Sony Ericsson K660i camera samples

The Sony Ericsson K660i is a decently-equipped 3G phone that's optimised for web browsing, but its camera capabilities are average for a Sony Ericsson mid-ranger. It has a 2-megapixel camera on the back panel and a small secondary video call camera on the front, above the display, but its imaging functionality is limited compared to Sony Ericsson's Cyber-shot of camera-centric handsets.

The 2-megapixel on the K660i's back panel lacks extra illumination via a flash or photo light, so low light shooting quality is poor. There is a Night Shot option within the settings options to improve low-light snapping, but while this brightens images, picture quality is still grainy and not sharp.

Autofocus is also absent, curtailing the ability to focus on one particular part of an image; instead, the fixed focus lens means you effectively point and shoot. Similarly, without a macro shooting mode, you can't take sharp close up pictures of subjects.

There is a zoom facility - up to 4x digital enhancement - but this isn't usable on the highest quality 2-megapixel setting, only when you're in low quality VGA shooting mode.

The K660i's has a dedicated button on the side to fire up the camera, with the phone automatically switching to landscape mode. This utilises the whole of the display for viewfinder image framing. The K660i is also able to capture video on the camera at maximum QVGA (240x320 pixels) quality, at 15 frames per second.

The softkeys and control D-pad can be used to navigate the various camera settings options. As well as the default automatic settings, you can adjust white balance for various indoors or outdoors lighting conditions (daylight, cloudy, fluorescent, incandescent), and brightness levels can be tweaked up or down too.

Picture size can be changed from the lowest setting VGA (640x480 pixels) to 1 megapixel (1280x960 pixels) or to the largest sized default option, 2 megapixels (1600x1200 pixels). You can select multi-shot or panormamic shooting too, although these are only possible at VGA resolution. Similiarly, you can add illustrated frames around pics at the lowest quality setting.You can add colour effects to images before shooting too, with options for black and white, negative or sepia effects. A standard self-timer is built in too.

Once you've taken shots, you can adjust  them with an automatic Photo fix option, or do a bit more in-phone editing using the K660i's PhotoDJ software. This allows you to adjust light balance, brightness and contrast, and colour balance, and you can rotate images or add effects or impose clip-art or text on shots.

Image quality
While this allows you to make some adjustments to images, you're always limited by the quality of images you start with. The 2-megapixel camera used here enables you to take some reasonable snaps. However, the level of detail you can capture is limited.

With good lighting, the camera does a good job of rendering colours brightly and vividly. Subtle changes in lighter tones are sometimes not dealt with well by the automatic system - demonstrated here  in some examples here of patchy colour in sky shots.

The limitations of the K660i's camera become obvious in poorer lighting situations; even indoors shots with reasonable natural light invite more picture noise and image quality deteriorates further in night or dark situations. Anyone wanting to take shots on a night out will be disappointed with results from this cameraphone.

Overall, while the K660i's shots can be acceptable, it isn't one of Sony Ericsson's better camera set-ups. If high quality imaging is a key buying factor for you, you'd be advised to check out its Cyber-shot range.

Sony Ericsson K660i review