Kyle Cassidy’s take on the iPhone’s camera, from his iPhonetography site:

THE CAMERA THAT COMES WITH THE iPHONE IS TERRIBLE

Many people decry it’s smallish megapixel count (3), but really, as any serious digital photographer will tell you, size doesn’t matter. The most frustrating thing about the image that comes from the iPhone is the noise. Not audible noise, but digital grain. That, and it’s slow response time, and of course, the lack of control: apart from aiming the camera and depressing shutter button, the user doesn’t have any control over aperture (fixed at 2.8) focal length, shutter speed, or even ISO, which swings from ~70 into the 1000+ range as it wants. The 3Gs has a “press here to focus” option that does adjust the exposure, but seems to refocus as it sees fit afterwards, more taunt than feature.

 

IT’S A PHONE FOR CRYING OUT LOUD

The iPhone was never meant to be a camera in any sense of the word photographers would be confused by. It’s a telephone, the fact that it takes pictures at all is somewhat remarkable. But with the extreme credibility of nearly every other part of that device, it’s a bit wonderous that the camera is so bad.

The camera is so bad.

Which leads to…

THE CHALLENGE

One of the best ways to get an artist to do something is to tell them that they can’t.

The strongest feature that the iPhone has, as not only a camera, but a device in general, is the ability for people to program for it. Around the world photographers and programmers have gotten together to write apps that fill in the gaps where the phone fails. Some are goofy, some are powerful, some are downright clever. And together, this terrible phone and these clever people will meet to make something that is greater than the sum of it’s parts…

…Give us a lousy camera, and we will show you beautiful things.