send their images or video directly to 911. The service went live in 2020. Camera phones have also been used to discreetly take photographs in museums, performance halls, and other places where photography is prohibited. However, as sharing can be instantaneous, even if the action is discovered, it is too late, as the image is already out of reach, unlike a photo taken by a digital camera that only stores images locally for later transfer. However, as the newer digital cameras support Wi-Fi, a photographer can perform photography with a DSLR and instantly post the photo on the internet through the mobile phone's Wi-Fi and 3G capabilities. Apart from street photographers and social documentary photographers or cinematographers, camera phones have also been used successfully by war photographers. The small size of the camera phone allows a war photographer to secretly film the men and women who fight in a war, without them realizing that they have been photographed, thus the camera phone allows the war photographer to document wars while maintaining her or his safety. In 2010, in
Ireland Ireland ( ; ga, Éire ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe. It is separated from Great Britain to its east by the North Channel (Grea ...
the annual "
RTÉ (RTÉ) (; Irish language, Irish for "Radio & Television of Ireland") is the Public broadcaster, national broadcaster of Republic of Ireland, Ireland headquartered in Dublin. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on RTÉ Television, telev ...
60 second short award" was won by 15-year-old Laura Gaynor, who made her winning cartoon, "Piece of Cake" on her
Sony Ericsson Sony Mobile Communications Inc. ( ja, ソニーモバイルコミュニケーションズ株式会社) was a multinational telecommunications company founded on October 1, 2001, as a joint venture between Sony Group Corporation and Ericsson. I ...
C510 The C510 is one of the mobile phones in Sony Ericsson's Cyber-shot series. Released on 7 January 2009, it was a successor to the K510i model. It is widely characterised as one of Sony Ericsson best non-smartphone devices released to the market. ...
camera phone. In 2012, director and writer Eddie Brown Jr. made the reality thriller ''Camera Phone'', one of the first commercial produced movies using camera phones as the story's perspective. The film is a reenactment of an actual case, and the names were changed to protect those involved. Some modern camera phones (in 2013–2014) have big sensors, thus allowing a street photographer or any other kind of photographer to take photos of similar quality to a semi-professional camera.


Camera as an interaction device

The cameras of smartphones are used as input devices in numerous research projects and commercial applications. A commercially successful example is the use of
QR code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...
s attached to physical objects. QR codes can be sensed by the phone using its camera and provide an according link to related digital content, usually a URL. Another approach is using camera images to recognize objects. Content-based image analysis is used to recognize physical objects such as advertisement posters to provide information about the object. Hybrid approaches use a combination of un-obtrusive visual markers and image analysis. An example is to estimate the pose of the camera phone to create a real-time overlay for a 3D paper globe. Some smartphones can provide an
augmented reality Augmented reality (AR) is an interactive experience that combines the real world and computer-generated content. The content can span multiple sensory modalities, including visual, auditory, haptic, somatosensory and olfactory. AR can be de ...
overlay for 2D objects and to recognize multiple objects on the phone using a stripped down
object recognition Object recognition – technology in the field of computer vision for finding and identifying objects in an image or video sequence. Humans recognize a multitude of objects in images with little effort, despite the fact that the image of the ...
algorithm as well as using
GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a Radionavigation-satellite service, satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of t ...
and
compass A compass is a device that shows the cardinal directions used for navigation and geographic orientation. It commonly consists of a magnetized needle or other element, such as a compass card or compass rose, which can pivot to align itself with ...
. A few can translate text from a foreign language.
Auto-geotagging Real-time geotagging refers to the automatic technique of acquiring media (such as photos, audio or video), associating a specific location with the media, transferring the media to an online map and publishing the media in real time. It is thus a ...
can show where a picture is taken, promoting interactions and allowing a photo to be mapped with others for comparison. Smartphones can use their front camera (of lesser performance as compared to rear camera) facing the user for purposes like
self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...
ure (
selfie A selfie () is a self-portrait photograph, typically taken with a digital camera or smartphone, which may be held in the hand or supported by a selfie stick. Selfies are often shared on social media, via social networking services such as ...
) and
videoconferencing Videotelephony, also known as videoconferencing and video teleconferencing, is the two-way or multipoint reception and transmission of audio signal, audio and video signals by people in different locations for Real-time, real time communication. ...
.


