Get the most from your W710i's phone camera

The W710i’s 2-megapixel camera is activated by pressing the Camera button on the left-hand side of the phone or by select Camera from the main menu (Figure 1). When activated, you can capture a photo by pressing the Camera button again, by pressing the central navigation button or by pressing Capture (Figure 2).

You can control the camera’s settings during capture mode by pressing the More button, highlighting an option and clicking Select and selecting an option from the list. The camera modes are as follows:

• Shoot Mode (Figure 3) has four options
• Normal
• Panorama – this lets you take a sequence of three pictures, which are stitched together side by side to make a very wide picture. A ”ghost” image of the end of the previous picture is shown on the display to help you to line up the next one.
• Frame – this puts graphics on top of your picture
• Burst – this takes four pictures in rapid succession, to help you capture the perfect shot
• Picture Size (Figure 4) offers three options, 2 megapixel, 1 megapixel and VGA. The higher the resolution, the better the image quality, but larger photos will take up more room on the phone. There are no options to take lower resolution pictures to send via MMS, but in any case you’re prompted to resize high resolution pictures when you start to send an MMS.
• Night mode (Figure 5) optimises the camera for low light
• Self timer (Figure 6) is used to take a picture several seconds after you press the capture button – which is useful if you want to be in the frame
• Effects (Figure 7) allows you to change the colour of the picture – such as sepia or black and white.
• White balance sets the white level to avoid yellow or blue casts to the pictures
• Picture Quality (Figure 8) is used to change the amount of compression; normal lets you store more pictures, but at the expense of a more blocky look. Higher quality uses less compression, so it looks nicer but will take more memory.
• Shutter sound changes the sound that is made when a picture is taken
• Time and Date is used to add a visible date stamp to all of your photos
• Reset File No sets the automatic filename number (e.g. DSC00024.jpg) back to 1
• Save To (Figure 9) lets you choose if you’d prefer photos to be stored on the phone or the memory stick.

Clicking the left and right navigation keys when in capture mode switches between still photo and video capture mode. Clicking Record in video capture mode starts a recording; click Stop or Pause to end or pause the recording.

Once a picture has been taken, clicking the More key lets you edit your photo using PhotoDJ.

PhotoDJ is a set of tools for improving or modifying the photo after it has been taken. Using PhotoDJ you can adjust the brightness and contrast of the image, automatically remove red-eye (which isn’t particularly useful as this phone doesn’t have a flash), rotate the image, change the colouring (e.g. make it black and white) or add titles and clip art. You can find out more about PhotoDJ at Edit your photos using PhotoDJ.