iPad 2 Cameras

The quality of the cameras in the new iPad 2 has been a somewhat large topic in the past few weeks. I’ve been using the iPad 2 for about 3 weeks, so here is my view of the cameras.

Front-Facing Camera

The front-facing camera in the iPad 2 isn't anything special, but it does a fine job at the main task that it is meant to do. Video calls are the main reason for having a front-facing camera on a tablet, and the camera in the iPad 2 is just as good for video calls than the cameras in most laptop computers (excluding the new MacBook Pros with HD cameras). The front-facing camera is also used for photo booth, and I really wish that the camera could shoot at a higher resolution for using the awesome effects that Photo Booth offers.

Back-Facing Camera

The back-facing camera in the iPad 2 is fairly good at shooting video at 720p HD. It doesn't record in full 1080p HD, but 720p HD is still pretty good for a tablet. I think the the video quality is good in comparison to many other portable electronics (full camcorders excluded). The camera takes in a good amount of light, and I feel that it does a fairly good job with colors. You're probably not going to be doing too much recording on your iPad 2, so the back-facing camera is good enough for the times that you might need to use it to record.

Moving on to the picture quality of the back-facing camera. The picture quality is no where near great when using the back-facing camera. It shoots very low resolution photos, and bright colors are not captured very well (as seen in the picture quality video). The picture quality seems to be better when capturing landscape type pictures than when capturing close up pictures. I think that the back-facing camera does a good job of capturing video, but I feel that Apple could have done a better job with the back-facing camera for taking pictures. The bottom line is that most people won't be taking pictures or shooting video with the iPad 2, and the picture/video quality is good enough that it will work if you're in a pinch and you need a camera of some sort.

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