Samsung Galaxy S2

[stevesayskanpai]

Yes, that's right! I'm asking about the mobile phone the Samsung Galaxy S2, and whether it's 8 megapixel camera and features rival a compact camera (obviously not one that is able to produce depth of field etc.)

I own a Nikon DSLR and lenses, but also want a point and shoot for trips (and also want to update my current mobile phone!)

I'm wondering if anyone has compared the results from a decent point and shoot with the photos from an S2, OR has an S2 and is particularly happy with it as a point and shoot camera in its own right.

Any advice you have is appreciated,

SSK

[Ruben123]

Youd be much better off with a Canon A1200...

[Jean-Pierre]

I went for the iPhone 4S which I think is in the same ballpark as the Samsung Galaxy S2.

In terms of megapixels, it is quite plenty. In terms of image quality of the lens, it's acceptable. The ISO performance is a bit worse than even a basic P&S, and you have no optical zoom.

For personal use, I have gotten good utility out of my iPhone, especially if I see a poster for an upcoming activity and want to remember the date / location / etc, you just snap a picture of it and move along. At family parties and other such events where you might not always have a real camera with you, it's better than not having any camera. If I can, though, I tend to bring a Canon S90 along (or have my wife put it in her purse), because it offers full manual settings, and is a bit better in darkness with a f/2.0 lens and slightly less bad mid-ISO performance.

But if you want to compare it to a Nikon D40 from 2006 and the 6.1 megapixels it provided, I've never played around with one, but I would definitely favour the D40.

To sum up, if you have enough light, and don't mind the constant focal length of the cell phones, you can take decent pictures / 1080p videos with them. The videos should be good enough to put on Youtube, but the pictures probably not good enough to use in most contests. When the light starts to fall off, it's usually not even worth taking a picture.

An iPhone 4s at 800 ISO and a Nikon D4 at 256000 ISO would probably be in the same ballpark for noise grain.

[jameswilby5]

If it's on par with the iPhone 4s I can tell you know that is more than good enough for everyday photos. I have been impressed with how far cameras and phones have come and during daylight the results can be pretty good. It's at night when the problems become apparent. The image becomes noisy, blurry and generally has a pretty bad exposure. Although that is to be expected. If your trips will involve general daylight shooting then the Galaxy S is probably good enough. If there will be some night time stuff you could use the flash (if it has one) to reduce the problems. If you have money spare for a proper compact then definitely go for that but otherwise you could save yourself some money. I use my DSLR for about 98% of my photos so personally would find the money spent on a compact camera wasted. I would much rather put this money towards another lens Just out of interest why is your DSLR not portable enough for trips?

[S Popovski]

Sorry for the late reply. I have two s2 and both have less IQ than iphone 4s. I'm not showing off, just indicating that there might be a problem with 1 model, but both of them have it. S2 is not good in low light, where the 4S is twice as good. I also have a HTC sensation which is better than S2, comparable to the 4s, but again the 4s has better iso performance. However when i upload the pics to my PC there isn't much difference between the 4s and Sensation pictures in daylight.

[Aldebournee]

I think Canon A1200 has more clear result than Samsung galaxy s2. As you know, S2 has low quality of camera than iPhone 4s. So my recommendation is Camera Canon A1200.