As a long-time hobbyist photographer, I've had a lot of the same thoughts. Cell phone cameras are getting really good for the 90% use case. My new Samsung S20 Ultra almost feels like a 'real' camera in some situations and it's really cool to have that available in my pocket all the time. But its limitations are also constantly frustrating because there's a lot it can't do just because of physics.
But one point I'd add - I also find it very frustrating how having an 'almost good enough' phone camera it makes it harder to justify bringing a real camera along to regular day-to-day activities. If your phone is good enough most of the time, you don't want to lug around an extra device unless you are specifically doing a photo shoot. But then when something interesting happens and you can't capture the photo you envision on your phone, it drives me crazy.
> makes it harder to justify bringing a real camera along to regular day-to-day activities.
Back in the film days, pretty much nobody lugged around a camera to regular activities, it was only brought out for special events and the trip to Disneyland. This persisted even with digital cameras.
But the phone camera changed everything.
The worst photos are the ones you never took because you didn't bring the camera.
I tended to have a camera with me for years too--though I really slowed down after I no longer had easy access to a B&W darkroom. But that wasn't the mainstream case.
To Americans, the Japanese taking snapshots at every opportunity (including business meetings--OK we mostly don't do that) was notably odd behavior. Today, I'm sure just about any random nationality takes far more.
I have lots of dedicated camera equipment but most of that is for event, travel, or dedicated photography of some sort. If I know I'm going to be on a trip where I'm going to just be taking random memory pictures, I mostly just bring my phone.
For a rangefinder style, there's the Fuji X100 series (the latest being X100V). They are not really pocketable though.
But for a big sensor compact that is truly pocketable, nothing beats the Ricoh GR series with its APS-C sensor (the latest being the Ricoh GR III). The older model (GR II) can still be had for under $400, which is a screaming value.
Nothing that's a rangefinder AFAIK. There's something like a Fujifilm X-E3 with the pancake lens. So more like a Leica form factor than an Olympus XA. There are also the high-end P&Ss. But I haven't run across anything that gives you both the control and the pocketability of an Olympus XA.
The FUJIFILM X100 probably comes closest to rangefinder translated to digital with a fixed lens. But a bit bigger again. And it's IMO a whole lot of money for a specialized camera.
Well any kind of random consumer point and shoot like a PowerShot will give you equivalent image quality to the XA in an even smaller package. But the design elegance and "coolness" of the XA you will not find in digital. The self-timer lever acts as a little "foot" that stabilizes the camera when you're resting it somewhere for a self-timer picture!
I have the RX100 M5, and I love it[1]. I can fit it in my pocket if I'm wearing loose pants, but the lens sticks out 1 cm from the body and it's just a little bit too bulky to be comfortable, even in a jacket pocket.
But I got a neck strap for it, and the camera is light enough that I can barely tell it's there. That's how I'll use it on a hiking trip, and sometimes I'll even take photos by looking down at the flip-up screen.
[1] I don't love the menu-driven UI though, or the digital lens ring control. But however much of a compromise the pop-up digital viewfinder is, it works great in bright sunlight when the screen gets washed out, or when I need to hold the camera close to me for a steady shot.
I used to be big on viewfinders... until I had to get reading glasses. Even though my cameras with VFs have diopters, I find myself just looking over my regular glasses and touching the screen to focus and shoot.
I had to buy a new phone this year to replace one. Because it was one of the smallest packages for what I wanted, I got myself a Samsung Note 10. (Srsly, why must phones now be that big, that the regular note series looks small?)
Also I did had some small travel plans this year for every second weekend, where I wanted take my Pentax SLR out or buy myself a Sony Rx100 if space in the backbag runs out. (Moved to next year.)
But now? I'm not sure.
Yes, the dslr with its bigger sensor would be better suited to get more details in each pic and would be a much easier tool to use. But, there aren't really visible on your averaged sized print. And as long my trip isn't focused on getting pictures of animals, I don't need more reach than the short-/portrait- tele lens from the phone already provides.
But I save myself massively on packing space, weight, theft prevention and stress.
And the last point I think is the biggest deal in the end. If I travel to relax, I don't want to focus on getting the best out of my equipment to justify bringing it.
(Or worse have to listen to others unasked opinion about my equipment choices.) A phone does the job and gets out of the way.
Sending pics home from a dslr? I hope you got your notebook with you and 1-2 hours in your hotelroom. I'm already done on the phone...
> Sending pics home from a dslr? I hope you got your notebook with you and 1-2 hours in your hotelroom. I'm already done on the phone...
not sure if you ever had a modern camera (e.g. <5 y.o.), but with my Canons the hotel room is still nice (because somehow most cams don't spit out 2MB 24megapixel images strangely), yet sharing is supereasy with an android phone. start the app, hit the transfee button on the cam, do a NFC-bump, download. Granted this is not suuper fast (mainly because the images are large and getting 20MB+ transfer on portable device Wifi is a quite recent thing), but it works as convenient as 2 devices not mandatorily linked will work togetherm
The workflow to download photos is exactly the same on my Sony A6000 on iOS. You have the ability to send individual photos, or a group (like all the photos from a particular day). Moving them on the phone is nice because you can then open them up in something like Lightroom mobile, along with being able to see everything on a nice high resolution screen.
Wireless transfer works great when it's just a few photos, but takes too long if I need to transfer 200 of them. When that happens, I just pop out the SD card, put it in this[1] card reader and plug it in to my phone so I can transfer them manually.
An Olympus OMD with a fast prime will fit in a purse or other small bag. The PENs are smaller yet, though you give up "prosumer" features. I can fit 2 bodies, 3-4 lenses, and accessories in my carry-on (mid-sized backpack), along with my iPad or laptop, windbreaker, snacks, and other normal travel stuff.
The Fujis are a bit larger (body and glass), but with a larger sensor. But, they are really, really good. The X100 line is amazing for what it is - several friends use it as their main carry-around camera (even thought they own XT bodies and nice glass).
Do you happen to own one? I've seen reports of slow interface and laggy AF, which is off-putting. But, the features on paper (with price point) are really compelling.
"The best camera is the one you have with you." - Unknown
Photographer here. Cell phones have become very capable cameras. I've seen whole segments of my client list evaporate with the last generation of camera phones. The last straw was when the iPhone got portrait mode and could render bokeh/blur like lens physics.
Two things though...
1. The phone cameras are really really good. In the right hands, professionally capable in many situations. You don't need to know the basics of photography/physics to operate a camera phone properly. It helps, but the average person can just point and shoot with solid results.
2. We mostly just publish to social media now. The need for extremely detailed, high quality media work is diminishing at the bottom line. The market is changing. The quality in which we document is shifting. 8K is a buzz word, not an archival format for future proofing.
There isn't a cell phone in the world that could even touch the capabilities of a high end DSLR or Mirrorless camera, but that simply just doesn't matter now.
Also photographer here, I disagree that it doesn't matter. There are some things that you can't do[0] with a phone, e.g. good low-light shots, astrophotography, different lenses, etc.
Yes, I have a phone with me, and it's great for when I forgot my camera, but there is no comparison in the freedom that the 5D gives me in postprocessing compared to a phone sensor. Phones are great for 100% of the things the average user wants, but not enough for what many artists want.
[0] It's not technically impossible, but it's a huge hassle and probably won't be near as good as with cameras.
> Also photographer here, I disagree that it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter to the people who would previously have paid for a product. That's the point being made.
Technical excellence will always matter to some, but the point the GP is making is that the quality of smartphones has reached a level where a larger and larger segment of 'people who would have paid' now rest within the smartphone circle on the Venn diagram.
I can sympathize with OP's post even if it was not precise. I feel like he was dejected about the fact that the mass market has previously subsidized the DSLR R&D and now that that evaporated the future of DSLRs is grim. But I don't think it's quite at the level of horse carriages :)
Does it not depends on the level of photographers? Assuming there is level 1 to 10 in DSLR users, surely there would be some DSLR users that flagship cell phone has reached a point where it doesn't matter to them?
I have been wonder at what point will Phones camera reached the law of diminishing return? I thought the iPhone 11 with night mode finally closed the gap for most consumers, we have a roadmap for another 5 years of Lens, Optical Zoom, and Sensors with better light sensitivity.
Apple likes to hype up features, but they still haven't come out and claim they have a DSLR like Camera system. I wonder when they will do that.
> Does it not depends on the level of photographers?
No, it depends on what you want to do. If you want to do street photography, for example, even as a novice, you're going to have a much easier time using a longer lens so you don't get near your subjects and ruin your shots by drawing attention.
No, I more meant that it's a huge hassle. For example, with the phone you can't compose very well because you have to wait for each frame to expose before you can make a correction. With the SLR viewfinder, you can just look and see what's going on. Then you have the issue of not being able to capture a specific area using a narrower lens (if your subject requires it), and just the experience is going to not be great.
I think with a phone in a tripod you can use an app like google sky to get it pointed at exactly what you want, and even use search functions and stuff.
Low light? WHen I was a shooting pro, ISO 800 was where colour went away, and P3200 - the new kid on the block - was where you went for B&W. If you took it over 6400, you were fooling yourself. (I remember David Brooks going on in one of the magazines about how he could shoot at 12800 if he metered differently, but anyone who actually knew what they were doing could see that he was finding a different way of metering for 6400, then giving a little extra push in development, which he should have been doing with his other 6400 images as well.) This whole "see colour in the dark" thing is new - arguably, it wasn't a thing before the Nikon D3/D700. And no, phones aren't great for sports or birding - but that's not what most people have ever done with cameras.
The number of people who want a camera is vanishingly small. What almost everybody wants is a thing that takes pictures. These days, that doesn't have to be an extra thing; they're going to be carrying their phones for all sorts of other reasons. (BTW, lighting is far, far more important than the gear you use to capture the effects of the lighting. If I had to tell people to pay attention to only one thing, it would be the lighting - whether that's "found" lighting or something you deliberately set out to create. Get that right, and "fix it in post" becomes a whole lot less attractive.)
> The last straw was when the iPhone got portrait mode and could render bokeh/blur like lens physics.
Have you looked at real "portrait mode" photos? They only really resemble narrow depth of field at thumbnail sizes, but as soon as you open them fullscreen, all of the mistakes jump out and make it look like a terrible Photoshop job. I'm sure it will get better, but I certainly wouldn't say it's anywhere near the last straw yet.
I think this was in regard to some of his clientele disappearing, due to a user looking at his portrait mode photos and saying "wow this looks like they were taking by a photographer!", potentially decreasing demand even though the absolute quality may not be comparable.
I have a 46MP DSLR as my primary camera. All small sensor camera photos look awful in comparison especially at full zoom. If nobody views anything larger than their phone screens and Instagram feeds, that level of detail is irrelevant. The end user can't tell.
The main reason for this is innovation in dedicated cameras has slowed to a crawl.
No dedicated camera I'm aware of will take 128 full res frames within half a second, and align and stack them to reduce sensor noise. Yet all modern phone cameras do something like that.
You couldn't even really do the above in postprocessing - the Canon EOS 4000D can only do 3 fps, and only has a buffer of 6 frames.
The reason phone cameras have caught up despite 'worse' physics, is that dedicated cameras electronics are lacking functionality that phone cameras have had for a few years now.
> Innovation in dedicated cameras has slowed to a craw
Agreed! A dSLR with the same hardware/software sophistication of modern iPhones would be a marvelous product. If camera manufacturers are unwilling or uncapable to deliver this, I wonder if Apple would ever consider entering that market. Imagine: an iPhone with an APS-C sensor and replaceable lenses! The sad truth is that it would probably be a product with too long a lifespan for Apple to build it.
