Phone-Scoping: some comments, results and reviews
By Adam Scott Kennedy (info (AT) ultimatepelagics.com)
OK, I admit it. I sniggered when I first saw András Fodor’s image of a Red-throated Diver on Surfbirds in December 2003. There was little wrong with the image – it was the accompanying notes which made me smile:
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"This picture was taken by mobilephone. Comming soon the Phonescoping Age!" (sic)
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| Red-throated Diver from Surfbirds European Galleries by András Fodor |
I doubt I was alone in thinking "Whatever next?"
It wasn’t until I threatened to say "adios" to my mobile phone network provider (y’know, the one whom Mr Beckham does commercials for), that I had ever considered owning a camera phone. It always seemed like a awful waste of money. But these companies can be very persuasive when you’re insisting on changing providers. In May 2004, they insisted on reducing my monthly bill by 50% and giving me a top of the range camera phone - for free. It was all too easy!
My new toy was a Sharp GX20. For a mobile phone, it takes incredibly good photos and it was not long before I was the envy of the office. As well as taking great snaps of my lovely Nan, I soon discovered that it was also capable of quite good shots of birds too – albeit rather close ones to start with.
These Mute Swans were taken on a bright Summer day in Devon and I was very impressed with the way in which both the light and the colours were handled by the camera-phone.
It wasn’t long before I was taking images through my Leica bins and then a Leica scope. It
took a little getting used to, mainly because of the shape of the phone itself. The small antenna feels awkwardly placed when holding the phone up to the eyepiece like you would any digital camera when digi-scoping, but after some practice you learn to deal with it.
My first phone-scoped rarity came in the guise of a Baird’s Sandpiper at Stithians Reservoir in September 2004. The bird, along with several Dunlin, was fairly tame and allowed approach to around 20 feet (since I didn’t want to flush the bird, I didn’t push my luck any further than that). My first few images were reasonably sharp but distant, as well as capturing some of the inside of the scope. I decided to try the camera’s in-built 4x digital zoom facility - the differences in both scale and resolution are quite apparent. It is also worth mentioning that the weather conditions were very overcast and quite windy.
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This particularly tame Dunlin enabled me to see just how much feather detail it is possible to capture on a small bird using phone-scoping methods. I was pleasantly surprised by the quality, but was kicking myself afterwards when I realised that the ‘image quality’ setting was only set to normal instead of fine. So it does get better than this! |
A week or so later, after reading about the latest generation of camera-phones that had mega-pixel resolution, I decided to contact the very nice people at the Nokia Press Office and asked to take their new 7610 model for a test-drive.
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The camera spec on this Nokia phone reads very well; a megapixel camera with a 7x digital zoom. |
That’s all well and good but how does this machine compare to my trusted Sharp? In particular, I was keen to find out exactly how good the zoom facility is, so I decided to test the two cameras on a long range subject – this Cormorant (arrow in photo below).
| Image 1 (Nokia, with no zoom) |
Image 2 (Sharp, with no zoom) |
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| Image 3 (Nokia, 7x digital zoom) |
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Image 1 (Nokia, with no zoom) has obvious light problems; the dark ring of the optic has caused the centre of the image to appear ‘bleached out’, which is of little use when the subject is framed in the centre of the image. Image 2 (Sharp, with no zoom) doesn’t suffer from this problem at all, and the images appears evenly-lit, even though there is still some interference from the optic in the top left of the shot.
In Image 3 (Nokia, 7x digital zoom), the power of the camera’s zoom facility can clearly be seen, but the problems highlighed in Image 1 are still apparent. I.e. the image has remained bleached. This is to be expected with a digital zoom (vis-a-vis a true zoom) because the image is acquired by using the pixels in the centre of the image and making them larger. The bird was disturbed by a train before I captured an image using the Sharp at full digital zoom (4x), so I changed location and moved onto some closer range birds.
Images 4-6 illustrate the digital zoom facility of the Nokia 7610 pretty well, starting with no zoom, through 4x and then 7x. Although some colours appear washed out, much of the feather detail remains, which is what’s most important when writing a detailed description for any rarity, and this is where I feel the phone-cameras come into their own; you don’t have to be carrying your standard digi-scoping rig around with you, just your phone in your pocket. Image 7 was taken with the Sharp GX20 and although I prefer this camera’s images, problems with light bouncing inside the lens (scope) clearly occur.
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| Image 4 Nokia 7610 No Zoom |
Image 5 Nokia 7610 4X zoom |
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| Image 6 Nokia 7610 7X Zoom |
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| Image 7 Sharp GX20 |
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These Moorhen shots, Images 8 and 9, were taken on Nokia and Sharp respectively. Here, I feel that that the Nokia outperformed the Sharp, but there are plus and minus points to each image.
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| Image 8 Nokia 7610 |
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| Image 9 Sharp GX20 |
Herring Gulls on open water were my final subject of the day. Image 10 was taken through the Nokia 7610 without any zoom and Image 11 was taken on the same phone with full 7x digital zoom. Like other digital cameras, I find there are trade-offs using camera-phones. The less zoom you use, the sharper the image and, generally, the better the light handling, and I think both of these points can be seen on these comparative images.
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| Image 9 Nokia 7610 without any zoom |
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| Image 10 Nokia 7610 7X zoom |
In summary, I have to admit that I now agree with Andras’ statement that the age of Phone-scoping is here; the cameras are now mega-pixel and the quality of images can be superb. Out of the two phones I have tried, I must confess to prefering the Sharp GX20 for usability and the quality of the images. I undertstand that Sharp’s new GX40 is even better and unlike my GX20, it is mega-pixel. The Nokia 7610 didn’t respond well to the poor light conditions of the day but given the opportunity in a brighter environment, it may well perform much better (read Andy Birch's Review of the Nokia 7610 here). I would strongly encourage you all to test-drive several phones before buying one and, better still, ask your network provider what deals they can do for you in terms of upgrading your current phone to a top camera-phone. And if you are not bound by any annual contracts, see if your provider will offer you a new phone for free as an incentive to stay with their network – it worked for me it should work for you.
Like digi-scoping, I think it takes some getting used to but once you’ve settled with the right phone, you’ll be taking great images and will never have to miss taking that all-important record shot of your local rarity. I look forward to seeing more phone-scoped rarities on Surfbirds.
Please help us to develop this and post your cellphone photos in our Phonescoping Gallery by sending images from your phone to  |
