I recently picked up an LG KU990 Viewty from CPW, the discussion and details are on this Talk3G thread, I won't go into it here.

However, what I did want to touch on briefly was the Viewty's camera, a 5 megapixel job that was, in its day, fairly unique. If I recall correctly the only other camera of matching spec was the Nokia N95.

The Viewty's is an ISO800 sensor with image stabilizer and lens by Schneider-Kreuznach, quite serious optics for a cameraphone. In use as a camera the Viewty actually looks like any high-street compact digital camera, all of the phone bits are on the "back" of the camera (or is it that the camera is on the back of the phone ).

I decided to grab a few stills and a video taken at the highest capability of the camera. The day was overcast but bright, there was no direct sunlight which is pretty ideal conditions for taking pictures. Light levels and contrasts were all nice and even. So a quick trip out into the garden and the main road nearby was called for. I wanted to take both nature and industrial images for comparison.

I was suitably impressed with the stills, they are accurate if not just a touch over-bright in the natural shots. I think this adds value to the image though and takes nothing away from it. The high quality optics are apparent when zooming in portions of the image where pixellation occurs only at quite large magnifications.

The video shoot left me wanting more. I cant help but be left with the feeling that the digital imaging for video is a very poor second cousin to the stills. I found the video of not much more than VHS quality, if that even. Even when not panning the focus was very soft, to the point of rendering car numberplates completely indistinct. It was very disappointing and I feel that the video capability could not be used for anything more than when needs really dictate - i.e. that there are no other sources of video recording to hand.


Well thats enough of my twitterings, judge for yourself at my Talk3G set on Flickr. The 60-second video is also there to be seen.

The Slideshow is also available from this link here