Wow. That's an awesome link. I am really starting to get a better opinion about iPhone cameras.
These photographers work around the limitations and use it's advantages. Thank you.
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iPhone camera vs DSLR
- Thread starter Freida
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These photographers work around the limitations and use it's advantages. Thank you.
Unless it's raining I'm going to take my d7100 and iPhone 6 plus out tomorrow to do a comparison. I'll post unedited on here for you guys to look at.
Difficult to make this an objective test.
I don't think this conversation has ever been about side by side tests and comparisons. More so, has the quality on an iPhone/smartphone reached a point where a hobbyist can consider it a serious viable alternative to buying a DSLR.
That being said I look forward to seeing the results! Post some BTS too! I want to see the size of that 6+ compared to the DSLR! My 6 already feels massive in my hands.
Not compared to your DSLR!
But yes I believe an iPhone camera is more for when you are out with mates without your propper camera. In other words snaps not pictures.
Well, some great advice I have received and given: if you want to be a photographer, ALWAYS carry your camera.
So, depending on how serious you want to be, you might just. Lug that big DSLR around.
A DSLR should always be better than a phone. You have a bigger body to house a bigger sensor, better glass, more processing power, and so on. That said, Apple is working like mad to incorporate the big hitters into the phone. I imagine the day is coming when we get digital bokeh built in. Probably even specific lens emulation is coming.
Just as DSLRs have beaten film to the brink, continuously improving cell phone cameras will eventually do the same to my precious Nikon.
This is what I find so funny. Digital Bokeh would be a cheap gimmick. A tiny little lens will never resolve a sharp image. iPhones will always have blurry noisy images unless they have large lenses or Apple rewrites the physics of optics.
Even as has been said in this thread, iPhone pics look like crap at larger than web size. If you never want to print, I guess you're fine with an iPhone. But the people who say nobody prints anymore are clueless. I took a lot of pictures recently at a summer BBQ, and then I quickly photoshopped a few of them, printed them on a commercial dye-sub printer I have and handed them out while people were having after-dinner coffee. The reactions I got were very gratifying, and anyone who thinks passing an iPad around gives the same effect as a handful of print people can help themselves to is a fool.
People here keep saying better to take a crappy picture with an iPhone you have than no picture without your DSLR. Why is that? People are taking billions of pictures a day that nobody is interested in, nobody including the shooter ever cares to look back on. You don't have to photograph every moment of every day (and I say that as someone who in rarely more than 30 seconds from my DSLR).
Fixed that for you.
One of the big selling points of large sensor cameras in shallow DoF/Bokeh.
Now, sensors are made just like any other computer chip on a silicon wafer. One of the things chip manufacturers do to reduce costs is called a process shrink (.5 micron, .35 micron, .25 micron, 180nm, 120nm, 90nm, 65nm 40nm, 32nm, 20nm, 14nm and so on). By making smaller geometry on the chip, they not only consume less power, they make the chip physically smaller. This means that more of them can fit on the same size silicon wafer. The cost of processing a wafer with 100 sensors on it is the same as the cost of one with 10 or 1000. So, quick math test. Wafer full of camera sensors costs $1000 to make all told.
Wafer A has 10 sensors you can sell for $120 each
Wafer B has 100 sensors you can sell for $75 each
Wafer C has 1000 sensors you can sell for $20 each
Which one do you make?
If you could figure out a way to make wafer C sensors LIKE Wafer B sensors and sell them for $75 each, would you? You bet.
Most wafers today are either 200mm or 300mm. 450mm wafers are talked about, but are still too expensive for most. Photography, however, doesn't want to shrink because of those optical properties meaning that Sony, Canon, and Nikon cannot shrink the sensors and get more of them on a wafer.
So, the solution, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, is to figure out ways to make smaller sensors act more like larger ones. If I knew how to do this today, I would already have the patent. So I cannot tell you HOW they will solve it, but they will find something to address...
Low Light: Dramatic improvements have been made, and they will continue until we can get quality photos in a dance club or a candlelit dinner/birthday cake. This is what people taking cell phone photos want, and millions are paying $500 a year.
Rolling Shutter: there are already plugins that fight this. Between that and faster scan rates, I expect this to become less an issue every year.
Shallow DoF: is this any different than high dynamic range? Just redraw the pixels with defocus based on distance. Smith micro is offering a focus sharpening app now. I have seen rack focus emulated in video editing, and is one of the big sellers for 35mm adaptors in video.