> while large cameras have powerful special-purpose image processing engines, they have relatively weak programmable processors. At the same time, they have more pixels to process than cell phones, because their sensors are larger. These two factors made innovation difficult.
Very true. For me the only thing I want from regular camera is amazing zoom capabilities.
However if I compare pictures from e.g. Nikon Coolpix P950 which has small sensor but big zoom, the picture quality is not nearly as good as with phone cameras with smaller CMOS.
I wish camera manufacturers started to mount these cameras on a phone hardware, maybe even run Android directly, if they can't get their act together.
> Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White.[16][17] Rubin described the Android project as "tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences".[17] The early intentions of the company were to develop an advanced operating system for __digital cameras__, and this was the basis of its pitch to investors in April 2004.[18] The company then decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its goals, and by five months later it had diverted its efforts and was pitching Android as a handset operating system that would rival Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile.
>The creators of Android originally dreamed it would be used to create a world of "smart cameras" that connected to PCs, a founder said, but it was reworked for mobile handsets as the smartphone market began to explode.
> "The exact same platform, the exact same operating system we built for cameras, that became Android for cellphones," said Android co-founder Andy Rubin, who spoke at an economic summit in Tokyo.
Tons of people loved the Samsung Android cameras. I think Sony A7 MILCs 1st and 2nd generation had Android-people still miss the apps you could install. There’s an appeal to some folks
Why would a dedicated camera need to take huge numbers of photos to overcome sensor noise when it's not there in the first place?
No, I think that's a bad example to choose. I do take your point, dedicated camera development is more conservative, but their market is different. If you splurge £10k on a camera system, you are likely a pro, and you want consistency, and longevity to the design and the operation of the system.
Thinking about it, dedicated cameras have mainly been innovating in video production rather than stills in the last 5 years.
I agree with the GP but for a different reason. It's unacceptable to me that I have to buy a separate trigger so I can take exposures 31 seconds long. There's no reason why the timer should only go up to 30, or that I shouldn't have better bracketing, or a timelapse mode, etc etc.
Basically, all of Magic Lantern (a considerable feature set) should have been standard.
I agree that the camera software should just let you pick any shutter speed, but you can get a pretty cheap remote button or intervalometer for <$30, or even DIY one for cheaper. What does the $160 canon button give you that a cheaper version doesn't?
The cheaper ones don't come with a timer, do they? Besides, it's not that I haven't found a solution (Magic Lantern lets me set the speed to however long I want), but I dislike the gesture. It's obvious that they're gating features so they can release them in the next model.
> Why would a dedicated camera need to take huge numbers of photos to overcome sensor noise when it's not there in the first place?
Except there is noise. There is always some dark spot that could do with a little more detail. There is always a bright reflection that saturates the sensor losing its color information.
With a decent burst and enough computational photography, you can recover all that information.
First, that's not noise. Second, modern ILC sensors have dynamic range to spare; you can usually pull a couple stops of detail on both sides in post. Third, if you want HDR, which is what you're talking about here anyway, modern ILCs can do it and have been able to for years. You set it up like bracketing and it assembles the shots in camera just like a phone does.
Signal to noise ratio on any “real” camera format (FF, APSC, MFT) is vastly superior to SNR on a cell phone camera. It’s not even in the same ballpark. PhotonsToPhotos has a lot of numerical comparisons available.
Firstly, I was responding to the claim that sensor noise "isn't there" on a dedicated camera [1], fullstop, which is ludicrously wrong. Without processing what comes out of the sensor is an ugly beast.
Secondly, strange that you don't actually link anything to demonstrate this noise advantage. Much less that it's "vastly superior" and "not even in the same ballpark". Hint -- because it isn't.
[1] - which is a revealing bit of cargo cult analysis. Sensor quality across "dedicated" cameras have enormous variations, and a lot are simply terrible. One of the reasons smartphones do burst and computational photography is for extended dynamic range, yet the iPhone 11 already has a sensor with more dynamic range than the significant majority of SLRs/mirrorless cameras. There are obviously better sensors, like the A7R II+, but there are many that are worse, sometimes much worse.
Compare an iPhone XS Max to a an A7R4 or something. At ISO 100, The A7R4 has 11.6 bits of dynamic range and the iPhone has 6.4 bits. HUGE difference.
> Without processing what comes out of the sensor is an ugly beast.
RAWs from a large sensor without denoising look fine. On my camera I only have lens correction and color correction - zero denoising. I've done statistical analysis of dark frames using LibRaw to make sure this is actually the case, and indeed I exactly replicated the results from PhotonsToPhotos.
> yet the iPhone 11 already has a sensor with more dynamic range than the significant majority of SLRs/mirrorless cameras
Hahahaha, please, show me one even APS-C camera from Sony, Fuji, Nikon, Canon, or any other reputable manufacturer made in the last 4 years that has a worse PDR than the iPhone 11.
Then you link to a dynamic range chart. Yet we were talking about noise. See, I looked at their noise charts where the XS Max (a generation behind, and significantly bested by the 11) beat the majority of SLRs, including contemporary SLRs. Tellingly you decided not to link that.
"Compare an iPhone XS Max to a an A7R4 or something"
Oh you know...an A7R4 or something. The fact that the A7R4 has one of the best sensors on an SLR is just, you know, incidental.
Fun fact - the iPhone 11 has 10 stops (10 "bits") of dynamic range, which exceeds the majority of SLRs on that site (and of those that beat it, few are "vastly superior"). The sensor actually has 12 stops of dynamic range but automatic pre-processing knocks it down 2 stops (though there are tools that circumvent that). "Hahahahaha".
"RAWs from a large sensor without denoising look fine."
You have never seen the actual RAW data, plainly evident from this claim. Do you know what a Bayer filter is? Do you realize the enormous amount of processing it does just to recreate edges and other artifacts? I suspect you don't. Do you know that every sensor has permanently lit elements, permanently dark elements, and permanently errant elements? That the camera has an evolving correction matrix around these artefacts? The amount of processing that turns that bayer sensor array into a so-called "RAW" file is absolutely enormous, and it automatically includes a tremendous amount of smoothing and corrections, even if you, the ignorant user, remain blissfully unaware. When manufacturers push out new firmware, changes to these processing steps is often one of the most noted changes.
So to repeat-
-the iPhone 11 has better dynamic range, single shot, than many SLRs.
-the iPhone 11 has a better noise profile than many SLRs.
And I'm just talking about the iPhone 11 as a very common smartphone. There are smartphones that exceed it now, the point being that many smartphones have superb cameras.
These are facts. There are SLRs that are much better, like the recent A7s, but any cargo culting as if the entire category gives you a superior result is simple ignorance.
> The sensor actually has 12 stops of dynamic range but automatic pre-processing knocks it down 2 stops (though there are tools that circumvent that). "Hahahahaha".
This comment suggests you don’t even remotely understand the poisson statistics underlying sensor noise, or else it would be obvious why they “knock off” those two bits. The SNR of the iPhone sensor is fundamentally limited by the size of the capacitors at each photosite.
> You have never seen the actual RAW data
Yes I have, and my mention of “libraw” should have been a clue for you.
> Do you know what a Bayer filter is?
Yes. I also know about X-trans filters, foveon, etc. I’m fairly confident I can out-namedrop you here ;)
> the iPhone 11 has better dynamic range, single shot, than many SLRs.
> the iPhone 11 has a better noise profile than many SLRs.
Give me a specific SLR in the last 4 years where either of these is true. The data is right there on photonstophotos, so go ahead.
You’re going to have a hard time, and if you understood the physics of how a CMOS sensor works you’d know why.
"or else it would be obvious why they “knock off” those two bits"
In a post where I'm talking about necessary processing (where you claim there is none) to turn the ugly sensor data into workable forms you attempt to correct me to tell me that it needs to be processed (I mean, you are aware of libraw so clearly you're an expert. funfact: I worked for two years on a professional codebase that specifically dealt with raw sensor processing), as if to demonstrate my ignorance. Remarkable absence of self-awareness on your part.
Your reply could really be posted as a counterpoint to your own first post where you decided to counter my basic statement that all CMOS sensors have noise and abberations.
"and if you understood the physics of how a CMOS sensor works"
Just to be clear, your authoritative site shows the iPhone (the last generation) being less noisy than many SLRs. And it's fact that the iPhone 11 has 10 stops of dynamic range, before any special bracketing, which bests many/most SLRs on that site. And yet we're still going. Amazing
But your core "if you only understood CMOS...reeeeeeeee!" claim is one that is often erroneously made. "larger sensor = larger sensor pit pitch = better, less noisy sensor!" Right?
I mean, this argument has been made against smartphones for years. To assure us that they'll always be crap because...like...physics or something. Though anyone who didn't decide to die on a really stupid hill has long moved on.
But here's the reality-
a) There are enormous difference between different CMOS technologies and implementations. Sony, for instance, has shot ahead of everyone else (though they bin and segment). There are many SLRs and mirrorless cameras with absolute trash sensors. Cargo culting is ignorant.
b) Many cameras with larger sensors spend the benefit on higher resolutions. The Sony A7R IV subdivides the sensor into 5x more pixels than the iPhone 11 (the A7R IV being one of the absolute best). If that was lossless you could simply process it to a lower resolution and have the best of both worlds, but it isn't lossless -- the circuitry and structure to support that resolution is substantial. Each pit has its own lines and power and memory channel. And even if they didn't, noise scales with the sensor size.
"Give me a specific SLR in the last 4 years where either of these is true."
You've already segued effortlessly from noise to dynamic range, humorously, and now you're making a baseless, nonsensical statement just hoping that no one actually confirms it. Your intellectual sincerity in this discussion is somewhere approaching non-existent, so I'm out. Cheers.
> Just to be clear, your authoritative site shows the iPhone (the last generation) being less noisy than many SLRs.
Charitably, you are confused, and uncharitably you are lying or misleading.
I gave you a simple prompt where you could prove yourself right with a single camera model, and unsurprisingly you’ve failed to take advantage of it.
> And even if they didn't, noise scales with the sensor size.
These noise sources are completely dwarfed by poisson/shot noise (which is the completely overwhelming noise source on most modern SLRs for “everyday” photographs).
The iPhone’s FETs hold a lot fewer electrons. There is no way around this. And then with technology like Dr-pix present in modern Sony sensors (including the ones they sell to Fuji), the gap gets even wider.
Is that a command? Am I your monkey? I humored your site, noted that it didn't confirm your claims (again -- you didn't link this proof about noise, and when I used your site to demonstrate that you were incorrect...you segued to DR where you could enjoy that this site has a single obsolete smartphone).
Curious that you decided to get the last word in again. Your own proof is flawed.
But again, you claimed that every SLR in the past 4 years is "vastly" better. "Not even in the same ballpark". Your net evidence so far is that a $5000 camera body, which is known to have a class leading sensor, has better dynamic range than a two year old iPhone. "Hahahahaha".
You have zero sincerity in your request and I guarantee will immediately move the goalposts (with complete certainty), however here you go-
Canon 6D Mark II.
Released in 2017. Actually a "prosumer" camera where the body alone pushes $2000. Full frame sensor (and given that you're a big brain about CMOS, surely that means it must dominate, right)?
Trash noise profile
Trash dynamic range
The iPhone 11 handily beats this device in virtually every measure. Despite the Canon having a big old fat 861mm2 sensor (again -- weird that this isn't a magical solution! I mean, if I knew anything about CMOS at all I'd know...blah blah blah)
And we're being generous and ignoring that most of the people hyping up SLRs in here have their old T2i and think because it's heavier and bigger it's a superior imaging machine.