Laws

Camera phones, or more specifically, widespread use of such phones as cameras by the general public, has increased exposure to laws relating to public and private photography. The laws that relate to other types of cameras also apply to camera phones. There are no special laws for camera phones. Enforcing bans on camera phones has proven nearly impossible. They are small and numerous and their use is easy to hide or disguise, making it hard for law enforcement and security personnel to detect or stop use. Total bans on camera phones would also raise questions about freedom of speech and the
freedom of the press Freedom of the press or freedom of the media is the fundamental principle that communication and expression through various media, including printed and electronic News media, media, especially publication, published materials, should be conside ...
, since camera phone ban would prevent a citizen or a journalist (or a
citizen journalist Citizen journalism, also known as collaborative media, participatory journalism, democratic journalism, guerrilla journalism or street journalism, is based upon public citizens "playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, a ...
) from communicating to others a newsworthy event that could be captured with a camera phone. From time to time, organizations and places have prohibited or restricted the use of camera phones and other cameras because of the privacy, security, and copyright issues they pose. Such places include
the Pentagon The Pentagon is the headquarters building of the United States Department of Defense. It was constructed on an accelerated schedule during World War II. As a symbol of the U.S. military, the phrase ''The Pentagon'' is often used as a metony ...
, federal and state courts, museums, schools, theaters, and local
fitness clubs A health club (also known as a fitness club, fitness center, health spa, and commonly referred to as a gym) is a place that houses exercise equipment for the purpose of physical exercise. In recent years, the number of fitness and health ser ...
.
Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
, in April 2004, banned the sale of camera phones nationwide for a time before reallowing their sale in December 2004 (although pilgrims on the
Hajj The Hajj (; ar, حَجّ '; sometimes also spelled Hadj, Hadji or Haj in English) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried ...
were allowed to bring in camera phones). There is the occasional anecdote of camera phones linked to industrial espionage and the activities of
paparazzi Paparazzi (, ; ; singular: masculine paparazzo or feminine paparazza) are independent photographers who take pictures of high-profile people; such as actors, musicians, athletes, politicians, and other celebrities, typically while subjects ...
(which are legal but often controversial), as well as some hacking into wireless operators' network.


Notable events involving camera phones

* The
2004 Indian Ocean earthquake An earthquake and a tsunami, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami and, by the scientific community, the Sumatra–Andaman earthquake, occurred at 07:58:53 local time (UTC+7) on 26 December 2004, with an epicentre off the west coast of northern Suma ...
was the first global news event where the majority of the first day news
footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a ( often special) video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or ...
was no longer provided by professional news crews, but rather by citizen journalists, using primarily camera phones. * On November 17, 2006, during a performance at the
Laugh Factory Laugh Factory is a chain of comedy clubs in the United States. The chain is owned by Laugh Factory Inc., and the founder and current chief executive is Jamie Masada. Endurance record The Laugh Factory keeps track of an endurance record fo ...
comedy club, comedian
Michael Richards Michael Anthony Richards (born July 24, 1949) is an American actor, writer, television producer, and comedian best known for playing Cosmo Kramer on the television sitcom '' Seinfeld''. He began his career as a stand-up comedian, first enterin ...
was recorded responding to hecklers with racial slurs by a member of the audience using a camera phone. The video was widely circulated in television and internet news broadcasts. * On December 30, 2006, the execution of former Iraqi dictator
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
was recorded by a video camera phone, and made widely available on the Internet. A guard was arrested a few days later. * Camera phone video and photographs taken in the immediate aftermath of the
7 July 2005 London bombings The 7 July 2005 London bombings, often referred to as 7/7, were a series of four coordinated suicide attacks carried out by Islamic terrorists in London that targeted commuters travelling on the city's public transport system during the mo ...
were featured worldwide.
CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...
executive Jonathan Klein predicts camera phone
footage In filmmaking and video production, footage is raw, unedited material as originally filmed by a movie camera or recorded by a ( often special) video camera, which typically must be edited to create a motion picture, video clip, television show or ...
will be increasingly used by news organizations. * Camera phone digital images helped to spread the
2009 Iranian election protests After incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared victory in the 2009 Iranian presidential election, protests broke out in major cities across Iran in support of opposition candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi. The protests con ...
. * Camera phones recorded the
BART Police shooting of Oscar Grant Oscar Grant III was a 22-year-old African-American man who was killed in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2009 by BART Police Officer Johannes Mehserle in Oakland, California. Responding to reports of a fight on a crowded Bay Area Rapid ...
.


