It would be nice to hear some opinions on this following thoughts I've had, ever since I upgraded my phone last year from an iPhone 3G (2.5mp camera I think) to an Xperia Arc S, which at the time was the highest quality / size MP camera on a phone at 8MP, which is still a decent size for a phone camera today, as mid-ranged phones usually start at around 5-8MP and the super smart phones these days are running upward of 10MP, I think 13MP is the highest, at least on Android, that Nokia Symbian phone was like... 42MP? Or at least the fidelity / quality resembled that due to its massive lens housing, god knows what was in there, but if I remember rightly it was only 5MP images... Someone correct me.
Anyway, with my Arc S at 8MP, the images are fairly decent, I mean they're never going to be used for print, so it doesn't really need to be higher. However, as an art graduate, I spend time when I can taking photographs, and I have a 14MP Sony NEX 5, which as standard is already a better quality sensor than the tiny ones that make it into a phone.
My first point is it's still only 1MP higher than these smartphones, which makes me think; say I upgrade my phone in 1 year when 16MP is the highest, now we've gone over, for me I'm reluctant to go higher than my camera because I'd probably be swayed to using the phone more for photography, though the phones would probably have to be double the MP of a decent camera to really compare.
Secondly, Lenses, well the one on my Arc S is fairly standard, though probably more complex than some others as I think it has 7 layers of various shaped pieces of glass. But when it comes down to it, any photographer will tell you it's almost 100% the lens that really makes a photograph what it is, the phones are getting better quality, but the lenses probably aren't, the phones are constantly trying to get thinner which doesn't help matters, but phones have actually gotten fatter sue to bigger screens needing bigger battery, so I'm unsure on this part of the topic.
The lenses I use on my NEX are Canon FD mounts, a format from the early to mid 70's all the way up to about 1994, they are manual lenses because of their age and incompatibility with modern auto-focus, but the quality is superb, and I'm not just saying it, one of the lenses is a 1.4 50mm prime, and can do some great shots, though the camera isn't full frame so the lens works out at 75mm, but I also have a 28mm 2.2 (I think?) prime, which works out around 42mm and is really good.
Both lenses are dated between 1972 and 1982, and no current phone could replicate the fidelity, bokeh and colour, which is one of the reasons why proper cameras will always have the advantage. (The NEX doesn't have a mirror inside so can replicate the original setup of older cameras easily, meaning a huge number of adaptors allows tons of different lenses to become available)
However with the Nokia pureview phone (still don't remember its name... 850?...) It had a body capable of housing some very interesting tech, that hasn't really been used since, at least to my knowledge. Seeing some pictures online really showed you what this phone was capable of, I think the resolution of the images were in the ten thousands X whatever, and remained really sharp, for a phone at least. Maybe it's lack of success is due to it been on a non-leading OS at the time, I can imagine people would want a camera with maybe an Android phone? (Which apparently, Nokia are working on) so maybe it will see it's true colours shine on a larger base OS. If this tech is worth the larger body size of a phone, people are going to want it...
And lastly, Convenience. One of the main points of having a camera is to be able to capture moments WHENEVER, and having a decent camera on a phone has been a growing trend over the past few years, with the growth of social networks, YouTube and Instagram. And you're more likely to have a phone with you than a camera for a situation that's spontaneous.
So what are peoples thoughts? A few months back Jessops one of the leading camera sales company in the UK went into administration, with only a few stores been saved;
Will we see a heightening trend amongst phones been used instead of standalone cameras?
Will they (DSLR's etc) be phased out completely?
Are you an avid photographer with your phone, or do you use a standalone camera?
Am I wrong?
I'd like to hear some opinions, hopefuly some educated ones on the subject will give a sense on the spectrum of issues.
Another point to consider, Smart-Cameras, the new trend of cameras running Android, though I don't think any have interchangeable lenses.
Thanks for reading, also... You may need to change some 'if's to 'of's because my phone has a habit of changing my words.
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I use my phone for everyday rubbish shots (whatsapp and such) and storing information (bustimes, lists, important stuff i take a snapshot of.) .
It will NEVER replace my DSLR.
It simply lacks the functionalities of one. So long as I can't set aperture and change lenses, it's not a real camera. I need my telezoom and macro lenses.
You can't seriously expect a phone, even that 42mp one to be as high - quality as a dslr. Too many pixels crammed into way too small a sensor. As it has always been with phones.
Not to mention, phones lack the power of a dslr. Ever tried taking nightshots with a phone? They're bad. Very bad. Or high speed shots. Nuhuh, they cant. Or far-zoom?
Lets face it, cameras on phones are not meant for professionals. They're meant for people on facebook, twitter and instagram.
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ShadowLea said:
I use my phone for everyday rubbish shots (whatsapp and such) and storing information (bustimes, lists, important stuff i take a snapshot of.) .
It will NEVER replace my DSLR.
It simply lacks the functionalities of one. So long as I can't set aperture and change lenses, it's not a real camera. I need my telezoom and macro lenses.
