Cell Phones Boost Digital Photography's Image
Posted on: Wednesday, 31 August 2005, 21:00 CDT
Aug. 31--Digital cameras are getting an image boost from an unlikely source: cell phone cameras.
Interest in digital cameras is going up in direct relation to the growth in sales of cell phones that also take pictures, a new survey by technology market analyst IDC shows.
The Mobile Imaging Survey, made public this week, shows that well over a quarter of camera phone users were inclined to buy a digital camera because their experience with the camera phone made them less intimidated by digital photography.
The findings refute earlier speculation among market and industry analysts that camera phones eventually would replace digital cameras. Since the first camera phone appeared in late 2000, the image quality has improved, approaching that of some digital cameras.
Camera phone users like to snap pictures anywhere, anytime and send them immediately by e-mail.
Still, users prefer a digital camera for "keepsake" pictures, such as family portraits and vacation snapshots, IDC discovered.
Those keepsake images also are the pictures that camera phone users are most likely to save and print at home, the survey found. Consequently, fewer camera phone images are being printed, dropping to an average of one every three months now from one a month last year.
IDC's research appears to match, in part, studies cited earlier this year by Eastman Kodak Co. on camera phone habits. The company discovered that more than 70 percent of camera phone users rarely move images into a computer for archiving or printing later.
Camera phones outsell digital cameras about four to one, but they aren't the source of most digital images. About 7.5 billion images will be taken with camera phones this year, compared with an estimated 40 billion from digital cameras, IDC said.
The survey analyzed responses from 150 people nationwide, mostly 25- to 44-year-olds; it was weighted to reflect the nation as a whole.
-----
To see more of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.stltoday.com.
Copyright (c) 2005, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.
For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Related Articles
- Easy-to-Use Service Provides Self-Protection and Safety Alerts to Friends and Family Through the Click of a Cell Phone's Camera
- Nikon's D5000 Digital SLR Camera Expands Possibilities for Photo and HD Video Creativity with D-Movie Mode, Vari-Angle LCD Monitor and 19 Automatic Scene Modes
- Aerial Surveys International Acquires Second Intergraph(R) Digital Mapping Camera
- World's First 4K 3D Digital Cinema Camera System For Studio, Location, and Underwater Filming With RED(TM) Cameras
- Sakar Debuts New Vivitar Cameras, Digital SLR Lenses & Flashes
- Avago Technologies Announces Industry's Thinnest Autofocus LED for Use in Digital Still Cameras and Camera Phones
- Chinese Manufacturers Poised To Increased Their 73% Share Of The Global Digital Still Camera Market
- Texas Instruments Demonstrates D-SLR-Like Performance in Low-Cost, Point-and-Shoot Digital Still Cameras With DaVinci(TM) Technology
- Silicon Imaging Announces World's First Digital Cinema Camera With Direct-to-Disk 10-Bit CineForm RAW(TM) Recording and Adobe(R) Production Studio Integration
- Matsushita to Release Smallest 3-CCD Digital Video Camera
 |
 |
User Comments (0)
RSS Feeds