In recent years the mobile phones we use have advanced at a rapid rate with more features, while becoming more sophisticated. Besides improvements with the displays and the processors that power them, one of the biggest developments seen is with the built-in cameras. This was taken to a new level recently with the announcement of the Nokia 808 PureView, which has led to fighting talk from camera maker Olympus.

Nokia’s new handset comes packing a massive 41 megapixel shooter, which according to an article on TechRadar has been described as “utter nonsense” by a spokesperson from Olympus. Mark Thackara from the company added that it was an “interesting attempt to get around the problem of cropping images on a phone”.

Cameras on cell phones don’t feature zoom lenses so they have to make do with a digital zoom, or cropping the image after it has been taken to get closer to the action. Better quality digital cameras on smartphones have led to a big fall in sales of compact digital cameras, especially the models that fall in the middle of the market.

A 41 megapixel image isn’t created on the Nokia 808 PureView; instead it uses technology to change a number of pixels into a larger but better quality pixel. Thackara added that because of the size of the lens images “will still be restricted”, he continued that without seeing any results it was hard to say by how much.

Thackara wants to try the Nokia up against a mid range camera in a variety of conditions to see what device comes out best. Olympus has a large range of compact digital camera products, and the company feels smartphones will never completely replace them because of the zoom technology.

Super zoom cameras have increased in numbers a lot lately as consumers look to find something better than what is on their smartphones. But the beauty of smartphone cameras is we normally always have them to hand to capture those special moments.

Do you think smartphone cameras will ever replace compact digital cameras?