A smartphone journalists’ dream camera would have a responsive camera with quick controls and changeable lenses. We aren’t quite there, but the Motorola Droid X is getting closer.
The Motorola Droid debuted last November with a good camera.
The Motorola Droid X improves on this with an easier to use interface, larger preview screen, and a quicker processor that powers a faster shutter response and image processing even with cranking up the picture size to 8 megapixels.
Back is the mechanical shutter button at the natural top right position. This button is also a video start/stop button. Motorola has done away with the touch screen triggers, which I never used. A double finger squeeze, top and bottom, keeps things steady.
The rocker button, at top left, is used for zooming in the stills.
The familiar effects and scenes are back tailoring camera modes to different situations, adding steady shot. Scenes, Effects, Flash Mode and Video Switcher are front and center with big buttons (no sliding like the first generation Moto Droid). Tap the view screen at any time to layer these large function buttons and a tiny preview of the last still/video shot.
The mechanical Android menu button takes you into advanced functions.
There is multi-shot burst that will shoot about six 1 MB frames in less than half a second.
A self portrait mode that uses face detection to focus.
A slick panorama mode with, auto detection of the seams while you pan, allows you to select the direction of pan, right left, up and down !
Focus for the still camera is center weighted by default with a user selected tap to focus point.
I shot several comparisons with the first generation Motorola Doid and the picture quality is very similar, excellent macros.
ISO equivalent sensitivity on the Droid X is selectable between 100-800 with an auto function.
The Droid X screen has a neutral color cast, slightly warmer than the first generation Moto Droid and appears brighter when a phone should be brighter using the auto screen brightness function.
The dual flash is warmer than most LED smartphone flashes I have tested. It looks almost yellow when it flashes, but tends to give a more natural blend of flash and ambient light than the usual blue cast common with phone cameras.
Built in still frame function grabs 1280 x 720 stills from the HD video
The 8 MP image helps brings in a closer pixil zoom. In a comparison with the original 5 MP Moto Droid, the maximum zoom has a larger file size which should yield a better photo in full zoom.
A photo that is 3264 pixels wide also gives the user the ability to crop content using the provided photo tools built into the Droid X.
For example: I need a 500 pixel wide photo to post a spot news photo to ydr.com. By cropping a photo with so many pixils, I can make up for the fact that I don’t have a zoom and still get a decent photo.
The last photo in this post was cropped at less than 1/4 of it’s original size and still needed to be downsized to fit in this blog post.
