Advances in smartphone photography

[Ste_S]

Probably nor if you are shooting Formula 1 or similar...

Plenty of people shoot Formula 1 with phones in the paddock/pit lane or similar.

This has gone from pros don't shoot with phones (they do) to pros don't shoot formula 1 with phones (they do).

Sure, if you want a telephoto lens for photo or video than a phone isn't going to work. Outside of that then a phone is perfectly fine and is preferred - no need to faff with transferring the photo or video to your phone.

 

[valdas]

Plenty of people shoot Formula 1 with phones in the paddock/pit lane or similar.

This has gone from pros don't shoot with phones (they do) to pros don't shoot formula 1 with phones (they do).

Sure, if you want a telephoto lens for photo or video than a phone isn't going to work. Outside of that then a phone is perfectly fine and is preferred - no need to faff with transferring the photo or video to your phone.

You know what I meant. I can shoot Formula 1 with pinhole if I want. The fact is smartphones are still far away from being able to replace fast and long tele. Maybe one day. So cameras are not obsolete yet. All this wildlife shot with 600mm tele and similar.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Sure, smartphones got gooder but I am not sure whether they are good value. USD 1,000 for the phone plus a plan...you can buy a lot of camera for that.

 

[Godfrey]

Sure, smartphones got gooder but I am not sure whether they are good value. USD 1,000 for the phone plus a plan...you can buy a lot of camera for that.

You can buy a lot of ancient film cameras for $1000. They'll need service and have to be fed with film for every exposure, so the price continues to rise. All they can do is make photographs.

You can buy a brand new smartphone with state of the art camera(s) that does a thousand things no film camera can do as well as make a nearly infinite number of outstanding photographs for $650 or so. It has a warranty, and it can work with any service you want to use (mine costs me $15 per month).

Which is a better value? All depends on what you want to do. 🙂

I'm going to SF for a concert/dance this evening. I'll have my iPhone 8 Plus and my Minox 35GT-E with me. I know which will do a better job at the concert (not the Minox) and I know which one will be fun making photos on the streets of SF (not the iPhone). The iPhone is an essential tool, as well as a fun toy, nowadays; the Minox (and all my film cameras) is for entertainment.

G

 

[valdas]

You can buy a lot of ancient film cameras for $1000. They'll need service and have to be fed with film for every exposure, so the price continues to rise. All they can do is make photographs.

You can buy a brand new smartphone with state of the art camera(s) that does a thousand things no film camera can do as well as make a nearly infinite number of outstanding photographs for $650 or so. It has a warranty, and it can work with any service you want to use (mine costs me $15 per month).

Which is a better value? All depends on what you want to do. 🙂

I'm going to SF for a concert/dance this evening. I'll have my iPhone 8 Plus and my Minox 35GT-E with me. I know which will do a better job at the concert (not the Minox) and I know which one will be fun making photos on the streets of SF (not the iPhone). The iPhone is an essential tool, as well as a fun toy, nowadays; the Minox (and all my film cameras) is for entertainment.

G

All true. Regarding value - data shows that on average people upgade their smartphones every 24 months or so.

 

[Godfrey]

All true. Regarding value - data shows that on average people upgade their smartphones every 24 months or so.

So what? Value isn't entirely based on what something costs and what depreciation/return you get from selling it, or how quickly you turn it over. Value also implies how much use, and what sort of use, you get out of a thing.

My smartphone is in constant use for a thousand different purposes. No camera I own gets used even a tenth of how much I use the smartphone. I'd say the smartphone, even at $1000 initial purchase price plus the cost of the monthly service (about $360 for what I pay over 24 months), which I can sell after 24 months for about 60% of initial price, has about two to three orders of magnitude more "value" than any camera I have ever owned.

Case in point: Since I woke up this morning an hour or so ago, my smartphone has already done business as a timer for my morning medical administrations, recorded my ECG and BP, allowed me to assemble a checklist of what I need to carry with my on my trip to SF today, given me notices and contacts with a few folks I participate on various forums with, allowed me to edit and transmit a couple of holiday photos from the past week to my friends in the east of Great Britain, and write this message. I haven't touched any of my cameras for three days...

G

 

[Out to Lunch]

Since I woke up this morning an hour or so ago, my smartphone has already done business as a timer for my morning medical administrations, recorded my ECG and BP, allowed me to assemble a checklist of what I need to carry with my on my trip to SF today, given me notices and contacts with a few folks I participate on various forums with, allowed me to edit and transmit a couple of holiday photos from the past week to my friends in the east of Great Britain, and write this message.

Which is what I do not want in my life. Not from a smartphone and not from any other device.

 

[Godfrey]

Which is what I do not want in my life. Not from a smartphone and not from any other device.

That's your choice, not an objective assessment of value.

And, by the way, if you don't want "any device" to do those things, why do you want to engage in this conversation? You need a device of some sort to do this.

G

 

[raydm6]

Not being heavily invested in digital (my last digicam purchase was a Canon S90 back in 2009 which I still use lightly), I cycle through iPhones slowly - 1st the 4 and currently the 6 - although I still have a penchant for vintage mechanical cameras.

With that said, and with advancements in AI and machine learning (Night Mode, Deep Fusion), I'm excited with the new iPhone 11 Pro Max and will probably get one within several months and run it with Halide and Spectre.

