Since I was a little kid I wanted to be a spy, a common childhood fantasy that never leaves as we grow older, as evidenced by the never-dying popularity of spy films and James Bond.
One of the uses for a camera phone is, essentially, as an amateur spy camera. New York City, my home, arguably has the most vibrant street life in the United States. On a typical commute to or from work, you can run into movies and television shows being filmed; modeling shoots; brawls; protests; and a variety of other sights that make for a far more interesting daily existence.
In short, New Yorkers are rarely bored. When people tell us they can’t imagine living here because of all the crazy people, what makes one a New Yorker is not being able to imagine living without them. We love real life, and not the sanitized, behind-closed-doors living that people in many of the other 17 cities I’ve lived in seem to prefer.
Over the last few weeks I have devoted my blog space to testing the Samsung Memoir–what is supposed to be the best camera phone on the market–in various settings. Previous forays include a beach vacation on Fire Island (Grade: B); poet Eileen Myles reading at Blue Stockings (Grade: F); and the Charlie Parker Jazz Festival (Grade: C).
In this installment, I look at the camera’s use for amateur spying.
Samsung Memoir makes for a poor spy camera
The main problem with the Memoir as a spy camera is…it looks like a camera. Unlike virtually ever other camera phone on the market, when you point the Memoir at someone you look like you are taking their picture.
You can’t be a spy when you can’t camouflage your intentions, should you go noticed.
The second problem is the zoom. Samsung proclaims that it has a 16x digital zoom. That essentially means that the zoom is non-existent because it’s not optical zoom.
Proclaiming digital zoom as a feature is deceptive because it does exactly what you can do with editing software. The difference is that digital zoom does it far more poorly on the camera than if you took the full-frame and zoomed it using free photo editing programs like Picasa.
Let me repeat: Digital zoom is worthless; always look for optical zoom. It’s the only zoom that matters.
Finally, the lens quality is all over the place. You can’t use a flash for spying, and the Memoir’s autofocus uses a red beam that, when it lands on the subject, is instantly noticeable.
Spy photos on the subway
I used the subway over the last week as my spy photo testing ground. The goal was to take photos unnoticed. Many tourists come on the trains and take photographs of the “subway experience” so New Yorkers are used to it; however, to be a spy I had to go undetected. You can see below that the spy photos are all over the board in quality.
SAMSUNG MEMOIR CAMERA SUBWAY SPY TEST GRADE: D-
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Twitter: peteforsyth
says:
Yes, digital zoom is more of a bug than a feature. It shouldn’t even exist, just makes a complicated product even more complicated with no benefit.
Is there really no way to turn off the red beam?! If you stick your thumb over it, does it fail to focus? In the second photo above, you’ve been found out!! Secret agent compromised!!
Twitter: davidshankbone
says:
I agree, it shouldn’t exist. It’s a really simple camera, which is fine, so there’s not much ability to modify the factory settings.
From a spy’s point of view, fumbling to cover lights can make it look like your doing something weird with your hands, perhaps even something untoward. You’ll attract the subject’s attention, and probably other people’s. Besides, it’s difficult enough trying to look natural with what looks like a camera.
It seems like the Asian woman noticed, but she was just staring into space. And the other woman was just reading. I would never have posted an exposed spy shot. These are all genuine!