Bokeh: Once you add shallow DoF, people will complain how it looks fake (even though most never noticed the digital trick mentioned above). So it will get added in.
Had to fix that one, too. There may yet be other ways of solving the problem you and I haven't considered. In the end, like I said in my first post, A bigger dedicated DSLR will always have the advantage over a smaller, multitasking cell phone - for exactly the reasons you state. BUT
Apple/Samsung/LG/Nokia/Motorola would much rather I take the money I would spend on my next DSLR and get a new phone with it instead. So they are going to look for anything that is making me go out and buy one of those and trying to figure out how to wedge it into their phones.
Canon and Nikon have the advantage of larger bodies and bigger glass. Apple and Samsung have more money, and less need to innovate here. Canon has to come up with differentiators and market them. Apple and Samsung then use Canon's marketing to direct their research as the incorporate the biggest features.
Simple as that. Your bold prediction that science will never solve these problems to the satisfaction of most users seems short sighted, given the history of science overcoming such predictions all the time.
Will it be tomorrow? Next year? Twenty years from now? I don't know, but the problem doesn't seem so big that it can't be beaten.
Replaces a P&S?
Even the 5 series can replace it 80% of the times. I would say the 6 series replaces it 95% of the time.
Replaces a dSLR?
Not a fair comparison really. The beauty of the dSLR is the lens changeovers.
Right now there is nothing pocketable that can replace my crop dSLR with 10-22 wide angle lens.
The phone panorama feature just doesn't cut it.
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Even the 5 series can replace it 80% of the times. I would say the 6 series replaces it 95% of the time.
Replaces a dSLR?
Not a fair comparison really. The beauty of the dSLR is the lens changeovers.
Right now there is nothing pocketable that can replace my crop dSLR with 10-22 wide angle lens.
The phone panorama feature just doesn't cut it.
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Wow. That post does explain so much...about you, not the issue.
First, the fact that you think the big selling point of large sensor cameras is shallow DoF/Bokeh shows you are totally ignorant of the issues. Those even in an SLR are a bit of a fad now but are not a huge deal. The major advantage is sharpness and resolving power. On a cruise, I've taken pictures with a kit quality 200mm lens (with OIS), of another cruise ship 1000 feet away and it's detailed enough that you can identify the individual passengers on the other ship. When you look at the pictures larger than a little web pic, the difference between the two is staggering. VHS and Blu-ray are basically the same quality compared to the difference in image quality between cell phone and slr.
Second, name any "digital" imitation of something SLRs do that doesn't look like a cheap gimmick even after years of refinement. Phone HDR, cheap gimmick that looks like crap compared to the real thing. Phone shallow depth of field, cheap gimmick that looks like crap and nothing like the real thing. Maybe with the magic focus pixels apple invented right after they copied it from SLRs, the simulation of shallow depth of field can get better, but it will always
look like cheap crap.
That's a stupid argument. How about Wafer A and charge $500 each for it. Because there are people like me who will pay $3000+ for a D810 without a second thought and yet will never use a wafer C camera even if it's free.
Amazingly stupid. You do that, your competitor will use the same tech to make wave B perform like wafer A, still charge $75 and you'll be out of business next week. In the mean time I'll buy wafer A with the same tech for something better than all of the above, I'll still pay $500 for the sensor, and I'll still laugh at people like you why just don't get it.
Interesting. I actually went to school for this, I'm not sure where you're pulling your "facts" but mine are based on a real STEM degree. WE ALREADY KNOW HOW TO DO IT. Use material with a higher index of refraction than glass to make the lens. Nikon does this with their special ED glass, I'm sure Canon does the same. Diamond would be the best known material for it and research can probably find something better and cheaper than diamond. But no matter how good you make your dinky lens, I can buy a bigger one that's better. And your price limit on an iPhone camera is about $15. I will happily pay $5000 or more for a good full frame camera with a good, sharp lens.
If you think we will ever find a way to build a small sensor that will have the same low light performance as a large sensor using the same tech, I have a perpetual motion machine to sell you. Some things are impossible according to our understanding of physics, and changing that is not a simple $100 million R&D investment.
Good for you, so you're saying you don't care about your picture quality and therefore you'll use a cell phone camera. Fine, that's your choice. But DSLRs will *always* be better, and there will *always* be people who are willing to pay for a better quality camera.
