HTC and the effects

 Staying on the aspect of photography and the HTC Wildfire's camera I've had a short and quick play with the various effects on the phone. Some of the effects are far more fun to use than others though I'll assume they each have their own function at times. Lets have a look at the pictures taken with the setting, they are all of the same fruit bowl placed in the same place just for comparison purposes.

This was the picture taken with out any effects on. This allows us all to see what the image "should" look like. Although, as with all the pictures on this site, it's not perfect it's here only for comparison purposes.

This is the image taken in taken in "Grayscale" and as you can see the colour has been completely drained out of the image in what is referred to as being taken in "black and white". This can be a great effect if used properly and when used in portraits it can make peoplem even me, look rather good.

"Sepia" turns things brown, it can be one of the more useful effects and can give a good aging feel to pictures. In the case of this setting it's not very useful though in some scenarios it's the best option to give the photograph some real character.

"Negative" looks something like this, it "flips" the colours, or if you rather it "inverts" them. The pictures taken this way can look rather cool (a picture taken at the very end of this article shows off some of the ability of a negative). The inverted colours can be pretty awesome though if used cleverly and a better photographer can really take some amazing pictures using the effect.

"Solarize" changes the photographs colours by inverting them in a different way to "Negative" although it's difficult to really explain by someone like myself all you need to really know is that it can give some great effects or some worrying effects. Looking at the oranges in this picture it looks like the oranges are rotting due to the effect.

"Posterize" is a funny effect that never really seems to look particularly great. The idea behind it is that the it makes tone really stand out from each other and is an incredibly artistic tool. In all honesty most folks just wanting to take general photos should avoid it as it rarely sees a novice photographer taking anything better than wasted shots.

This is the phones final effect and one called "Aqua". It gives the sense that photograph was taken in water and adds a blue tint to photographs. In this example it doesn't really add to the photograph though as with all the effects it can be used in the right scenario to great effect. If you like playing with effects this really could be one of the most interesting ones.

This was an image taken with the negative setting and was taken just to show off how cool the setting can be. It's inverted the colours to brilliant effect and used the images on the TV to give a pretty impressive scene. The lighting on the consoles have been reversed and on the whole this really is a fantastic little example of how good the negative effects are.

Sony Ericsson Shots

After yesterdays fun with the Fruit bowl I've gone Barmy with a bottle. These photos were all taken with a Sony Ericsson C902, like the Samsung Wave it has a 5 Mega-Pixel with a number of options to use and play with. Unlike last nights pictures these were mostly taken in good lighting with multiple bright lights rather than 1 pretty poor lamp. The photographs are of 3 different things, first a “Brahma” beer bottle on the living room floor, “Brahma” bottle on the table and thirdly of a cup of tea in the Kitchen. All 3 sets of images allow you to see different things and some of the pictures are significantly better than others.
 

 Out of the 3 "Tea" pictures taken (only 2 have been used) this was the best, the colours were the nearest to being true. Although detailed enough to read the writing on the microwave you can make out the reflections on the worktop and the crumbs. The detail, all not amazing is pretty decent

 For some reason the colours seemed to be drained out of this photograph. Although it has a similar amount of detail the colours being dark and murky have taken much of the life out of the image. The shadows on the doors do show up better but on the whole the image just feels lifeless in comparison to the one above. Although I'm not 100% sure on the difference I have a feeling this was taken with out the flash on.

 This one of the bottle on the floor is far from perfect though it's gotten most of the colours right, especially the carpet and the bottle. What it's done though has smudged the lighting on the BT Vision box (the Blue light under the TV). Overall it's good for the foreground though seems to have blurred the background slightly.

 This one is very similar to the one above though worse, the red light on the DVD player and the Blue light on the BT Vision box are both heavily blurred and the TV image, although visible also looks terrible in regards to the colours. The Focus seems almost certainly to have been set to the foreground (Auto) due to the way it's made the background look fuzzy.

 This one manages to make the lights in the background look sharper though they seem to "stretch" instead of blur. The quality and colours on the foreground are all pretty much the same as above with only the lighting in the background being of any major difference.

Out of the "Beer bottle on the floor" pictures this appears to be the best of them. Th colours in the forground are at their best and even the lights in the background are bright, sharp and they haven't been blurred like in many of the above pictures. It was almost certainly taken with light mode, which improves the quality of a photograph, though this has meant that the camera was left on the floor and as a result missed the TV from the image.

This one genuinely surprised me, it was taken with VGA quality and yet ends up looking like a pretty decent photo. If you try to blow it up though it really pixelates and is one of the photographs that should be kept at smaller sizes. The way it's picked up the reflection of the TV really shocked me as well, the reflect actually looks better than the TV.

