Phontography Week: Uploading Your Photos
So, we’ve helped you find tools to take better pictures, and showed you how to edit them directly on your phone, but now what? You want to share those photos, right? Of course! Clearly you could simply email them, or send them to someone via MMS, but what if you want to post them online, for all the world to see? That’s actually one of the areas in which S60v3 excels – allowing you to share your stuff, straight from your phone!
We’re going to look at a few options here, and allow you to choose the best option for your uses. In terms of *where* to upload your photos, there are two main options: Flickr and Nokia’s own Share on Ovi. Here’s a quick rundown of the differences:
| Flickr vs. Share on Ovi | ||
| Flickr | Share on Ovi | |
| Price | Free with limits, $25/year for unlimited | Free for unlimited |
| Albums | Yes, called ‘Sets’ | Yes, called ‘Channels’ |
| Geotagging | Supported | Supported |
| On-Site Editing Tools | Extensive, thanks to Picnik | Very Limited |
| Mobile Site | Yes | Yes |
| Privacy Settings | Yes, by album and individual photo | Yes, by album only |
| Mobile Upload | Yes, Multiple Options | Yes, Multiple Options |
To be completely honest, they’re really similar, and if you’re just looking for an online photo dump, they both work well. One thing that I personally prefer on Share on Ovi is the ease with which I can share a channel. For starters, the channel’s permalink is something rather obvious: http://share.ovi.com/channel/rcadden.channelname. That’s it. No random numbers or anything funky.
Both Flickr and Share on Ovi offer several uploading tools, including PC-based, web-based, and email. For uploading directly from your phone, there are really two options: ShoZu and Share Online. ShoZu is a free application, available here, and it works on a large number of phones. It also allows you to upload to the most sites, if neither Share on Ovi or Flickr really appeal to you, or if you’re already setup elsewhere. Share Online, on the otherhand, is currently limited to Nokia’s S60-powered smartphones, and even within that, there are some models that do not have the latest version. Share Online does allow you to upload to both Flickr and Share on Ovi, but that’s where they drew the line – other sites are possible, but require a bit more work.
In terms of features for the two applications, here’s another handy chart with some feature comparisons:
| ShoZu vs. Share Online | ||
| ShoZu | Share Online | |
| One-Click Upload | Yes, via pop-up | Yes, integrated into camera application |
| Automatic Upload | Yes | No |
| Geotagging | Supported | Supported |
| Background Uploading | Yes | Yes |
| Multiple Image Uploading | Yes, unlimited | Yes, up to 8 |
| Edit Photo Details (title, tags, etc) | Yes | Yes |
Personally, since I upload all of my photos anyways, I prefer ShoZu, simply set to automatically upload every photo I take with my phone. However, clearly not everyone likes that, and thus both applications allow you to manually click to upload a photo. ShoZu uses a pop-up, which can slow your phone down slightly, while Share Online is built into the camera application on newer firmwares and phones, so it’s very convenient.
What photo sites do you use, and how do you upload straight from your phone?
I realize the post is about photography, but what about video? I think Share on Ovi is one of the best places to store your photos and video. Flickr use to limit the length of uploaded video. I don’t know if it still does. With more phones/cameras supporting video as well, this is an important feature.
In the article you mention that adding “other sites are possible” to Share Online, but the link is dead… any possibility there is a way to add uploading to picasa web albums?
Any got Shozu working with Nokia E90? Have latest fw. Installed 2 times and all seems to install ok but when trying to start the app nothing is happening. It was very well working on E61i. Shozu support never answered my email about this issue.
i’ve been using picasa web albums by Google for a while now and love it’s ease of use but constantly running out of space (only 1GB free, or pay for more).
recently tried using Ovi setting up a private channel for some friends to share with. for some reason, even after adding them as authorised participants for the channel, they are still prompted for a userid and password. they aren’t members of ovi and non-members are sent a link where they can view the media, but that hasn’t happened for me. anyone know anything about this?
for now, i’ve resorted to buying space on picasa, but ovi certainly has potential.
I used Ovi on Share previously when it first setup. While I do admit that it is almost similiar to Flickr Pro in many ways, I was put off by the fear of Nokia start giving users ridiculous charges (based on how they charged for Nokia Maps) should they decide on subscription system.
When I see that Flickr is having a promotion on Pro accounts, I took the plunge and jumped over from Ovi. While I don’t use Ovi now, I would say that I am extremely pleased with the services Ovi provide.
For those who do not have a photo sharing account and do not wish to pay for Pro account in other Photo sites, Ovi is the one for you and your original-sized photos are preserved (contary to Flickr’s free account)
I use RedZebra Mobile – it doesn’t need anything downloaded onto my camera-phone but its galleries are great. Try its geo tagging (for that there is a small instal) http://www.redzebragps.com – nothing like it on the net. Open a free account by sending a picture by MMS to pic@redzeb.com . Could not be easier, quicker. Easy to share pics with all my friends, or use a seperate gallery to share with family!
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