What now? Do you concede defeat? LOL. Of course you won't.
And again, this all started based upon the completely ignorant claim that SLRs don't have sensor noise, which is ludicrous, then you decided to wallow in and tell us how completely and absolutely outclassed smartphones are. This is just layers and layers of cargo culting ignorance.
EDIT: LOL insta-flagged. Classic HN. Where imbeciles flourish and comfort each other's stupidity.
The guy I responded to has puffed every comment up with insults, a hilariously unearned sense of superiority, and just post after post of ignorance. Hacker News is the world's greatest example of Dunning-Kruger. Time to go read some deliciously ignorant hot takes about COVID-19!
Is there a correlation? Yup. Is it a strong correlation? It is not. And when the cited reference explicitly has noise measurements, when someone so carefully steers clear of it...yeah.
> dedicated cameras have mainly been innovating in video production rather than stills in the last 5 years.
Well, not Sony. Their mirrorless cameras have gotten much better autofocus and battery life and slightly better ergonomics, usability, speed and weather-sealing, but there has basically been no change in their video capabilities.
> The main reason for this is innovation in dedicated cameras has slowed to a crawl.
That's not entirely true, althoughI'm not sure I like the direction. A good example if Fuji's X-T* line, where, as one reviewer noted, "I had thought I'm buing a camera, but it turned out I bought a computer with lens attached". It does all creative tricks to compensate for inaccuracies coming from the hardware, especially the lens - but at the price of draining the batteries exctremely fast, and each lens need a firmware update. Is the final result good? Yes. Do I like it more than more standard solution from Canon and Nikon? Not necessarily. It seems cheaper though.
I'd agree with this. I have a Fuji X100F camera which produces lovely photos that look noticably distinct from my Pixel phone camera.
However, even on innovative features that it does have - like WiFi or face recognition, it implements so poorly that I kind of wish they hadn't bothered.
Fujifilm simply don't have the quality of software engineers that Apple and Google have access to. Nor do they place the same importance on software. The actual physical feel of this camera is sublime, it's a shame they don't think the software is worthy of the same attention to detail.
I’m sure it’s not that they think software isn’t worthy, but simply that it’s not their traditional area of competence. It took a monumental effort for a lot of them just to make the film to digital transition, and they were only competing with each other. Now they have to compete against a whole different industry that’s faster moving and more software centric. Plus great software engineers don’t come cheap, and we’re talking about a market size that’s a few orders of magnitude smaller. So if they made the necessary investment in software, how much would the cameras end up costing? Maybe 2x to 10x their current prices, and thus further shrinking an already shrinking market? It’s a no-win situation.
Sony's been pushing things forward quite a bit, and after catching up on most of the fundamentals, they're now working in AI/ML. Their latest cameras have incredible eye-autofocus built with ML, and they also recently announced and AI imaging chip.
> the Canon EOS 4000D can only do 3 fps, and only has a buffer of 6 frames.
If you're going to use a single camera as your example for the industry, I don't think that's fair. Canon makes great cameras, but my Nikon V1, circa 2011, is a camera "serious photographers" like to laugh at, and and outperforms your example. It was 5fps with a mechanical shutter, up to 60fps with the electronic shutter.
And FWIW, I used a command line tool to do image stacking to reduce sensor noise on my Nikon 1 cameras years ago. That was until I started using DxO, which does an adequate job of sensor noise reduction on a single RAW shot without as much work.
Also, the DSLRs I used more than 10 years ago (Sony Alphas) were able to do 5fps, but back then, nobody really took you seriously as a photographer if you used a Sony.
The Olympus E-M1X and teh E-M1.3 will take 8-16 full resolution pictures at 60fps and process them together. There are two options, one for macro photography, where the pictures are taken with different focus settings for increasing DOF and the other is high-res modus, where the pictures are taken with a minimal sensor shift and combined for higher resolution and have less noise. This even works hand-held.
In a nice, high end DSLR 6400 IS0 is perfectly acceptable.
I'm no hardware person, but I believe there are serious constraints on how quickly you can take images with larger sensors. The D6 can do 14 frames a second, and the D850 can do about half that.
I'm new to photography and I've invested heavily in the mirrorless ecosystem in the past year. I can't echo this articles sentiment enough. For 90-95% of use cases my 2 grand camera is a lame duck.
I regularly wondered if the love of my camera was simply some sunk cost bias towards it. I've been mostly cured of this thought through the reactions of people. A "holy sh*t" when I show them a long-exposure of the stars. A whispered "oh my god" when I show them a shot with beautiful bokeh.
And to me - as a physicist - the act catching the edge cases, that extra 5% of shots. The stuff you need a good sensor and a nice piece of glass to capture. That's what I find exciting.
I would say your phone can do that, it's just that you did not enable HDR.
The thing is, because of how our eyes and brain work (huge dynamic range plus postprocessing), the actual viewed scene was probably closer to the second photo than the first, but with a higher contrast (the camera HDR emulates the eye but you also need a huge dynamic range display to show it right, otherwise it's "compressed" to low contrast). So you can choose the contrast (first photo) or dynamic range (second photo) but not both.
That's not very accurate because the colors in the clouds were inverted in this photo, but you're right that reality is a bit more contrasty, though not as contrasty as we think (nowhere close to the "after").
My comment came out sounding somewhat mean, which wasn't my intention, but the truth is that I'm not a big fan of HDR and related artificial effects. These effects don't look anything like the imagery perceived by my eyes and brain; they're just different ways to ruin a good photo.
Once dynamic range is lost by rendering something on a phone screen or computer monitor, you can't recover it without making the image look weird and artificial. It's like mixing 24-bit audio for playback through an 8-bit DAC. You can play all sorts of games with dynamic range expansion, but at the end of the day you've done a bad thing.
Then there's the fact that a lot of problems people try to solve with HDR are actually gamma correction issues.
Of course, I may just not be taking the right drugs...
That is a really cool picture. However, it does stray so far from reality that I wonder if you couldn't just as well get someone skilled to spend a couple of hours in photoshop achieving the same effect even without the added range. Probably tweaking sliders in lightroom is more time-efficient, and there's an argument to be made for using the camera as an artistic tool and not just a lens to capture a still picture of your surroundings, but I don't think this is a great example of what isn't possible without a "real" camera.
I had a Canon T3i for a long time- it was given to me as a honeymoon gift and while at first I was kind of annoyed with it, I became really interested in photography and took it with me everywhere. The last trip I took it on was in 2018, and my father in law had a pixel- maybe a pixel 2- but I think the original. We were under a roman theater, it was very dim, but we both took a few pictures as it was a really interesting scene. His pictures just blew mine out of the water- mine you could hardly make out the details, his looked like it was well lit.
I was in the process of looking to upgrade, and actually for that trip was hoping I could get an A7 III, (~2k for those unfamiliar with cameras), and eventually did a few months later, and even with a "G" lens (not highest end, but still ~$1k USD just for the lens), the gap between my wife's iphone and even my Galaxy S8 for "typical" photos is really small, and for certain types of action and low-light shots, the cell phones are superior.
I am not sure if I will ever buy another "proper" camera again. People talked for years about the limits of physics on lenses and light and such, but software can overcome those limitations for the most part. It makes me sad, and I maybe even feel a little foolish for spending a few thousand dollars on equipment that is quickly becoming unnecessary for most of my uses.
My hobby is wildlife photography, mostly of birds. I live in hope that a manufacturer will make a 1000mm folded optic inside a phone one day, especially if it's not insanely expensive like an dSLR lens, but I suspect the laws of physics will stop them. That said, if manufacturers can bring the computational photography advances that phones get to the wider photography world that would definitely be a positive benefit.
This is what I'm curious about. I've recently gotten really interested in nature photography, but mostly on small details rather than far away.
Trying to get phones to focus on flowers, small insects, etc is an exercise in frustration. Even when I think I got something in decent focus, I'll view the photo on my computer and it is super blurry. I'm currently looking at cameras to get away from this personally.
If it helps, the name for this style is "macro" photography. It should be "micro", but somebody got it wrong a hundred years ago and we're all stuck with it now. That's what to be looking for in info, tutorials, lenses and other gear, etc.
I mainly do macro work these days myself, e.g. https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DSC_9393.jpg - I'm happy to talk about what it was like getting started, if you think it might be useful. Definitely some surprises, even coming at it from a place of good familiarity with interchangeable-lens photography in general.
Your macro skills are amazing. Boy am I glad that wasp isn't live-sized because when my display showed it, I got the chills!
Phones currently cannot easily capture the details on the wasp, from the blood? vessels to the compound eye cells. Something somewhere would be blurred into oblivion.
Is it the macro lense that captures those details, or is it a wide f-stop / image size / ISO is low enough ?
I know the terms and that they matter, but not what combinations to use given what I want to capture. (this must be what it is like for a non-techie person to try to select video transcoding settings :) )
You definitely need a macro lens for shots like this. Their design differs from regular prime lenses in a way that lets you focus on subjects much closer to the lens than a regular prime, so you can get this kind of detail; with a regular prime, you have to be a lot further out. (I took this shot with the lens objective element about six inches away from the wasp - a regular lens can't focus on anything that close.)
Somewhat counterintuitively, you actually need a very high F-stop to capture this kind of detail offhand, too - this was shot at f/32, through a lens that maxes out at f/2.8. The reason is that, the wider open your aperture is, the more off-axis light is captured - which produces shallower depth of field (DoF), i.e., a narrower space ahead of and behind the focus point that is also pretty much in focus. Because of the way macro lenses work, they exacerbate this problem a lot. So you need a very narrow aperture to have enough of your subject in focus for a good image.
(You do also lose some sharpness to diffraction at such high F-stops, it's true. But that's the tradeoff - high F-stop and deep DoF and diffraction losses, or low F-stop and shallow DoF and almost nothing in focus. The only way to compensate is by taking a lot of wide-open shots and focus stacking, but that requires the kind of time and precision that's only possible with a stationary subject - and this wasp was anything but! I might get away with f/22 or f/25 in the same situation today, but I'm a better macro photographer now than I was a year ago, too.)
Another effect of the narrow aperture you need for good DoF is that you're capturing very little light in any single exposure - there's just physically a smaller space for light to enter and hit the sensor. You can compensate for that by vastly increasing ISO sensitivity, but at the cost of adding a similarly vast amount of noise to your shots; the best way to overcome the light problem is by adding light with flashes.
Ring flashes, mounted on the filter thread at the front of the lens, are especially popular for this, because they produce a largely shadowless light that falls evenly on subjects very close to the lens. Another popular option is any of a variety of macro bracket systems, which let you mount regular "speedlight" flashes in a way that concentrates their light similarly to how a ring flash does. There are also systems such as Nikon's SB-R1C1, which combines a hot-shoe-mounted control unit with two (or more) flash heads that mount to a ring on the filter thread.
That said - sure, you can spend a lot of money on macro lighting, but you don't always need to. Especially if you're just starting out, a regular speedlight on the hot shoe, maybe with a homemade bounce card taped on to help aim the light at the macro subject, is absolutely a good starting option - especially since macro lenses tend to be a little spendier than regular primes due to their more complex construction. Better to start out spending money on the best 60-80mm macro lens you can afford, because you can't do without that and it'll give you a good opportunity to find out whether macro photography is something you really enjoy doing! Once you know you want to keep going, that's the time to be looking at complicated lighting and other gear that'll help you level up your ability to get keepers.
On a related note - image (sensor) size is significant, but not hugely so. I got that wasp photo with a Nikon D500, which has an APS-C size sensor, and it came out well enough that I can have 36x24 inch (91x61 cm) prints made from the full-resolution version at no significant cost in quality. (I actually have such a print hanging on my living room wall. It's quite striking! I never get tired of looking at it, although others rarely feel the same - I used to have it over my bed, but my boyfriend at the time asked me to take it down.) With a larger sensor, you can ca...
