I ride bike, mostly Enduro, FR/DH, and action cam is pretty much 'must have'. I have one proper action cam, it's light and durable, but since I got my hands on S4 Zoom, I got the idea to test its action cam abilities. It's heavier, it's really not durable with impacts, it has no wide angle lens,... but it performs really well.
Sony has the best OIS on action cams and I think it would be nice if they produce some device like S4 Zoom. Both companies have IP certified devices, both companies have good cameras, only Sony lacks device with stative mount.
I don't know how many of you are actually interested in this theme, but imagine - phone that has IP67/68, stative mount, wide angle lens (or adapter) and good OIS?! One device for all...
Here are the videos (not the best riding, difference of atmosphere state, yt upload), but I think it will be ok, if there is interested in this subject.
S4 zoom
Sony Action Cam HDR - another track, but Steadyshot is great so you don't need comparison
http://www.vitalmtb.com/product/guide/Cameras,90/Sony/Action-Cam-HDR-AS15,11600
One other action cam
I'm using my phone to take photos of assembly procedures on my electronics workbench. However, the focus in up-close shots is not sharp.
I've always been curious about the focusing method they use. It's obviously not electromechanical servo as in digital cameras, and my guess is that the image sensors are sufficiently sensitive as to allow the use if a simple "pin-hole" lens, which effectively gives "infinite" depth-of-field. Two questions thus arise:
1. Is my guess about focusing correct, and if not what is the method?
2. Is it possible to use an external lens to sharpen the focus, and if so of what characteristics?
Many thanks for any replies and/or answers.
Hi all, I did a thorough analysis and posted it in reddit so the Essential staff can see it. Here it is... Please post your replies and comments here along with your comparisons and settings listed please. Thank you!
https://www.reddit.com/r/essential/comments/7gjxcm/comparisons_of_new_essential_camera_update/
xterminater07 said:
Hi all, I did a thorough analysis and posted it in reddit so the Essential staff can see it. Here it is... Please post your replies and comments here along with your comparisons and settings listed please. Thank you!
https://www.reddit.com/r/essential/comments/7gjxcm/comparisons_of_new_essential_camera_update/
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I have read your post. I did see the update that Essential released and although the file size is about 1 MB bigger than before the update, still the image quality didn't change. I am using this version: MGC_5.1.016_7.0+C2API_v.1.3a_AllinOne. How is it different from your version of Google Camera app?
why do you think the portrait mode does not use the second camera?
hs911 said:
why do you think the portrait mode does not use the second camera?
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Well two reasons, they never really mention what focal length the second camera is, most flagship say its a 2x optical which is a typical 52mm lens. Second, you can see the stapphy's pic, the bokeh is way off.
well i can not fully agree with you. i admit that i have no technical details for constructing pictures with two cameras but i made a simple test: i put my finger on the mono cam:
monochrome cam covered:
both cams free:
hs911 said:
well i can not fully agree with you. i admit that i have no technical details for constructing pictures with two cameras but i made a simple test: i put my finger on the mono cam:
monochrome cam covered:
both cams free:
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Interesting, I was only saying that because most true portrait set up needs a telephoto lens bc of the focal length 52mm used. The latest OP5 removed their telephoto lens and created portrait solely by upscaling pixels taken by the second lens. There is a article on gsmarena that explains this, so maybe essential is doing the same?!? But to me, anything not using a 52mm setup for portrait is all software emulated.
Essential had mentioned that both cameras are the same focal length (or at least appear to be, they didn't give specs). The difference is color vs mono. And if you look into stereo photography, which has existed since almost the dawn of photography, it's composed of 2 lenses at the same focal length slightly offset from one another similar to the dual camera setup on this phone. It produces 3d images. This is because each image is slightly offset from the other, producing a slightly different perspective. This is also how we see depth with our own eyes.
If you can produce 3d/stereo images with 2 lenses next to each other, then you could calculate how far the images are offset from one another by overlapping them. Where the offset is further, you might assume the object is further and thus produce a shallower depth of field there.
Where I'm unsure is how the expected to combine the 2 images because they won't match identically. Either they're so close that stereo imagery as I described has little to no offset, making my point above completely irrelevant and allowing them to be combined as originally planned, or there's enough offset that they're having difficulty in combining the images which is why there has been very little confirming it's actively doing this.
gk1984 said:
Essential had mentioned that both cameras are the same focal length (or at least appear to be, they didn't give specs). The difference is color vs mono. And if you look into stereo photography, which has existed since almost the dawn of photography, it's composed of 2 lenses at the same focal length slightly offset from one another similar to the dual camera setup on this phone. It produces 3d images. This is because each image is slightly offset from the other, producing a slightly different perspective. This is also how we see depth with our own eyes.
