Camera phone

A camera phone is a mobile phone which is able to capture photographs. Most camera phones also record video. The first camera phone was sold in 2000 in Japan, a J-Phone model, although some argue that the SCH-V200 and Kyocera VP-210 Visual Phone, both introduced months earlier in South Korea and Japan respectively, are the first camera phones.

Most camera phones are simpler than separate digital cameras. Their usual fixed-focus lenses and smaller sensors limit their performance in poor lighting. Lacking a physical shutter, some have a long shutter lag. Photoflash is typically provided by an LED source which illuminates less intensely over a much longer exposure time than a bright and near-instantaneous flash strobe. Optical zoom and tripod screws are rare and none has a hot shoe for attaching an external flash. Some also lack a USB connection or a removable memory card. Most have Bluetooth and WiFi, and can make geotagged photographs. Some of the more expensive camera phones have only a few of these technical disadvantages, but with bigger image sensors (a few are up to 1"), their capabilities approach those of low-end point-and-shoot cameras. In the smartphone era, the steady sales increase of camera phones caused point-and-shoot camera sales to peak about 2010 and decline thereafter. Most model lines improve their cameras every year or two.

Most smartphones only have a menu choice to start a camera application program and an on-screen button to activate the shutter. Some also have a separate camera button, for quickness and convenience. A few camera phones are designed to resemble separate low-end digital compact cameras in appearance and to some degree in features and picture quality, and are branded as both mobile phones and cameras.

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