Luckily for my sense of self, I’ve only ever engaged in available light photography.
Ilford Delta 3200 when everyone else was using Kodak Gold 200. Fast fixed focal length lenses when everyone else was using f3.5 or slower kit zooms. Everything shot wide open all of the time, resulting in many dud photos with incorrect focus, and a few fantastic shots.
It’s an excellent way of justifying my box of ”real camera equipment” to myself, on the continuing onslaught of evidence that cell phone cameras are plenty good enough.
Last year I found a really nice balance: a DSLR with a really good, really long lens (a Canon 100-400mm telephoto) combined with an iPhone 11 Pro.
I use the telephoto for interesting things that are far away - generally wildlife. I use the iPhone for shots that the telephoto is no good for - landscapes, interesting things that are nearby.
This gives me the ability to take most photos without needing to swap lenses!
Admitting that my phone takes great quality photos and it's OK to use it even when I'm carrying my DSLR was a very useful psychological step for me.
This has been my vacation photo strategy for awhile now. I keep my 300mm zoom on my Nikon and use my iPhone for snaps. The benefits of the iPhone are that the pics it takes almost never need any post. The downside is that it is limited to what pics it can take.
I also do miss having the 50mm on my Nikon while walking around. It's sharp, takes great low light pics, and is so versatile.
So yeah, I understand your psychological hangups because I have the same ones :)
I do wish a phone company would offer a phone that does _no_ real processing of the image. Phone photos look fine on a phone, but the moment you enlarge them they really are extremely weird, in my experience. Personally I would love the utility of a modern camera along the lines of old Leicas; simple, manual, compact, and with good quality if you know what you're doing. I suppose there are modern Leicas but god; that price inflation.
Also lovely to see an article by Scalzi on here, one of my all-time favourite authors.
While phone vendors are unlikely to offer it as a first party feature, Apple has APIs to get raw sensor data and various third party photo apps will do that for you if you want. I assume it’s the same in android land.
I think my dad has both of those cameras actually, and I agree that they're really excellent. He only totes around his big Nikon when he needs the really large lens now.
My Pixel is configured to save a raw image as well as the jpeg. I believe you can do this with most phones.
The DNG files have at least a stop or two of editing latitude from the Pixel 3a.
If you want the feel of a Leica, check out the X100 series from Fujifilm. They are excellent in every version, so you can choose your price on the used market. The only caveat is that the 35mm-equivalent focal length needs to resonate with you.
By extremely weird, I'm guessing you mean lacking in detail. The tiny sensors can't resolve as much detail so cropping with phone pictures will hit a wall much faster than, say, a 24MP APS-C sensor. The trade-off here is that you can't really shove a Sony A5100 with its lens on into a pants pocket like you easily can with any smartphone. I've pulled out a phone and taken once-in-a-lifetime pictures within 3 seconds -- good luck doing it with a packed-away bigger camera.
This is part of why you see so many wide angle and macro shots these days: they're the ideal scenarios for phone pictures. Phone sensors are finally starting to creep up in size from the common 1/2.55" sensors. I suspect should they reach the 1" size, the resolution of detail will dramatically improve. It looks like the S20 Ultra has a 1/1.33" already, but I haven't tried it myself.
Ah I mostly meant more in terms of the denoising, HDR-ish effects, and the like, but I do agree that the sensors are also partly to blame there. I imagine the small size increases the need for noise reduction processing.
I used to carry my DSLR almost all the time.
Now I don't + even if I do, very often I end up taking a picture with my phone (in even light, and when I don't need any zoom, the result is similar (or better), and I can post it right away).
When there is bad light, or high contrast, even a 10-old DSLR is better... but requires time for post-processing. However, I think it is going to change soon with deep learning, for tweaking everything - from local contrast, through removing chromatic aberration, to fixing blurred pictures with super-resolution. To, well, adjusting ISO a lot: https://github.com/cchen156/Learning-to-See-in-the-Dark
I was actually relieved when the author came around to my own experience: camera phones are 90% there, but being in that 10% space with only a phone is endlessly frustrating.
Beyond quality, I also dislike how camera phones have cheapened photos. Decades ago I actively thought this wouldn't be a problem, but now it's very apparent that it is: People take thousands of photos and don't look at them.
Why? I think it's too many photos for people to comfortably curate. 4 rolls of film was manageable, and with limited space in the album (and patience for the task), the best ones got picked out and the rest filed away in a shoebox. Today? I've been there, watching patiently, as someone scrolls though their phone "album", skipping over dozens of identical images to get to the next good one. Unlimited space gives even the most fat fingered "photo burst" prone grandparent reason to never delete anything. It's so bad that now the phone AI has taken over the task of "organizing". It's a terrible combination. Maybe the phones will learn to create albums just from the good photos, but so far I'm not impressed.
Agree on the cheapening part - but I really love the reminders on my phone - 5yrs ago or 3yrs ago of simple everyday events - cheap photos but fond memories.. photos that probably would not have been taken with an actual camera.
> Beyond quality, I also dislike how camera phones have cheapened photos.
I don't think this is about camera phones, but digital cameras.
I find myself curating more photos immediately when they're taken with my iPhone — while leaving photos in my DSLR/M43 cameras for future curation, because their LCD screens are tiny.
Curation means deleting things too. And I do a lot of that. Not only does it make it much easier to find stuff, but I can keep my entire image collection on an SD card in my phone (around 60 GB of photos over the last 10 years). I frequently browse through my photo collection, and I love that it's all local.
There's no point keeping that blurry photo of a crappy sunset, or 25 near-identical copies of the same thing. I delete ruthlessly, and keep 1-3 photos of each subject.
Importantly, when I look back at my photos, the ones I'm most interested in are the ones with people in them, especially after a sibling was killed in an accident. I keep nearly all of those (except near duplicates). So although I take lots of photos of things, I don't care that much about them, and only keep the good ones.
As a hobbyist photographer and professional phone owner, I have thoughts I'm not afraid to foist upon you unwilling audience:
1) Yes, phones are great for 100% of the average person, who just wants some snapshots to remember/post on Instagram/etc. Not only that, but most phones apply filters to the photo that makes it look more appealing (like in the article), which is what most people want. Photographers want fidelity, so they can apply their own edits in post, so a deciding factor is maximizing post-processing freedom.
Cameras are more for professional/artistic use these days.
2) Phones are never ever going to replace professional cameras. Hell, not even non-professional cameras are ever going to replace professional cameras. I have a Canon 5D as my main camera and a Sony RX-100 mkIII as a travel camera, and while the latter is fantastic, has great quality in a very small form factor, I end up frustrated 30% of the times I use it. The 5D is a professional camera, and much of what you pay for is for the ergonomics.
It's very cumbersome to have to go three menus down to change a setting in the smaller camera when I could have done it without taking my eye away from the viewfinder on the 5D, and it leads to missed shots. I haven't seen this point mentioned anywhere, and it's a big differentiator.
I could include here the fact that the camera is much more predictable: If you hear the "beep" that tells you it's focused, pressing the button gets me a photo in < 100ms. Phones have a will of their own, and it's pretty random when you'll actually have your photo. Cameras focus in a few milliseconds exactly on the subject, phones focus somewhere in the vicinity of where you asked, at some point soonish. This leads to a much better, more solid-feeling experience when using a camera.
3) Phones are great for taking wide-angle photos in ample light, but not great for everything else. They can clean low-light photos decently these days, but a large sensor is much more versatile in what you can do with it. The same goes for the lenses, 24mm is good for a lot of things, but sometimes you just need a different focal length.
4) Larger sensors have a lot more detail in the resulting photo. A camera lets you go from the before to the after here, and this isn't even a terrible shot: https://imgz.org/ius5Vhb9/
A phone wouldn't be able to retrieve much detail in that scene, and the result would look much worse. A camera can help you salvage many photos that would have been write-offs with a phone, e.g. when they're too dark/bright, or when you have tones too close to each other.
TL;DR: Phones are great, but cameras are great too.
You can turn off focus priority on shutter release if you want, fyi. Then the shutter releases exactly when you tell it to, every single time.
I did that when I found I was missing jump shots because the AF system got confused and waited to refocus, giving me a tack-sharp shot of a place where a bird had just been. Now, when I miss a jump shot, at least it's my fault.
Oh, yes, though there it's so fast that it usually doesn't bother me. If I've focused beforehand on a static scene I just turn AF off from the switch on the lens.
Back-button AF is super convenient for this, too. No need to worry about turning AF on and off, you just hold the button when you want it and let go when you don't. With enough configurable buttons, you can even have multiple AF modes instantly to hand - I do this on my D500, for example, so I can coach in on a sitting bird with group AF on Fn1, and then get tack-sharp eye focus with single-point mode on AF-ON, and not ever have to think about dinking around with control dials or menus while I'm shooting.
Now that I think about it, that obviates my shutter focus priority setting anyway, since half-pressing the shutter only locks exposure. Oh, well...
Hmm, that's a good idea, though my focus is on oneshot, so half-pressing the shutter locks focus anyway. I don't really shoot moving things, so oneshot works well for me.
I've got that mkIII too, and I'd agree that the ergonomics just aren't great. It does make me wonder how much of a difference the touch-screen on the mkVI makes.
I find that the phone creates a version of the picture that it thinks is best, probably to look good on social media. Where as a DSLR has the functionality to make manual adjustments to create a photo to your own specs. Sometimes having a photos with high/low exposure, or grainy effects created authentically via DSLR are preferred.
Phones are designed with the implicit assumption that they offer you more storage than you'll ever need. If you start shooting RAW, this assumption crumbles very quickly.
Galaxy S20 comes with 1TB expandable storage. With 20MB RAW images you can store 50000 images. Also you can always pay for cloud storage, you can get 2TB for $10 a month.
For me, photography is something I do for fun, not really for the results. Not much is more fun than using a precision-made manual focus lens, and no cell phone will ever offer me that experience.
I hate what phones do to photos of persons. Blurring out details that accentuate the character of a person only to make it social media style (beautify). Life is not what you see in social media, life is what people actually are.
The way I end up thinking of it now is: I use my DSLR when I want to do photography, I use my phone when I want to take a photo. The end of goal of both is the same, to create an image, but it's how each one gets there that makes it interesting to me personally.
Computational photography has democratised taking really good photos, but having creative freedom of a DSLR (or mirrorless, or film etc) allows for a richer experience in my eyes. Maybe phone cameras will get to that level at some stage.
Nope, same here. You can turn on a rule-of-thirds grid in camera settings, and I find it helps - not so much for composition, the rule's fine but overrated, but just in providing a set of rulers to align against.
To me, phone cameras work great for most cases in good light. For flowers and landscapes I never bother with DSLR now.
Poor light though and real DSLR with large aperture glass and a big sensor works a LOT better. And for some cases like moving wildlife at long range phones aren't competitive. Getting a DSLR is probably driven by whether those cases are important or not.
Something tells me he wouldn't be having such a dilemma when he needs to spend $1000 or more in two years for a new flagship cell phone.
Nevermind how much less a new camera costs and how much longer it will be useful for.
Glass is usually a one-time investment that rarely depreciates (though I wonder if my Nikon DSLR primes still fetch the same value these days).
And while my 12-year-old full-frame Nikon D700 might only fetch a token sum now, it'll still take photos that are on a different level from any camera phone out there.
Thousand-dollar phones are a sunk cost, and it's common to only recover between half to two-thirds of the cost after one release cycle.