 

[valdas]

That's your choice, not an objective assessment of value.

And, by the way, if you don't want "any device" to do those things, why do you want to engage in this conversation? You need a device of some sort to do this.

G

Value is driven by personal needs, so if I don’t see the value in what smartphone CAN deliver with all its functionality because I don’t need it or don’t like it - it is an objective assessment of the value. It may have a value to someone, but not to another. It does not deny the advances of the technology - it is great. But for me it does not replace my cameras.

 

[kram]

Are we going to see an optical zoom on a smart phone. It would be cheaper than 3 separate lens. Couls contract when out of camera mode.

 

[dourbalistar]

Not being heavily invested in digital (my last digicam purchase was a Canon S90 back in 2009 which I still use lightly), I cycle through iPhones slowly - 1st the 4 and currently the 6 - although I still have a penchant for vintage mechanical cameras.

With that said, and with advancements in AI and machine learning (Night Mode, Deep Fusion), I'm excited with the new iPhone 11 Pro Max and will probably get one within several months and run it with Halide and Spectre.

AI, computational photography, and machine learning in smartphone imaging are some of the big advances in recent years. Google's Pixel phones leverage its Visual Core and machine learning for on-board image processing, and Night Sight also harnesses computational photography.

https://www.blog.google/products/pi...mage-processing-and-machine-learning-pixel-2/
https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/see-light-night-sight/
https://ai.googleblog.com/2019/11/astrophotography-with-night-sight-on.html

Here's an example. One was taken with an APS-C digicam using a 20-second exposure on a tripod. The other was taken handheld with a Pixel 2 using Night Sight. They weren't taken minutes apart, but the lighting conditions were the same. Again, the results are a lot closer than I anticipated, and this kind of low-light smartphone photography wasn't possible even a few years ago.

 

[zuiko85]

But what did your eyes see looking at the flower?
Usually I want to capture light. If that is moonlight then I want it to look like moonlight. My mirrorless meter does the same doggone thing, tries to adjust night exposure to look light daylight. Sometimes I have to dial in -4 stops just to get the same visual impression seen with my eyes.

 

[jsrockit]

But what did your eyes see looking at the flower?
Usually I want to capture light. If that is moonlight then I want it to look like moonlight. My mirrorless meter does the same doggone thing, tries to adjust night exposure to look light daylight. Sometimes I have to dial in -4 stops just to get the same visual impression seen with my eyes.

That is why we post process... in the darkroom, we dealt with contrast as well. Different grade papers etc.

 

[Pál_K]

But what did your eyes see looking at the flower?
Usually I want to capture light. If that is moonlight then I want it to look like moonlight. ...

That's my question and thought as well.

To me it looks like afternoon sunlight.

 

[dourbalistar]

But what did your eyes see looking at the flower?
Usually I want to capture light. If that is moonlight then I want it to look like moonlight. My mirrorless meter does the same doggone thing, tries to adjust night exposure to look light daylight. Sometimes I have to dial in -4 stops just to get the same visual impression seen with my eyes.

That's my question and thought as well.

To me it looks like afternoon sunlight.

No argument from me - I'm not saying that one or the other is better. Rather, my point is that smartphone imaging has improved to a point that a single handheld exposure is actually comparable to a 20-second exposure on a tripod using an APS-C digicam.

As far as the lighting, it was a single (75-watt?) porch light about 15-feet away. It was so dark that when taking the digicam photo, I had to (ironically) use my smartphone flashlight in order to achieve focus using my adapted manual focus lens. In any case, I wasn't so much trying to capture the light as my eyes saw for this photo, but a more detailed photo of the flower. It's an oxypetalum epiphyllum, whose flowers only bloom once per year at night, and wilts by the morning. We had three flowers from our plant this year. In the second smartphone photo, you can see two wilted flowers that bloomed the night before.

 

[David Hughes]

When I read threads like this I wonder how we old gits ever managed.

And so I checked by looking at my vintage camera and so on. I used a 35mm camera with the lens as fast as f/3.5 and fast FP3 at 125 ISO (or ASA in those days) and slide film as fast as 32 ISO/ASA. Flash meant a 9v battery and flash bulbs that you used once. Plus you had to do some sums for flash and even more for fill-in flash and you calculated or guessed for normal exposure.

To add to the fun, slide film had to be exactly right when exposed as there was nothing you could do afterwards. And I couldn't afford a RF for the accessory shoe on the camera and so estimated the focus.


Regards, David

 

[jsrockit]

No argument from me - I'm not saying that one or the other is better. Rather, my point is that smartphone imaging has improved to a point that a single handheld exposure is actually comparable to a 20-second exposure on a tripod using an APS-C digicam.

Please elaborate...

 

[Out to Lunch]

Or, perhaps don't.

 

[shawn]

Yup, some super camera that ip11pro.
Now, if Appel could just make it in the shape of a camera so we have something to hold onto.

Never used one but there are companies that try to address this too. Pictar has a grip for a smartphone that gives the typical 2 step shutter release, exposure compensation dial and another programable dial. They have a model coming out with a sort of detachable EVF. Not for me but plenty of people upgrade their smartphones specifically because of the camera functions.

Shawn