You can't seriously expect a phone, even that 42mp one to be as high - quality as a dslr. Too many pixels crammed into way too small a sensor. As it has always been with phones.
Not to mention, phones lack the power of a dslr. Ever tried taking nightshots with a phone? They're bad. Very bad. Or high speed shots. Nuhuh, they cant. Or far-zoom?
Lets face it, cameras on phones are not meant for professionals. They're meant for people on facebook, twitter and instagram.
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Man how can you compare a DSLR with a smartphone camera??, a DSLR is a camera with an awesome quality and the smartphone camera is only a phone with a decent camera and not for pro- photographers.. i would always choose a DLSR over a smartphone camera. And by the way i agree with ShadowLea that you can't cram 42mp in a small lens!!! it is outrageous!
Well, it's to do with trends, if you agree or not is a different matter, but lots of pro photographers and teachers will tell you if you ask, about how important this new revolution is, the quality you can get is pretty good, even compared to digital cameras less than 10 years ago.
If it can take photographs then it's a valid form, there are pro photographers then spend lots of their time using phones for photography, 5MP and decent light is enough, some of these phones are better quality than the point and shoot cameras of recent past.
Instagram, though trendy is a very valid post processing tool, just because the majority of people use it recreationaly it doesn't diminish its power, and usage.
People use Polaroid cameras all the time, and they're quite limited, and the quality can vary greatly. You can't change the lens, and you can't really adjust any settings.
Polaroid is probably most comparable to the quality of the mid range smartphones.
As for the Nokia 41MP camera phone, if you actually look at the images you can get a good sense of the quality. The short article can be found here:
http://www.extremetech.com/electron...review-camera-finally-coming-to-windows-phone
You can also easily find examples by doing an image search on Nokia Pureview.
The convenience of a very good quality camera phone can allow for great photos, which is why it's really taking off as a trend.
Denying it is the same arguments as saying Digital is better than Film, though there are still counter arguments, benefits and people still use film cameras and Polaroid.
There's a statistic recently that goes something like; there have been more photographs taken in 2012 than all previous years since photography's invention combined.
I'm not sure if that's word for word correct, but I think it was on a Vsauce YouTube video not long back.
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I think you need to understand that Professional stands for "getting paid for your work" or "being an accomplished/awarded photographer" and not "I can hold a camera!".
Yes, there have been more photo's taken in the last year than since the invention of the photograph. I do hope you are also aware that this includes every halfbrained moron on Instagram and Facebook posting their friday-night drunk shots.
No selfrespecting real photographer uses a phone's camera for his or her work. The only ones that do are either A, doing an experiment, or B, people on the internet fooling themselves into thinking they're photographers.
PHONE CAMERAS DO NOT HAVE APERATURE SETTINGS. And that's where it all ends. There isn't a single pro or semi-pro who uses a fixed aperature camera.
42MP doesn't make a bloody difference if the sensor is meant for 2MP. The photo's may look fine on the internet, but newsflash: Your monitor is 72DPI, not 300. And a 6000x6000 pixel image is always going to look amazing when downsized to 1920x1080 or lower. (which is what every website does.)
As for trends, they're for the common cattle, not semi/professionals. People with knowledge and experience pay attention to specs, not to hypes.
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ShadowLea said:
I think you need to understand that Professional stands for "getting paid for your work" or "being an accomplished/awarded photographer" and not "I can hold a camera!".
Yes, there have been more photo's taken in the last year than since the invention of the photograph. I do hope you are also aware that this includes every halfbrained moron on Instagram and Facebook posting their friday-night drunk shots.
No selfrespecting real photographer uses a phone's camera for his or her work. The only ones that do are either A, doing an experiment, or B, people on the internet fooling themselves into thinking they're photographers.
PHONE CAMERAS DO NOT HAVE APERATURE SETTINGS. And that's where it all ends. There isn't a single pro or semi-pro who uses a fixed aperature camera.
42MP doesn't make a bloody difference if the sensor is meant for 2MP. The photo's may look fine on the internet, but newsflash: Your monitor is 72DPI, not 300. And a 6000x6000 pixel image is always going to look amazing when downsized to 1920x1080 or lower. (which is what every website does.)
As for trends, they're for the common cattle, not semi/professionals. People with knowledge and experience pay attention to specs, not to hypes.
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I think you're missing my point, I meant professional photographers that use iPhones for photography for non print, recreation, street photography etc.
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For those interested in hearing a pro talk about it, I present, Chase Jarvis.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buDa-m65RyA&feature=youtube_gdata_player
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I just got mine today and was doing some testing. I've used Opencamera a lot in the past. I noticed it allows AP 2 which everybody's hunting down Gcam for but it seems to work just fine in Opencam. It does seem to break video in opencam though! Major bummer. It tries to kick it into 56mbps bitrate not matter what I set the bitrate to manually and that doesn't seem to be supported. So AP2 for photos only in OC thus far.