Glass isn't the investment it used to be. Glass designed in the era of 35mm and early DSLRs doesn't hold a candle to the glass designed for modern high resolution sensors.
My smartphone depreciates faster in value, but I use it several hours a day, every day. The price-per-use is much lower than for any camera I've ever owned. It's easier to justify the expense.
Moreover, $1000 will get you a flagship phone, but at best a mid-level camera and lens. You'll get a vastly better camera, no doubts, but you'll only get a camera.
One point often overlook with phone cameras is that although they can take great pictures, the image quality degrades over time as the glass is rubbed/scratched etc.
When I first got my Huawei P20 Pro, I was seriously impressed with just how sharp and crisp the images it took were. A year later that "wow" sharpness factor just wasn't there anymore. Looking at the glass covering the lenses you could clearly see scuffing and small scratches, the result of a years worth of normal usages.
For daytime snaps it wasn't that big a deal, but for indoor snaps every light source looked like t had the starburst effect.
It's a minor issue, but definitely worth noting. It's also the reason why I still take a "real" camera with me on holidays or to events.
I have an iPhone 11 Pro and I still use my mirrorless camera all the time. It just takes noticeably better pictures. Using a good lens changes everything.
If you leave that stock zoom lens on... yeah, it’s not great. Now put a light-sensitive prime on it and put it wide-open. Instant great pictures that even a novice will notice “its a nice picture”.
I would think that wide-open is likely not the sharpest F-stop around, I guess unless you want to maximize that depth-of-field effect that phone cameras can only fake.
generally modern lenses peak sharpness slightly stopped down. and then they are sharp - and yeah, you can't fake sharpness either (and even if not printing, the camera nearly always produces good enough output for a 4k wallpaper - a phone? maybe.)
If you use a smaller sensor camera, like a 1" or 4/3, wide open can appear sharper because of the increased depth of field, and give you a greater margin of error.
To be fair I have a DSLR that quite clearly takes much, much better photos than my iPhone Xs Max takes (despite what Apple's marketing would have you believe), but in reality I just don't bother with the DSLR anymore, because whilst the iPhone clearly isn't as good, it's still easily good enough, and it's a hell of a lot more portable.
I had a X100F and sold it b/c I just never managed to carry it with me.
I now have an iPhone 11 Pro but unless I uses portrait mode the photos just don't come close. And when I do use portrait mode it feels like augmented reality, not real life.
So I'm considering an X100V but I am not sure if I can develop the diligence to carry the thing all the time. Especially with family, which is of course when I want it most.
The Ricoh GRiii might be a better fit if carrying it around with you is the biggest challenge. Same sensor size as the X100 range, 28mm f/2.8 lens that's incredibly sharp and small and light enough to fit in a shirt pocket.
The Ricoh portables are fantastic, but they're SO wide. Know of anything comparably portable, but with a longer lens? Even the 35mm lens of the X100 is better.
Totally agree that everyone notices the difference. I sync all of my α6600 photos to my iCloud library, and just scrolling through my photos to look for something to show a friend, they always comment, "You took these on your phone!?"
Even at small sizes, the difference in dynamic range is insane, which makes a huge difference when photographing people indoors in particular. And of course when you look at the photo full size, the terrible watercolor effects on cell phone photos can't be ignored.
By the way, you should get the Sigma 56mm f1.4 for your Sony; that's the lens of mine that most makes people's jaws drop.
Part of why big apertures let you easily get the "it's a nice picture" comment is that it essentially removes the background from the image.
One of the hardest things in photography is successfully incorporating the background in the composition. And if you fail, the results are devastating: the background will not only look bad, but also distract from the one thing that might look nice, i.e. the subject.
A big aperture lets you sidestep that difficulty, making it easier to take "good pictures".
Those are scare quotes because successfully incorporating the background might have yielded an even better image. Remember that in the cameras infancy and quite some time after, DoF blur was considered a technical flaw.
Agree. When I first got my first DSLR and prime, all I did was shoot wide open on aperture priority.
When I look back at my photos, I cringe.
These days I generally prefer more depth of field as opposed to less. Unless I have to, I prefer to shoot stopped down a little, at around f2.8 or f4. I also use flash (preferably off camera) when I can.
Probably an unpopular preference, but I also prefer to use smaller sensors, like 1" and 4/3. I can shoot wide open but get more DOF, and my cameras+lens combinations are much more portable.
Right. Straight-up headshot type portraits are special in the sense that you don't really want a background there. But you don't need short DoF to remove the background -- you can also shoot against a flat surface.
The ability to use good prime lenses was also my excuse to buy a new mirrorless, and occasionally to put on a zoom for distant wildlife.
My old DSLR was just to bulky so I left it home more often than not, the mirrorless is just that little more compact and light (especially with a pancake lens, it almost becomes a compact).
And good prima doesn't have to be new and expensive btw. You can buy adapters to fit almost any old lens to any modern camera (especially with mirrorless). Only thing you will be missing is the autofocus and auto aperture control. But for me this adds to the experience, since you must really be engaged with taking the picture (eg, thinking about exposure, zooming with your feet, predicting when a moving object will be in focus), instead of having the camera do it's best (or worst) for you and fixing it in post with software.
I have settled on a Fuji as their controls connect more to that feeling of manual photography, making the experience more fun for me. For everything else, my phone camera with cracked lens is good enough.
It's always a fun day when the HN camera thread comes around!
Here are some examples of what you need to be able to do with a phone before it makes sense to talk about interchangeable-lens cameras not needing to exist any more.
But disagreeing with a lot of the comment thread here. "Phones can do everything" is a pretty common claim when the HN photography thread comes around, and I never tire of pointing out with examples that there are whole categories of things that phones just physically can't do.
> The better cell phone cameras get, the more frustrated I get with their limitations — and the more I recognize how much better a dedicated camera is for those situations
Totally agree, as a long time DSLR user.
Six months ago I bought a Nikon D850 – which has 45 Megapixels (8526 x 5504) at a full-frame resolution, allowing aggressive image cropping if I need it. I often use a 200-500mm lens. If I switch the camera to a cropped sensor mode I get a 1.5 x increase in effective focal length (i.e., 850mm) while still getting a 24 mPx (5408 x 4584) image. The D850 also has very low sensor noise, which makes shooting in low light a pleasure.
If I want an image of some friends for a typical social media application, then, yes, I will use my smartphone and get something that is usually good enough. But, for my main application - wildlife photography – there is just no comparison. I want to be able to see the detail of the individual feathers on a bird. And now I’ve gone up the learning curve, unless I make some stupid mistake, the camera will always get a shot if there is one to be had, not let the opportunities slip away because I can’t control the focusing or similar.
[Edit] The D850 also has a tolerable DSLR video capability, although video autofocus sucks a bit. Shooting video at HD resolution, it has some very impressive live view focusing guides (sharp objects are highlighted in red) and a live histogram display. HD or 4K video with a 850-effective mm lens is truly awesome. The newer mirrorless Nikons (Z series) are functionally very similar from a video perspective.
Also, if I want a stunningly fast burst mode for 'small' (1920 x 1080) JPEG-quality images, I can use slow-mo video to get 120 frames per second.
If you're running in DX crop all the time, consider a D500. The sensor's smaller, sure, but I don't have noise problems at ISO 2000, and the blazing fast shutter has caught a lot of jump shots I'd probably otherwise have missed. I do use a D850 for macro work, but I wouldn't replace the D500 for wildlife. (Or the 200-500, which is amazing, even if it does make people think I must be a pro and lead to being annoyed with questions when I'm just trying to take pictures of birds.)
edit: Doesn't have the D850's focus peaking in live view, though, as far as I know. I never use it for that, so better off checking the manual.
All fair points. I could only afford one camera body to replace my ageing D3s, and I do use FX for other applications, so the D850 was my choice.
Focus peaking for video is amazing: you can move the focus from the foreground to the horizon and literally see a wave of red 'in-focus' tracking up the frame. For video, I'm a complete convert to live-view.
[Edit]. With practice, focus peaking makes it possible to track a moving animal (e.g. a squirrel approaching you across the ground) using manual focusing, without any of the dreaded auto-focus-hunting that can completely wreck a clip. You just have to learn instinctively which way to rotate the lens to move the plane of focus closer or further away.
A video tripod head also helps, so that you can pan and elevate the camera with one hand while focusing with the other. With a normal tripod head, that has separate locks for panning and elevating, simultaneously moving and focusing requires three hands.
I borrowed a friends 80-400 for a day, and it was big and heavy, but I loved the shots I was able to get from it. I purchased the 200-500 when it came out, and some of my favorite photos I've ever taken came out of it. I havent compared them directly, but from memory the 200-500 feels lighter. The 200-500 is great for the money I think.
My Nikon DSLR (and lens) rarely leave the bag in the last few years, my compromise was to get a middle-of-the-pack fixed lens camera, a Fujifim X20, that is compact enough that I can just drop in my backpack and always have around in case i think the cell phone camera doesn't cut it but that stills allows for some "manual" tinkering if wanted.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 400 ms ] threadBut one point I'd add - I also find it very frustrating how having an 'almost good enough' phone camera it makes it harder to justify bringing a real camera along to regular day-to-day activities. If your phone is good enough most of the time, you don't want to lug around an extra device unless you are specifically doing a photo shoot. But then when something interesting happens and you can't capture the photo you envision on your phone, it drives me crazy.
Back in the film days, pretty much nobody lugged around a camera to regular activities, it was only brought out for special events and the trip to Disneyland. This persisted even with digital cameras.
But the phone camera changed everything.
The worst photos are the ones you never took because you didn't bring the camera.
To Americans, the Japanese taking snapshots at every opportunity (including business meetings--OK we mostly don't do that) was notably odd behavior. Today, I'm sure just about any random nationality takes far more.
I have lots of dedicated camera equipment but most of that is for event, travel, or dedicated photography of some sort. If I know I'm going to be on a trip where I'm going to just be taking random memory pictures, I mostly just bring my phone.
The FUJIFILM X100 probably comes closest to rangefinder translated to digital with a fixed lens. But a bit bigger again. And it's IMO a whole lot of money for a specialized camera.
But I got a neck strap for it, and the camera is light enough that I can barely tell it's there. That's how I'll use it on a hiking trip, and sometimes I'll even take photos by looking down at the flip-up screen.
[1] I don't love the menu-driven UI though, or the digital lens ring control. But however much of a compromise the pop-up digital viewfinder is, it works great in bright sunlight when the screen gets washed out, or when I need to hold the camera close to me for a steady shot.
they have been around long time enough that you can easily buy used ones in good condition for 200 USD or less. (up to the 3rd version)
The security folks at the airport were quite bemused by it :-)
Also I did had some small travel plans this year for every second weekend, where I wanted take my Pentax SLR out or buy myself a Sony Rx100 if space in the backbag runs out. (Moved to next year.)
But now? I'm not sure.
Yes, the dslr with its bigger sensor would be better suited to get more details in each pic and would be a much easier tool to use. But, there aren't really visible on your averaged sized print. And as long my trip isn't focused on getting pictures of animals, I don't need more reach than the short-/portrait- tele lens from the phone already provides.
But I save myself massively on packing space, weight, theft prevention and stress.
And the last point I think is the biggest deal in the end. If I travel to relax, I don't want to focus on getting the best out of my equipment to justify bringing it. (Or worse have to listen to others unasked opinion about my equipment choices.) A phone does the job and gets out of the way.