Camera phone photography

Photography produced specifically with phone cameras has become an art form in its own right. Work in this genre is sometimes referred to as ''iPhoneography'' (whether for photographs taken with an iPhone, or any brand of
smart phone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, which ...
). The movement, though already a few years old, became mainstream with the advent of the iPhone and its
App Store An App Store (or app marketplace) is a type of digital distribution platform for computer software called applications, often in a mobile context. Apps provide a specific set of functions which, by definition, do not include the running of the co ...
which provided better, easier, and more creative tools for people to shoot, process, and share their work. Reportedly, the first gallery exhibition to feature iPhoneography exclusively opened on June 30, 2010: "Pixels at an Exhibition" was held in Berkeley, California, organized and curated by Knox Bronson and Rae Douglass. Around the same time, the photographer Damon Winter used Hipstamatic to make photos of the
war in Afghanistan War in Afghanistan, Afghan war, or Afghan civil war may refer to: *Conquest of Afghanistan by Alexander the Great (330 BC – 327 BC) *Muslim conquests of Afghanistan (637–709) *Conquest of Afghanistan by the Mongol Empire (13th century), see als ...
. A collection of these was published November 21, 2010 in the ''
New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' in a series titled ''"A Grunt's Life"'', earning an international award (3rd) sponsored by RJI, Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute. Also in Afghanistan, in 2011, photojournalist
David Guttenfelder David Guttenfelder (born 1969) is an American photojournalist focusing on geopolitical conflict, conservation, and culture. He is currently a photographer with ''National Geographic'', based in Minneapolis. He is known for his photos of North Kore ...
used an iPhone and the Polarize application. In 2013, ''
National Geographic ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...
'' published a photo feature in which phoneographer Jim Richardson used his iPhone 5s to photograph the Scottish Highlands.


Camera phone filmmaking

Since they got their video cameras, smartphones came to be widely used for videography. Filmmakers gradually became interested in their capabilities. Mobile filmmaking is developing its own aesthetics due to its compactness, portability and its technological limitations that are being overcome every day by new implementations. Many filmmakers work with smartphones as the main camera for their films. Steven Soderbergh's films
Unsane ''Unsane'' is a 2018 American psychological horror film directed by Steven Soderbergh and written by Jonathan Bernstein and James Greer. The film stars Claire Foy, Joshua Leonard, Jay Pharoah, Matt Damon, Juno Temple, Aimee Mullins, and Amy I ...
Steven Soderbergh - Unsane exclusive interview. nline Available:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7zC9gfi60E and High Flying Bird were shot entirely on iPhone.


See also

*
Auxiliary memory Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing unit (CPU) of a computer ...
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Mobile phone accessories Mobile accessories include any hardware that is not integral to the operation of a mobile smartphone as designed by the manufacturer. Cases Cases, which are designed to attach to, support, or otherwise hold a smartphone, are popular access ...
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Modular smartphone A modular smartphone is a smartphone made using components that can be independently upgraded or replaced as modules. This aims to reduce electronic waste, lower repair costs and increase user comfort. The most important component is the main boar ...
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Smartwatch A smartwatch is a wearable computer in the form of a watch; modern smartwatches provide a local touchscreen interface for daily use, while an associated smartphone app provides management and telemetry, such as long-term biomonitoring. While ea ...
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Video editor A video editor is involved in video production and the post-production of film making. The video editor's responsibilities involve decisions about the selection and combining of shots into sequences, as well as the addition of accompanying sou ...


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* {{Mobile phones Digital cameras Mobile phones Mobile phones introduced in 2000 Japanese inventions de:Mobiltelefon#Kamera