However, I'm not all that convinced that it helps all that much. I did notice substantially less noise so that's good, but dynamic range doesn't seem to change that much and honestly isn't the best I saw. The best dynamic range was with HDR on in the stock camera app with tapping to focus on the edge of where my dark black stove and a white piece of paper meet. I never did HDR auto, always on or off just to be sure.
So there's a bunch of different shots in different folders in the zip. Keep in mind this is pretty low light, so they're all a bit noisy and not as sharp. It's in my dark apt kitchen with just 2 4.5watt LED bulbs (40 watt equivalent) but I think it's a good mix of bright light source and dark with lots of bottles and stone skillet for color, texture, and shadows. I'll try some more tests in the daytime of course.
Some are OpenCam and some stock app. There's a few that are 48mp vs 12mp but I really didn't see any noticeable difference between the two so might as well just stick to 12. You can only really tell the 48mp ones because the pic will be around 9 to 10.5 mb and the 12 are around 3 to 5 ish mb.
Opencamera also has some kind of dynamic contrast boosting feature, but I didn't find it to make any difference at all.
There are also several versions of the just auto aka point and shoot vs tapping on the spot where my dark black stove meets the white paper and that yields the best dynamic range by far without other factors that modify that a little bit. Always try to find a good dark/light mix spot to tap on for your pic for best metering if you can. That alone makes sooooo much difference.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1A4KahfWKgIkytBhAbxBRKWDv7nr57Z5p
See what you guys think. Sorry about the crappy subject matter but I wanted it to be a tough scenario and consistent among all the tries.
Folders inside the zip tell what the pics are mostly. I labelled some of the pics themselves but not all. I need to make a list of things so I can remember the order after taking them and transferring to the PC later lol.
I've seen various terms thrown around, such as super AMOLED, Fluid AMOLED, Apple LTPO, Samsung LPTO 2.0, Dynamic AMOLED 2X, LTPO2 Fluid AMOLED. Where can I learn more about these? I'm still a noob, so I only know the basic advantages and functionality of say, amoled and super amoled compared to older display tech, but I want to learn even more. For example I've been struggling to find how different exactly is Apple's LPTO from Samsung's.
Most importantly, which display technology has the perfect combination of power consumption, RR, color accuracy and resolution?
Welcome to XDA
The Beast has a near perfect fixed refresh rate display that eats any Apple and likely all of the newer* variable refresh rate displays alive.
All variable refresh rate AMOLED displays are harder to color/gamma calibrate and suffer as a result to a greater or lesser extent.
What you want to learn is multifaceted and spans many different disciplines of science. It's a very steep learning curve. As you progress you'll see what I mean.
Take just color calibration, alone it can take a week and more to begin to appreciate it's complexity. Take a piece at a time and use Google searches. Here's one excellent site, Canon, Nike and B&H Photo have excellent primers gear more towards cams and color calibration/throughput. They all come together and each one influences/effects the others.
Color calibration is a big deal on smartphones, if the Android manufacturer didn't do it right, it will never be right. Apples can be color calibrated with 3rd party apps like Spyder I believe but have limited display capabilities. The N10+ marks the zenith, so far, in Android color calibration and throughput as best I know.
*full tests aren't out yet, but the writing's on the wall.
Smartphone photography has gotten to a point where professional cameras are now a niche market - for photography professionals only!
From premium flagships down to budget mid-rangers, we have smartphones that can take excellent photos today.
While there is an element of subjectivity involved in choosing the best picture, a great picture is one that has the right amount of light exposure, good dynamic range, plenty of details, etc.
Which picture one chooses over another is then a matter of personal preference. Some may prefer brighter colours (because why not), some may prefer warmer tones, etc. But regardless of which picture becomes the ultimate winner, one must ultimately choose the smartphone that maintains consistency, and delivers good results in all types of scenarios - daytime, low light, portrait mode, etc.
In this context, how do you choose the best photos? For simplicity, you can assume that photos being compared have plenty of details and the winner is just a personal preference.
Let me know if I should add more poll choices.
Closer to reality is always best.
Dayuser said:
Closer to reality is always best.
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So you make an exception for night photos?
Night Mode brings out details not visible to the naked eye, i.e. not what you actually see.
I prefer great pictures, as opposed to being exactly what the eyes see. As long as it isn't overdone, a little bit of colour pop, a slightly brighter image/ subject to bring out more details is my personal preference. This is also consistent with what night mode does which everyone likes.
TheMystic said:
So you make an exception for night photos?
Night Mode brings out details not visible to the naked eye, i.e. not what you actually see.
I prefer great pictures, as opposed to being exactly what the eyes see. As long as it isn't overdone, a little bit of colour pop, a slightly brighter image/ subject to bring out more details is my personal preference. This is also consistent with what night mode does which everyone likes.
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I don't use night mode. I use same mode as day photos (on gcam) or night i use ldr mode to get even darker photos.