Sending pics home from a dslr? I hope you got your notebook with you and 1-2 hours in your hotelroom. I'm already done on the phone...
not sure if you ever had a modern camera (e.g. <5 y.o.), but with my Canons the hotel room is still nice (because somehow most cams don't spit out 2MB 24megapixel images strangely), yet sharing is supereasy with an android phone. start the app, hit the transfee button on the cam, do a NFC-bump, download. Granted this is not suuper fast (mainly because the images are large and getting 20MB+ transfer on portable device Wifi is a quite recent thing), but it works as convenient as 2 devices not mandatorily linked will work togetherm
[1]: https://www.amazon.ca/Anker-SD-Card-Reader/dp/B07NW8RPYN
An Olympus OMD with a fast prime will fit in a purse or other small bag. The PENs are smaller yet, though you give up "prosumer" features. I can fit 2 bodies, 3-4 lenses, and accessories in my carry-on (mid-sized backpack), along with my iPad or laptop, windbreaker, snacks, and other normal travel stuff.
The Fujis are a bit larger (body and glass), but with a larger sensor. But, they are really, really good. The X100 line is amazing for what it is - several friends use it as their main carry-around camera (even thought they own XT bodies and nice glass).
Photographer here. Cell phones have become very capable cameras. I've seen whole segments of my client list evaporate with the last generation of camera phones. The last straw was when the iPhone got portrait mode and could render bokeh/blur like lens physics.
Two things though...
1. The phone cameras are really really good. In the right hands, professionally capable in many situations. You don't need to know the basics of photography/physics to operate a camera phone properly. It helps, but the average person can just point and shoot with solid results.
2. We mostly just publish to social media now. The need for extremely detailed, high quality media work is diminishing at the bottom line. The market is changing. The quality in which we document is shifting. 8K is a buzz word, not an archival format for future proofing.
There isn't a cell phone in the world that could even touch the capabilities of a high end DSLR or Mirrorless camera, but that simply just doesn't matter now.
Yes, I have a phone with me, and it's great for when I forgot my camera, but there is no comparison in the freedom that the 5D gives me in postprocessing compared to a phone sensor. Phones are great for 100% of the things the average user wants, but not enough for what many artists want.
[0] It's not technically impossible, but it's a huge hassle and probably won't be near as good as with cameras.
It doesn't matter to the people who would previously have paid for a product. That's the point being made.
Technical excellence will always matter to some, but the point the GP is making is that the quality of smartphones has reached a level where a larger and larger segment of 'people who would have paid' now rest within the smartphone circle on the Venn diagram.
If the OP is talking about the general public's perception, with most of them not being photography enthusiasts, I tend to think this rings true.
If you're a photography enthusiast, then yeah, not true at all.
I have been wonder at what point will Phones camera reached the law of diminishing return? I thought the iPhone 11 with night mode finally closed the gap for most consumers, we have a roadmap for another 5 years of Lens, Optical Zoom, and Sensors with better light sensitivity.
Apple likes to hype up features, but they still haven't come out and claim they have a DSLR like Camera system. I wonder when they will do that.
No, it depends on what you want to do. If you want to do street photography, for example, even as a novice, you're going to have a much easier time using a longer lens so you don't get near your subjects and ruin your shots by drawing attention.
There are narrow lenses for phones as well.
The number of people who want a camera is vanishingly small. What almost everybody wants is a thing that takes pictures. These days, that doesn't have to be an extra thing; they're going to be carrying their phones for all sorts of other reasons. (BTW, lighting is far, far more important than the gear you use to capture the effects of the lighting. If I had to tell people to pay attention to only one thing, it would be the lighting - whether that's "found" lighting or something you deliberately set out to create. Get that right, and "fix it in post" becomes a whole lot less attractive.)
Have you looked at real "portrait mode" photos? They only really resemble narrow depth of field at thumbnail sizes, but as soon as you open them fullscreen, all of the mistakes jump out and make it look like a terrible Photoshop job. I'm sure it will get better, but I certainly wouldn't say it's anywhere near the last straw yet.
That quote belongs to Chase Jarvis.
No dedicated camera I'm aware of will take 128 full res frames within half a second, and align and stack them to reduce sensor noise. Yet all modern phone cameras do something like that.
You couldn't even really do the above in postprocessing - the Canon EOS 4000D can only do 3 fps, and only has a buffer of 6 frames.
The reason phone cameras have caught up despite 'worse' physics, is that dedicated cameras electronics are lacking functionality that phone cameras have had for a few years now.
Agreed! A dSLR with the same hardware/software sophistication of modern iPhones would be a marvelous product. If camera manufacturers are unwilling or uncapable to deliver this, I wonder if Apple would ever consider entering that market. Imagine: an iPhone with an APS-C sensor and replaceable lenses! The sad truth is that it would probably be a product with too long a lifespan for Apple to build it.
> while large cameras have powerful special-purpose image processing engines, they have relatively weak programmable processors. At the same time, they have more pixels to process than cell phones, because their sensors are larger. These two factors made innovation difficult.
from https://graphics.stanford.edu/~levoy/
Also I think HDR+ and other similar stuff uses only around 12 pictures.
However if I compare pictures from e.g. Nikon Coolpix P950 which has small sensor but big zoom, the picture quality is not nearly as good as with phone cameras with smaller CMOS.
I wish camera manufacturers started to mount these cameras on a phone hardware, maybe even run Android directly, if they can't get their act together.
> Android Inc. was founded in Palo Alto, California, in October 2003 by Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears, and Chris White.[16][17] Rubin described the Android project as "tremendous potential in developing smarter mobile devices that are more aware of its owner's location and preferences".[17] The early intentions of the company were to develop an advanced operating system for __digital cameras__, and this was the basis of its pitch to investors in April 2004.[18] The company then decided that the market for cameras was not large enough for its goals, and by five months later it had diverted its efforts and was pitching Android as a handset operating system that would rival Symbian and Microsoft Windows Mobile.
Emphasis mine. It sounds like it was intended as an OS for cameras, but in the end it was not designed as one. However source from [18], confirms OP's memory - https://www.pcworld.com/article/2034723/android-founder-we-a...
>The creators of Android originally dreamed it would be used to create a world of "smart cameras" that connected to PCs, a founder said, but it was reworked for mobile handsets as the smartphone market began to explode.
> "The exact same platform, the exact same operating system we built for cameras, that became Android for cellphones," said Android co-founder Andy Rubin, who spoke at an economic summit in Tokyo.
No, I think that's a bad example to choose. I do take your point, dedicated camera development is more conservative, but their market is different. If you splurge £10k on a camera system, you are likely a pro, and you want consistency, and longevity to the design and the operation of the system.
Thinking about it, dedicated cameras have mainly been innovating in video production rather than stills in the last 5 years.
Basically, all of Magic Lantern (a considerable feature set) should have been standard.
Also, it's a literal button. I'm paying $160 for a button with a timer on it.
Except there is noise. There is always some dark spot that could do with a little more detail. There is always a bright reflection that saturates the sensor losing its color information.
With a decent burst and enough computational photography, you can recover all that information.
You have clearly never looked at unprocessed RAW data from the sensor or you wouldn't be saying something so completely wrong.
Secondly, strange that you don't actually link anything to demonstrate this noise advantage. Much less that it's "vastly superior" and "not even in the same ballpark". Hint -- because it isn't.
[1] - which is a revealing bit of cargo cult analysis. Sensor quality across "dedicated" cameras have enormous variations, and a lot are simply terrible. One of the reasons smartphones do burst and computational photography is for extended dynamic range, yet the iPhone 11 already has a sensor with more dynamic range than the significant majority of SLRs/mirrorless cameras. There are obviously better sensors, like the A7R II+, but there are many that are worse, sometimes much worse.
I told you the name of the website where you should look. How explicit do I have to be for you? Here's a link if it helps.
https://www.photonstophotos.net/Charts/PDR.htm
Compare an iPhone XS Max to a an A7R4 or something. At ISO 100, The A7R4 has 11.6 bits of dynamic range and the iPhone has 6.4 bits. HUGE difference.
> Without processing what comes out of the sensor is an ugly beast.
RAWs from a large sensor without denoising look fine. On my camera I only have lens correction and color correction - zero denoising. I've done statistical analysis of dark frames using LibRaw to make sure this is actually the case, and indeed I exactly replicated the results from PhotonsToPhotos.
> yet the iPhone 11 already has a sensor with more dynamic range than the significant majority of SLRs/mirrorless cameras
Hahahaha, please, show me one even APS-C camera from Sony, Fuji, Nikon, Canon, or any other reputable manufacturer made in the last 4 years that has a worse PDR than the iPhone 11.
Then you link to a dynamic range chart. Yet we were talking about noise. See, I looked at their noise charts where the XS Max (a generation behind, and significantly bested by the 11) beat the majority of SLRs, including contemporary SLRs. Tellingly you decided not to link that.
"Compare an iPhone XS Max to a an A7R4 or something"
Oh you know...an A7R4 or something. The fact that the A7R4 has one of the best sensors on an SLR is just, you know, incidental.
Fun fact - the iPhone 11 has 10 stops (10 "bits") of dynamic range, which exceeds the majority of SLRs on that site (and of those that beat it, few are "vastly superior"). The sensor actually has 12 stops of dynamic range but automatic pre-processing knocks it down 2 stops (though there are tools that circumvent that). "Hahahahaha".
"RAWs from a large sensor without denoising look fine."
You have never seen the actual RAW data, plainly evident from this claim. Do you know what a Bayer filter is? Do you realize the enormous amount of processing it does just to recreate edges and other artifacts? I suspect you don't. Do you know that every sensor has permanently lit elements, permanently dark elements, and permanently errant elements? That the camera has an evolving correction matrix around these artefacts? The amount of processing that turns that bayer sensor array into a so-called "RAW" file is absolutely enormous, and it automatically includes a tremendous amount of smoothing and corrections, even if you, the ignorant user, remain blissfully unaware. When manufacturers push out new firmware, changes to these processing steps is often one of the most noted changes.
So to repeat-
-the iPhone 11 has better dynamic range, single shot, than many SLRs.
-the iPhone 11 has a better noise profile than many SLRs.
And I'm just talking about the iPhone 11 as a very common smartphone. There are smartphones that exceed it now, the point being that many smartphones have superb cameras.
These are facts. There are SLRs that are much better, like the recent A7s, but any cargo culting as if the entire category gives you a superior result is simple ignorance.
This comment suggests you don’t even remotely understand the poisson statistics underlying sensor noise, or else it would be obvious why they “knock off” those two bits. The SNR of the iPhone sensor is fundamentally limited by the size of the capacitors at each photosite.
> You have never seen the actual RAW data
Yes I have, and my mention of “libraw” should have been a clue for you.
> Do you know what a Bayer filter is?
Yes. I also know about X-trans filters, foveon, etc. I’m fairly confident I can out-namedrop you here ;)
> the iPhone 11 has better dynamic range, single shot, than many SLRs. > the iPhone 11 has a better noise profile than many SLRs.
Give me a specific SLR in the last 4 years where either of these is true. The data is right there on photonstophotos, so go ahead.
You’re going to have a hard time, and if you understood the physics of how a CMOS sensor works you’d know why.
In a post where I'm talking about necessary processing (where you claim there is none) to turn the ugly sensor data into workable forms you attempt to correct me to tell me that it needs to be processed (I mean, you are aware of libraw so clearly you're an expert. funfact: I worked for two years on a professional codebase that specifically dealt with raw sensor processing), as if to demonstrate my ignorance. Remarkable absence of self-awareness on your part.
Your reply could really be posted as a counterpoint to your own first post where you decided to counter my basic statement that all CMOS sensors have noise and abberations.