This is probably my favourite picture from this bunch. The reflection of the TV is billiant, the details at the foreground are pretty good (not amazing though) though for it has overly brightened the wood on the mantle piece. The lights under the TV aren't particularly blurry either (they have a slight blur to them but nothing major).

This has significantly darkened the colours from the above picture and the result is that the lights in the background do look much, much crisper. The shadows on the table are a little bit over the top and the photograph is good but not great.

This one is probably the best overall, a look at the desk makes the items much easier to see (glasses, charger, lamp, another cell phone, a house phone, keys and packet) the background lights have only a little blurring and the reflection is picked up brilliantly. Again not a perfect picture but it's me taking them, not someone who knows what they are actually doing.

A little bit of a playing with the Samsung Wave Camera

I've had a very quick play with the camera of the phone and taken some photographs of the room I was where I was sat whilst writing a small beginners guide to using the camera function. These photographs aren't supposed to be masterpieces but are just to try and show the differences between what the Camera CAN do and how bad some photographs are with the phone. IF you know what you are doing (not that I actually do) you can take some fantastic pictures. These have just been taken with various settings to see the differences between a good photo taken with the correct settings and those taken with "bad" settings.

Terrible photo that was taken with a "macro" focus and the lowest resolution. As you can see it looks blurry and just not particularly good. This is a bad photo example we are using and one that was used in the article linked to above. The problems extend much deeper than the blurring effects, just look at the TV in the background to show the problems with this image.

Although this needs to be perhaps darkened slightly it's a much better picture of the same thing as the above picture. Whilst it's not ideal (remember this is me taking the photograph) you have gotten a much crisper image, if you view the image in full size you can visible see the lines on the table and the lights on the DVD player under the TV. As well as the difference in sharpness you can also make out the image on the TV and the cup is white instead of an off-white "dirty" colour.

When blown up this picture is strikingly blurry and that was due to making a really small movement when using night mode. The image although looks "acceptable" when viewed in a small image really doesn't look good at all when blown up and the blurriness really comes out. The features of the "Night" scene is that the picture takes a while to take and is high quality, though movement really blurs images.

 This is essentially a very similar picture to the one above though with out the phone being moved at all. The blurring is gone and it's incredibly smooth and crisp. Sadly with using the "Night" scene and needing to hold the camera still it had to be rested on the floor (hence the slight change in angle from the image above). "Night" scene really does increase the quality of a picture though if used properly.

This was taken with slightly different settings and as a result it lost some of the colour quality of the picture above. Whilst it's still "acceptable" it's not as good as the really good night mode one above. Again it's a crisp image though the colours are a little too bright.

This is an odd picture, I do rather like it for the way it shows the rotting orange off and the carpet looks "almost" right. Though it's focused very heavily on the foreground and as a result really neglects the background and looks darker than it should do. I class this as a good photograph though it's the qualities it has rather than anything technical that makes me like it.

 This is pretty much the opposite of the picture above. It shows the background well though the fruit and the fruit bowl are really bad amd dark. I dislike this one despite the fact it does show some of the background features. The problem is that the whole photograph is just too dark and the fruit is really terrible.

This one is simply too bright on the oranges and has overly brightened the carpet. The dark colours on the carpet "should" look rather deep red and instead they look really bright red and the even the rotting orange looks like it could just have been from the flash. Really terrible picture in terms of lighting even if it is relatively sharp.

This one was taken using the "macro" focus, and as you can see it's just blurry and horrific. Out of the "Orange bowl" pictures this is my least favourite as it's blurry, the colours are generally hit and miss and it's a just not very good.

This one is quite possibly the best of the photographs as it's got both the foreground and background looking good and the carpet, although not perfect is pretty accurate. The oranges don't overly reflect the flash and on the whole it's a pretty decent photograph for a complete amateur.

 This is a really poor picture, it almost looks as if it was taken in black and white (though it wasn't) and the colours just seem to be drained out of the image. It's an interesting one in regards of this blog entry though had it not been for this blog it'd have been deleted instantly.

This is probably the best one from a technical view point, the colours are all spot on and the image is crisp, true and sharp. Although not my favourite picture it is a solid image and really show off the ability of the camera. It's a photo that should be zoomed into to really see why it's the best image out of the orange ones.




Although it's pretty obvious I'm not a photographer these have all been taken with the same phone and you can see the vast difference between images from just playing with the settings. If you're a good photographer you will be able to get some very decent photographs out of the phone by using the right settings.