If you can produce 3d/stereo images with 2 lenses next to each other, then you could calculate how far the images are offset from one another by overlapping them. Where the offset is further, you might assume the object is further and thus produce a shallower depth of field there.
Where I'm unsure is how the expected to combine the 2 images because they won't match identically. Either they're so close that stereo imagery as I described has little to no offset, making my point above completely irrelevant and allowing them to be combined as originally planned, or there's enough offset that they're having difficulty in combining the images which is why there has been very little confirming it's actively doing this.
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Excellent analysis! The prior 2 lens system that existed was used for 3D purposes only. However, now there's softwares involved that pretty much said to ignore anything that is behind the main focus point regardless of how minimal the depth differences are. The 7 Plus didn't even make use of the telephoto until it detects an X amount of lighting present. There was a video just surfaced to show how the iPhone X turns on it's telephoto at a lower lighting than the 7 Plus or 8 Plus, I forgot which one. Most dual camera phones without telephoto lens is pretty much just like you said color and mono, and the mono allows for better color. The camera system would merge the two together to enhance color, not needing a larger aperture for low lighting since the mono takes care of that.
xterminater07 said:
Excellent analysis! The prior 2 lens system that existed was used for 3D purposes only. However, now there's softwares involved that pretty much said to ignore anything that is behind the main focus point regardless of how minimal the depth differences are. The 7 Plus didn't even make use of the telephoto until it detects an X amount of lighting present. There was a video just surfaced to show how the iPhone X turns on it's telephoto at a lower lighting than the 7 Plus or 8 Plus, I forgot which one. Most dual camera phones without telephoto lens is pretty much just like you said color and mono, and the mono allows for better color. The camera system would merge the two together to enhance color, not needing a larger aperture for low lighting since the mono takes care of that.
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I don't think you're accurate on one aspect, but otherwise yes. The mono camera doesn't do anything for color. It is physically impossible to capture color data on the monochrome sensor. Rather, that sensor is missing the layers/components that filter light into red, green, and blue. The benefits are less objects on the sensor blocking light passing through and possibly (depending on design) more surface area to capture light. So the mono sensor captures more light and more detail. Combining the 2 images is supposed to offer more detailed images and help with exposure. Anything to do with color is from the color sensor and post-processing. Quality lenses can also help the color accuracy, but it's unclear if the lens on the camera is as good as it can be or not.
gk1984 said:
I don't think you're accurate on one aspect, but otherwise yes. The mono camera doesn't do anything for color. It is physically impossible to capture color data on the monochrome sensor. Rather, that sensor is missing the layers/components that filter light into red, green, and blue. The benefits are less objects on the sensor blocking light passing through and possibly (depending on design) more surface area to capture light. So the mono sensor captures more light and more detail. Combining the 2 images is supposed to offer more detailed images and help with exposure. Anything to do with color is from the color sensor and post-processing. Quality lenses can also help the color accuracy, but it's unclear if the lens on the camera is as good as it can be or not.
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Oops, I don't mean enhance color as in Saturation and color itself. What I mean is like making the pictures more details with color and contrasts that sort, shadows and lighting. However, it is interesting the guy above cover the second lens and bokeh went away.
Anyone have any good gimbal recommendation that they use with the V30? I was thinking of getting the Zhiyun Smooth Q or DJI Osmo Mobile 2. Chime in if you have any recommendations. Thanks.
Hello,
I'm also interested.
I had the bad idea of buying a YI gimbal but I had to return it.
The app was terrible and never connected with the gimbal.
Moreover the gimbal itself was probably able to manage only shorter smartphones.
With LG V30 put in landscape whole rotation wasn't possible because the phone touched the gimbal.
Moreover with phone put in the correct position (with screen on the free side of the gimbal) the wide screen camera showed the gimbal on the right side.
I read on reddit that someone simply mounted the V30 putting the screen toward the gimbal, but doing so the screen isn't completely visible.
Moreover I also read that people is using stock camera because gimbal apps doesn't offer 4K video and aren't V30 compatible.
But doing so also complex gimbal movements aren't possible and is only available the gimbal joystick.
A really bad experience.