"and if you understood the physics of how a CMOS sensor works"
Just to be clear, your authoritative site shows the iPhone (the last generation) being less noisy than many SLRs. And it's fact that the iPhone 11 has 10 stops of dynamic range, before any special bracketing, which bests many/most SLRs on that site. And yet we're still going. Amazing
But your core "if you only understood CMOS...reeeeeeeee!" claim is one that is often erroneously made. "larger sensor = larger sensor pit pitch = better, less noisy sensor!" Right?
I mean, this argument has been made against smartphones for years. To assure us that they'll always be crap because...like...physics or something. Though anyone who didn't decide to die on a really stupid hill has long moved on.
But here's the reality-
a) There are enormous difference between different CMOS technologies and implementations. Sony, for instance, has shot ahead of everyone else (though they bin and segment). There are many SLRs and mirrorless cameras with absolute trash sensors. Cargo culting is ignorant.
b) Many cameras with larger sensors spend the benefit on higher resolutions. The Sony A7R IV subdivides the sensor into 5x more pixels than the iPhone 11 (the A7R IV being one of the absolute best). If that was lossless you could simply process it to a lower resolution and have the best of both worlds, but it isn't lossless -- the circuitry and structure to support that resolution is substantial. Each pit has its own lines and power and memory channel. And even if they didn't, noise scales with the sensor size.
"Give me a specific SLR in the last 4 years where either of these is true."
You've already segued effortlessly from noise to dynamic range, humorously, and now you're making a baseless, nonsensical statement just hoping that no one actually confirms it. Your intellectual sincerity in this discussion is somewhere approaching non-existent, so I'm out. Cheers.
Charitably, you are confused, and uncharitably you are lying or misleading.
I gave you a simple prompt where you could prove yourself right with a single camera model, and unsurprisingly you’ve failed to take advantage of it.
> And even if they didn't, noise scales with the sensor size.
These noise sources are completely dwarfed by poisson/shot noise (which is the completely overwhelming noise source on most modern SLRs for “everyday” photographs).
The iPhone’s FETs hold a lot fewer electrons. There is no way around this. And then with technology like Dr-pix present in modern Sony sensors (including the ones they sell to Fuji), the gap gets even wider.
Is that a command? Am I your monkey? I humored your site, noted that it didn't confirm your claims (again -- you didn't link this proof about noise, and when I used your site to demonstrate that you were incorrect...you segued to DR where you could enjoy that this site has a single obsolete smartphone).
Curious that you decided to get the last word in again. Your own proof is flawed.
But again, you claimed that every SLR in the past 4 years is "vastly" better. "Not even in the same ballpark". Your net evidence so far is that a $5000 camera body, which is known to have a class leading sensor, has better dynamic range than a two year old iPhone. "Hahahahaha".
Canon 6D Mark II.
Released in 2017. Actually a "prosumer" camera where the body alone pushes $2000. Full frame sensor (and given that you're a big brain about CMOS, surely that means it must dominate, right)?
Trash noise profile
Trash dynamic range
The iPhone 11 handily beats this device in virtually every measure. Despite the Canon having a big old fat 861mm2 sensor (again -- weird that this isn't a magical solution! I mean, if I knew anything about CMOS at all I'd know...blah blah blah)
And we're being generous and ignoring that most of the people hyping up SLRs in here have their old T2i and think because it's heavier and bigger it's a superior imaging machine.
What now? Do you concede defeat? LOL. Of course you won't.
And again, this all started based upon the completely ignorant claim that SLRs don't have sensor noise, which is ludicrous, then you decided to wallow in and tell us how completely and absolutely outclassed smartphones are. This is just layers and layers of cargo culting ignorance.
EDIT: LOL insta-flagged. Classic HN. Where imbeciles flourish and comfort each other's stupidity.
The guy I responded to has puffed every comment up with insults, a hilariously unearned sense of superiority, and just post after post of ignorance. Hacker News is the world's greatest example of Dunning-Kruger. Time to go read some deliciously ignorant hot takes about COVID-19!
And you're showing your ignorance by not realizing that noise is the main determinate of dynamic range.
Is there a correlation? Yup. Is it a strong correlation? It is not. And when the cited reference explicitly has noise measurements, when someone so carefully steers clear of it...yeah.
Well, not Sony. Their mirrorless cameras have gotten much better autofocus and battery life and slightly better ergonomics, usability, speed and weather-sealing, but there has basically been no change in their video capabilities.
That's not entirely true, althoughI'm not sure I like the direction. A good example if Fuji's X-T* line, where, as one reviewer noted, "I had thought I'm buing a camera, but it turned out I bought a computer with lens attached". It does all creative tricks to compensate for inaccuracies coming from the hardware, especially the lens - but at the price of draining the batteries exctremely fast, and each lens need a firmware update. Is the final result good? Yes. Do I like it more than more standard solution from Canon and Nikon? Not necessarily. It seems cheaper though.
Considering that Android was originally aimed at cameras [1], maybe that's something Camera OEMs can finally look at again.
[1] https://www.dpreview.com/articles/0013837043/android-was-ori...
However, even on innovative features that it does have - like WiFi or face recognition, it implements so poorly that I kind of wish they hadn't bothered.
Fujifilm simply don't have the quality of software engineers that Apple and Google have access to. Nor do they place the same importance on software. The actual physical feel of this camera is sublime, it's a shame they don't think the software is worthy of the same attention to detail.
If you're going to use a single camera as your example for the industry, I don't think that's fair. Canon makes great cameras, but my Nikon V1, circa 2011, is a camera "serious photographers" like to laugh at, and and outperforms your example. It was 5fps with a mechanical shutter, up to 60fps with the electronic shutter.
At the time, some people used the 30fps burst to make 4K video clips: https://vimeo.com/61441075
And FWIW, I used a command line tool to do image stacking to reduce sensor noise on my Nikon 1 cameras years ago. That was until I started using DxO, which does an adequate job of sensor noise reduction on a single RAW shot without as much work.
Also, the DSLRs I used more than 10 years ago (Sony Alphas) were able to do 5fps, but back then, nobody really took you seriously as a photographer if you used a Sony.
I'm no hardware person, but I believe there are serious constraints on how quickly you can take images with larger sensors. The D6 can do 14 frames a second, and the D850 can do about half that.
I regularly wondered if the love of my camera was simply some sunk cost bias towards it. I've been mostly cured of this thought through the reactions of people. A "holy sh*t" when I show them a long-exposure of the stars. A whispered "oh my god" when I show them a shot with beautiful bokeh.
And to me - as a physicist - the act catching the edge cases, that extra 5% of shots. The stuff you need a good sensor and a nice piece of glass to capture. That's what I find exciting.
There's no way you could retrieve this much detail from a phone sensor: https://imgz.org/ius5Vhb9/
The bottom version... OK, my phone can't do that. If it did, I'd take it to the Apple store to see if they could fix it.
The thing is, because of how our eyes and brain work (huge dynamic range plus postprocessing), the actual viewed scene was probably closer to the second photo than the first, but with a higher contrast (the camera HDR emulates the eye but you also need a huge dynamic range display to show it right, otherwise it's "compressed" to low contrast). So you can choose the contrast (first photo) or dynamic range (second photo) but not both.
In this case, a very good photo.
Then there's the fact that a lot of problems people try to solve with HDR are actually gamma correction issues.
Of course, I may just not be taking the right drugs...
I was in the process of looking to upgrade, and actually for that trip was hoping I could get an A7 III, (~2k for those unfamiliar with cameras), and eventually did a few months later, and even with a "G" lens (not highest end, but still ~$1k USD just for the lens), the gap between my wife's iphone and even my Galaxy S8 for "typical" photos is really small, and for certain types of action and low-light shots, the cell phones are superior.
I am not sure if I will ever buy another "proper" camera again. People talked for years about the limits of physics on lenses and light and such, but software can overcome those limitations for the most part. It makes me sad, and I maybe even feel a little foolish for spending a few thousand dollars on equipment that is quickly becoming unnecessary for most of my uses.
I mainly do macro work these days myself, e.g. https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DSC_9393.jpg - I'm happy to talk about what it was like getting started, if you think it might be useful. Definitely some surprises, even coming at it from a place of good familiarity with interchangeable-lens photography in general.
Phones currently cannot easily capture the details on the wasp, from the blood? vessels to the compound eye cells. Something somewhere would be blurred into oblivion.
Is it the macro lense that captures those details, or is it a wide f-stop / image size / ISO is low enough ?
I know the terms and that they matter, but not what combinations to use given what I want to capture. (this must be what it is like for a non-techie person to try to select video transcoding settings :) )
Somewhat counterintuitively, you actually need a very high F-stop to capture this kind of detail offhand, too - this was shot at f/32, through a lens that maxes out at f/2.8. The reason is that, the wider open your aperture is, the more off-axis light is captured - which produces shallower depth of field (DoF), i.e., a narrower space ahead of and behind the focus point that is also pretty much in focus. Because of the way macro lenses work, they exacerbate this problem a lot. So you need a very narrow aperture to have enough of your subject in focus for a good image.
(You do also lose some sharpness to diffraction at such high F-stops, it's true. But that's the tradeoff - high F-stop and deep DoF and diffraction losses, or low F-stop and shallow DoF and almost nothing in focus. The only way to compensate is by taking a lot of wide-open shots and focus stacking, but that requires the kind of time and precision that's only possible with a stationary subject - and this wasp was anything but! I might get away with f/22 or f/25 in the same situation today, but I'm a better macro photographer now than I was a year ago, too.)
Another effect of the narrow aperture you need for good DoF is that you're capturing very little light in any single exposure - there's just physically a smaller space for light to enter and hit the sensor. You can compensate for that by vastly increasing ISO sensitivity, but at the cost of adding a similarly vast amount of noise to your shots; the best way to overcome the light problem is by adding light with flashes.
Ring flashes, mounted on the filter thread at the front of the lens, are especially popular for this, because they produce a largely shadowless light that falls evenly on subjects very close to the lens. Another popular option is any of a variety of macro bracket systems, which let you mount regular "speedlight" flashes in a way that concentrates their light similarly to how a ring flash does. There are also systems such as Nikon's SB-R1C1, which combines a hot-shoe-mounted control unit with two (or more) flash heads that mount to a ring on the filter thread.
That said - sure, you can spend a lot of money on macro lighting, but you don't always need to. Especially if you're just starting out, a regular speedlight on the hot shoe, maybe with a homemade bounce card taped on to help aim the light at the macro subject, is absolutely a good starting option - especially since macro lenses tend to be a little spendier than regular primes due to their more complex construction. Better to start out spending money on the best 60-80mm macro lens you can afford, because you can't do without that and it'll give you a good opportunity to find out whether macro photography is something you really enjoy doing! Once you know you want to keep going, that's the time to be looking at complicated lighting and other gear that'll help you level up your ability to get keepers.
On a related note - image (sensor) size is significant, but not hugely so. I got that wasp photo with a Nikon D500, which has an APS-C size sensor, and it came out well enough that I can have 36x24 inch (91x61 cm) prints made from the full-resolution version at no significant cost in quality. (I actually have such a print hanging on my living room wall. It's quite striking! I never get tired of looking at it, although others rarely feel the same - I used to have it over my bed, but my boyfriend at the time asked me to take it down.) With a larger sensor, you can ca...
Luckily for my sense of self, I’ve only ever engaged in available light photography.
Ilford Delta 3200 when everyone else was using Kodak Gold 200. Fast fixed focal length lenses when everyone else was using f3.5 or slower kit zooms. Everything shot wide open all of the time, resulting in many dud photos with incorrect focus, and a few fantastic shots.
It’s an excellent way of justifying my box of ”real camera equipment” to myself, on the continuing onslaught of evidence that cell phone cameras are plenty good enough.
