I've just come back from a U2 gig, and one of the most striking parts of the light show was how much of the sparkle came not from the stage but from the camera phones littering the crowd.

The first sign was just as the lights went down before U2 came out. It was my first stadium gig since my last U2 gig — ZooTV. And that puts it as my first in the age of ubiquitous mobile handsets. As the lights dimmed it suddenly looked as though the gathered hordes were using mobiles as a substitute for cigarette lighters. What a healthy alternative! Of course, it was really an effort by all and sundry to capture the moment. Regardless of the quality of the camera phone at hand, everyone with a camera was eager to make the moment one for the ages.

Later in the gig, Bono called on everyone to take out their phones. Here's what happened:

Mobile ubiquity

I was at the concert as a guest of Nokia, so I thought it a chance to compare the lowly VGA of my RAZR with the 3.2Mp might of an N93. Shots are below, with only rescaling to fit the page applied. If I'd tried, I could have made the N93 look even better than it does here (and these were hardly ideal photo conditions).

Shot on a Nokia N93

Shot on a RAZR. Probably its best shot all night.

Another of many good shots from the N93

What this all demonstrated for me is how valuable the camera you have with you every day can be. We are being sold an all-singing, all-dancing HD ecosystem at the moment, and being told it's what we all want.

I think HD is very pretty. But the revolution right now is in creating our own content, wherever we are, whenever we want, and sharing it instantly with whoever we want. Quality is of minimal concern. That isn't meant to detract from what the N93 showed me tonight, either. Getting quality and creativity anywhere is something the likes of Nokia are capitalising on.

What is number one right now is whether my capture tools can come with me anywhere. A dSLR is nice. So is HDV. But when I can get pics and video, whether from my RAZR or my (I wish) N93, and send them instantly to friends, or Flickr, then that camera becomes far more valuable to me than a non-compact unit I left at home.