Is there someone that uses a gimbal with the following:
1. V30 mounted in the correct direction and widescreen camera not standing in the eyeline
2. App working on V30
3. 4K video
Thanks in advance
I'm using the V30 with a Dji Osmo Mobile 2. It works but with some issues.
- The Dji app is crap, can't shoot more than 720p with it.
- The OIS of the normal lens is fighting with the gimbal's motors. Standing shots are good, but walking isn't really feasible. Not because of the up and down bobbing but because the phone's OIS starts interfering pretty badly and makes the image too wobbly and warped. Correction in post is not possible. At least not if you want to maintain the 4K resolution.
- The wide angle lens isn't usable with the gimbal held normally (upwards or flashlight mode). The lens is too wide and the gimbal will be in the frame. If you try to place the phone more to the left in the clamp until the gimbal is completely out of the frame, the gimbal can't be balanced anymore. Maybe it would work by modding the gimbal and adding more counterweight on the right side. Not sure the motors could safely handle the extra weight though. Probably not.
- The picture quality is trash with the built in app (too much noise reduction that can't be turned off, insufficient bitrate). But if you don't care too much about getting the highest picture quality that's possible or just don't notice that detail and textures are wiped out for no reason, then the built-in camera is perfectly usable. The only useful feature that's lost is Active tracking, but with some practice anyone can learn to track manually probably better than Dji's Active tracking.
- In my opinion the only app that produces decent footage is FiLMiC Pro which needs to be purchased. It can shoot Log, turn off LG's ****ty noise reduction and bump the bitrate to 100-120 Mbps for both h264 and h265, significantly boosting the level of detail.
But this solution isn't 100% perfect either. There are some issues with the manual focus when you need to make tilt shots. This phone has the weirdest focus mechanism I've ever seen. It seems to be dependent on the phone's rotation on the Y axis. Let's say I focus on a subject standing in front at 1.5 meters and the phone is held straight. If if I tilt the camera towards the ground, the focus point will move closer proportionally with the rotation. If the phone is rotated towards the sky, the focus point will move further away. It's like one of the lenses just floats uncontrolled and is screwed over by gravity.
This affects the manual focus on all 3rd party apps that I've tried and what's worse is that when the phone is rotated towards the ground over 30-45 degrees, it can't even manually focus on anything that's further than 0.9-1 meters. Anything over that will be outside of the manual focus range. I've asked FiLMiC why does this happen even though the built-in camera app doesn't have these problems and they said LG doesn't provide full access to their camera API to 3rd party apps. There's nothing they can do about it. Luckily, the autofocus works fine.
TL;DR: I'm not sure I would recommend a gimbal with any phone that has OIS. It's a flawed solution by default and there's no way to turn off the OIS.
Late post, but...
I use a Zhiyun Smooth-Q gimbal with my LG V30. It's a pain because it isn't mounted in the "correct direction" but it does produce somewhat usable footage.
To workaround the issue of the gimbal arm visible in the wide-angle shots, I flip the phone so the screen faces the mounting surface (and I hold the gimbal handle so the controls face away from me) and also have the phone positioned so the lens is as far a possible from the horizontal gimbal arm.
I'll make a video and send you a link to a video with some gimbal footage shot this way using the Zhiyun app which supports 4K within the next week or so.
Except for the 108mp sensor I might agree. A 20mp or smaller sensor would have yielded better results.
This is a very small sensor and that limits its light gathering ability and the lens is very small as well. Worse it's a very "busy" sensor electronically and that generates heat. It has very little surface area to dissipate that heat.
The mobo is right on top of it generating even more heat. Heat raises the noise floor. The cooler the cmos sensor, the better.
The smaller pixel size means less of a sample is gathered and that smaller sample is competing with a high noise floor. Larger pixels mean a larger sample and a better signal to noise ratio. This becomes very important in videos especially in low light, although it invariably impacts stills as well. One reason these cams run so hot is because of the intense processing to clean up that noise.
The more modest 10, 12 and 16mp sensors are more in line with the ideal pixel count for a sensor this size especially with such small lens.
Samsung would have served the customer better by adding expandable storage to be able to accommodate the large 8K vid files rather than adding this high mp gimmick instead.
These smartphones do very well for as small as they are. A 20mp pro cam with a multi element lense chews them up though. Better optics, better micro lens for the pixels and active cooling for the sensor would do more than adding needless pixels for these smartphones... shame on Sammy.