I use the telephoto for interesting things that are far away - generally wildlife. I use the iPhone for shots that the telephoto is no good for - landscapes, interesting things that are nearby.
This gives me the ability to take most photos without needing to swap lenses!
Admitting that my phone takes great quality photos and it's OK to use it even when I'm carrying my DSLR was a very useful psychological step for me.
I also do miss having the 50mm on my Nikon while walking around. It's sharp, takes great low light pics, and is so versatile.
So yeah, I understand your psychological hangups because I have the same ones :)
Also lovely to see an article by Scalzi on here, one of my all-time favourite authors.
Fujifilm X series. X-100F currently retails for $1000. You can get the (still fantastic) X-100T for around $500 refurb.
Must admit that I sorta forgot he owned them.
The DNG files have at least a stop or two of editing latitude from the Pixel 3a.
If you want the feel of a Leica, check out the X100 series from Fujifilm. They are excellent in every version, so you can choose your price on the used market. The only caveat is that the 35mm-equivalent focal length needs to resonate with you.
iOS has offered 3rd party apps access to raw sensor data since late-2017 or so: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/camer...
This is part of why you see so many wide angle and macro shots these days: they're the ideal scenarios for phone pictures. Phone sensors are finally starting to creep up in size from the common 1/2.55" sensors. I suspect should they reach the 1" size, the resolution of detail will dramatically improve. It looks like the S20 Ultra has a 1/1.33" already, but I haven't tried it myself.
When there is bad light, or high contrast, even a 10-old DSLR is better... but requires time for post-processing. However, I think it is going to change soon with deep learning, for tweaking everything - from local contrast, through removing chromatic aberration, to fixing blurred pictures with super-resolution. To, well, adjusting ISO a lot: https://github.com/cchen156/Learning-to-See-in-the-Dark
Beyond quality, I also dislike how camera phones have cheapened photos. Decades ago I actively thought this wouldn't be a problem, but now it's very apparent that it is: People take thousands of photos and don't look at them.
Why? I think it's too many photos for people to comfortably curate. 4 rolls of film was manageable, and with limited space in the album (and patience for the task), the best ones got picked out and the rest filed away in a shoebox. Today? I've been there, watching patiently, as someone scrolls though their phone "album", skipping over dozens of identical images to get to the next good one. Unlimited space gives even the most fat fingered "photo burst" prone grandparent reason to never delete anything. It's so bad that now the phone AI has taken over the task of "organizing". It's a terrible combination. Maybe the phones will learn to create albums just from the good photos, but so far I'm not impressed.
I don't think this is about camera phones, but digital cameras.
I find myself curating more photos immediately when they're taken with my iPhone — while leaving photos in my DSLR/M43 cameras for future curation, because their LCD screens are tiny.
There's no point keeping that blurry photo of a crappy sunset, or 25 near-identical copies of the same thing. I delete ruthlessly, and keep 1-3 photos of each subject.
Importantly, when I look back at my photos, the ones I'm most interested in are the ones with people in them, especially after a sibling was killed in an accident. I keep nearly all of those (except near duplicates). So although I take lots of photos of things, I don't care that much about them, and only keep the good ones.
1) Yes, phones are great for 100% of the average person, who just wants some snapshots to remember/post on Instagram/etc. Not only that, but most phones apply filters to the photo that makes it look more appealing (like in the article), which is what most people want. Photographers want fidelity, so they can apply their own edits in post, so a deciding factor is maximizing post-processing freedom.
Cameras are more for professional/artistic use these days.
2) Phones are never ever going to replace professional cameras. Hell, not even non-professional cameras are ever going to replace professional cameras. I have a Canon 5D as my main camera and a Sony RX-100 mkIII as a travel camera, and while the latter is fantastic, has great quality in a very small form factor, I end up frustrated 30% of the times I use it. The 5D is a professional camera, and much of what you pay for is for the ergonomics.
It's very cumbersome to have to go three menus down to change a setting in the smaller camera when I could have done it without taking my eye away from the viewfinder on the 5D, and it leads to missed shots. I haven't seen this point mentioned anywhere, and it's a big differentiator.
I could include here the fact that the camera is much more predictable: If you hear the "beep" that tells you it's focused, pressing the button gets me a photo in < 100ms. Phones have a will of their own, and it's pretty random when you'll actually have your photo. Cameras focus in a few milliseconds exactly on the subject, phones focus somewhere in the vicinity of where you asked, at some point soonish. This leads to a much better, more solid-feeling experience when using a camera.
3) Phones are great for taking wide-angle photos in ample light, but not great for everything else. They can clean low-light photos decently these days, but a large sensor is much more versatile in what you can do with it. The same goes for the lenses, 24mm is good for a lot of things, but sometimes you just need a different focal length.
4) Larger sensors have a lot more detail in the resulting photo. A camera lets you go from the before to the after here, and this isn't even a terrible shot: https://imgz.org/ius5Vhb9/
A phone wouldn't be able to retrieve much detail in that scene, and the result would look much worse. A camera can help you salvage many photos that would have been write-offs with a phone, e.g. when they're too dark/bright, or when you have tones too close to each other.
TL;DR: Phones are great, but cameras are great too.
I did that when I found I was missing jump shots because the AF system got confused and waited to refocus, giving me a tack-sharp shot of a place where a bird had just been. Now, when I miss a jump shot, at least it's my fault.
Now that I think about it, that obviates my shutter focus priority setting anyway, since half-pressing the shutter only locks exposure. Oh, well...
Poor light though and real DSLR with large aperture glass and a big sensor works a LOT better. And for some cases like moving wildlife at long range phones aren't competitive. Getting a DSLR is probably driven by whether those cases are important or not.
And while my 12-year-old full-frame Nikon D700 might only fetch a token sum now, it'll still take photos that are on a different level from any camera phone out there.
Thousand-dollar phones are a sunk cost, and it's common to only recover between half to two-thirds of the cost after one release cycle.
Moreover, $1000 will get you a flagship phone, but at best a mid-level camera and lens. You'll get a vastly better camera, no doubts, but you'll only get a camera.
When I first got my Huawei P20 Pro, I was seriously impressed with just how sharp and crisp the images it took were. A year later that "wow" sharpness factor just wasn't there anymore. Looking at the glass covering the lenses you could clearly see scuffing and small scratches, the result of a years worth of normal usages.
For daytime snaps it wasn't that big a deal, but for indoor snaps every light source looked like t had the starburst effect.
It's a minor issue, but definitely worth noting. It's also the reason why I still take a "real" camera with me on holidays or to events.
My 4 year old 6S (used caseless and without much caution its entire life) lens is still pristine.
If you leave that stock zoom lens on... yeah, it’s not great. Now put a light-sensitive prime on it and put it wide-open. Instant great pictures that even a novice will notice “its a nice picture”.
I use a Sony A-6000 with a 30mm F1.8 prime.
Shooting at 1.8, too much of the picture is out of focus in my experience.
I’m just a hobbyist. Never actually compared sharpness at stops.
I imagine many others feel the same way.
I now have an iPhone 11 Pro but unless I uses portrait mode the photos just don't come close. And when I do use portrait mode it feels like augmented reality, not real life.
This is what I'm after: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkEq2u_E1VU
So I'm considering an X100V but I am not sure if I can develop the diligence to carry the thing all the time. Especially with family, which is of course when I want it most.
Even at small sizes, the difference in dynamic range is insane, which makes a huge difference when photographing people indoors in particular. And of course when you look at the photo full size, the terrible watercolor effects on cell phone photos can't be ignored.
By the way, you should get the Sigma 56mm f1.4 for your Sony; that's the lens of mine that most makes people's jaws drop.
One of the hardest things in photography is successfully incorporating the background in the composition. And if you fail, the results are devastating: the background will not only look bad, but also distract from the one thing that might look nice, i.e. the subject.
A big aperture lets you sidestep that difficulty, making it easier to take "good pictures".
Those are scare quotes because successfully incorporating the background might have yielded an even better image. Remember that in the cameras infancy and quite some time after, DoF blur was considered a technical flaw.
When I look back at my photos, I cringe.
These days I generally prefer more depth of field as opposed to less. Unless I have to, I prefer to shoot stopped down a little, at around f2.8 or f4. I also use flash (preferably off camera) when I can.
Probably an unpopular preference, but I also prefer to use smaller sensors, like 1" and 4/3. I can shoot wide open but get more DOF, and my cameras+lens combinations are much more portable.
When I shot portraits I like to shoot more open and blur the background. (I typically used about 100mm).
I have a series of artists in their work spaces. When I shoot those I don't blur the background and shoot wide to get as much of the space.
My old DSLR was just to bulky so I left it home more often than not, the mirrorless is just that little more compact and light (especially with a pancake lens, it almost becomes a compact).
And good prima doesn't have to be new and expensive btw. You can buy adapters to fit almost any old lens to any modern camera (especially with mirrorless). Only thing you will be missing is the autofocus and auto aperture control. But for me this adds to the experience, since you must really be engaged with taking the picture (eg, thinking about exposure, zooming with your feet, predicting when a moving object will be in focus), instead of having the camera do it's best (or worst) for you and fixing it in post with software.
I have settled on a Fuji as their controls connect more to that feeling of manual photography, making the experience more fun for me. For everything else, my phone camera with cracked lens is good enough.
Here are some examples of what you need to be able to do with a phone before it makes sense to talk about interchangeable-lens cameras not needing to exist any more.
https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/DSC_9393.jpg
https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/DSC0375.jpg
Totally agree, as a long time DSLR user.
Six months ago I bought a Nikon D850 – which has 45 Megapixels (8526 x 5504) at a full-frame resolution, allowing aggressive image cropping if I need it. I often use a 200-500mm lens. If I switch the camera to a cropped sensor mode I get a 1.5 x increase in effective focal length (i.e., 850mm) while still getting a 24 mPx (5408 x 4584) image. The D850 also has very low sensor noise, which makes shooting in low light a pleasure.
If I want an image of some friends for a typical social media application, then, yes, I will use my smartphone and get something that is usually good enough. But, for my main application - wildlife photography – there is just no comparison. I want to be able to see the detail of the individual feathers on a bird. And now I’ve gone up the learning curve, unless I make some stupid mistake, the camera will always get a shot if there is one to be had, not let the opportunities slip away because I can’t control the focusing or similar.
[Edit] The D850 also has a tolerable DSLR video capability, although video autofocus sucks a bit. Shooting video at HD resolution, it has some very impressive live view focusing guides (sharp objects are highlighted in red) and a live histogram display. HD or 4K video with a 850-effective mm lens is truly awesome. The newer mirrorless Nikons (Z series) are functionally very similar from a video perspective.
Also, if I want a stunningly fast burst mode for 'small' (1920 x 1080) JPEG-quality images, I can use slow-mo video to get 120 frames per second.
edit: Doesn't have the D850's focus peaking in live view, though, as far as I know. I never use it for that, so better off checking the manual.
Focus peaking for video is amazing: you can move the focus from the foreground to the horizon and literally see a wave of red 'in-focus' tracking up the frame. For video, I'm a complete convert to live-view.
[Edit]. With practice, focus peaking makes it possible to track a moving animal (e.g. a squirrel approaching you across the ground) using manual focusing, without any of the dreaded auto-focus-hunting that can completely wreck a clip. You just have to learn instinctively which way to rotate the lens to move the plane of focus closer or further away.
A video tripod head also helps, so that you can pan and elevate the camera with one hand while focusing with the other. With a normal tripod head, that has separate locks for panning and elevating, simultaneously moving and focusing requires three hands.