I will not be getting an iPhone 6 and I think in 30 years when I look at my pictures of my children taken with my D810, I won't regret my choice.
Apple is not even in competition with Nikon or Canon here. When you pretend they are, you look like a fool.
I completely agree - but the advice isn't in reference to getting a sharp image; it's to training your 'photographer's eye', to practice composition and reading the light to capture a great image. And in that regard an iPhone is a great tool to practice on, and so the advice of always carrying your camera around still applies.
I think those are 2 different things you are saying, to me at least. Yeah you don't have to photograph everything in life and subscribe to the culture of instagramming the cr@p out of every meal you eat. But it's about having the phone with you to use as and when you need it. I take my camera out with me heaps - not just on dedicated photography outings but in day-to-day life as well. But sometimes I don't have it with me, and in that case I usually have my iPod. And if I see something to photo I won't hesitate to whip it out and snap a pic. At the very least I consider it practice. I don't see why I shouldn't take the photo just because I only have my iPod on me.
Alex
I am sure your internet post evaluations will soon be all the rage in psychology.
Never said it was the most important issue. I said it was a selling point. It is something you can show pictures of, even to a layman, and have them understand. "Image A is 27% sharper than image B, which is clearly evident in this utterly boring photo of resolution lines" isn't really a selling point.
Why do 35mm adaptors even sell? Technically, you are giving up sharpness as you put additional glass between the sensor and the subject, and you still have that same crummy lens in there also. So, apparently, leading the audience around on a focus leash matters to people.
1. Take pictures You do realize the DSLRs are DIGITAL SLRs who copied from ANALOG film? Of course not. So go ahead and consider that. I was working with film when I got invited to a Leaf seminar back when their system required 3 exposures at 1/2 second each (R, G, B) to make one color photo, and THEY marketed that as "the death of film." You just need to look at the long view
2. That printout you made at the photoshoot that everyone loved? That was digital. At taking the picture, import, any adjustments you made, and the data sent to the printer. ALL were digital approximations of what your eyes saw in the first place.
3. De-saturate. I think there are some very nice black and white filters
4. DXO Lens corrections. They aren't in an phone camera that I know of, but they are a digital approximation of removing lens distortion.
Well, first of all, you and the three people like you in the world do nut justify building a 3 billion dollar fab.
Second, why do you pay $3000 for a D810? Because that is what it costs. If Nikon dropped the price to $2000 would you object and insist on paying $3000 anyway? Would you like to pay $4000 instead? Of course not. Do you want to make more money than you did last year? So do the workers in the fab where the sensor is made. They want raises, and everyone wants to control costs.
So no, it isn't stupid. It is very much how the industry works, and your love of photography, however passionate, is not enough to change that.
Now if you want to spend a few million dollars on your next camera, and you might have some weight.
Actually, it is you that are ignorant of the realities of semiconductor manufacturing. It isn't as simple as taking the same stuff on wafer B and putting it on wafer A for a variety of reasons.
If you want to be bored to death, I can spell some of them out for you.
In every post I have said that all things being equal, a DSLR will be better than a cell phone camera. How you keep missing this eludes me.
What I have said, and KEEP saying is that cell phones, like DSLRs, will get better every year. People with find ways around the biggest limitations and they will continually improve. One day, they will be so good that the human eye will be the weak link.
Again and again I have stated this is not the case. Using the SAME tech, the bigger sensor will be better. I agree with this.
What I am pointing out is that, as phone cameras get better, one day they will be 'good enough.' What you are asserting is impossible is more like impractical. There are other ways of solving the problem.
Good grief, this same argument came up in film versus digital, and the film guys said many of the exact same things about DSLRs that you are saying about phone cameras. How is film doing these days? You apparently seem happy with a D810.
I do care about quality. That is why I carry that D7000 around (and would carry better if I could afford it, but I work in semiconductors where we try to keep costs down, see above). I tell everyone about the advantages of DSLRs because they do take better photos. But if freaking aliens land in the parking lot and I happen to not have the Nikon, then YES, my iPhone is far better than no camera at all.
Most common camera taking pictures on flickr/facebook is an iPhone. You think Nikon and Canon wouldn't want those dollars? You're crazy. Why did Nikon and Canon make point and shoots if they didn't want the snapshot crowd as well as the pro photographer crowd. Where do you think all those programs for exposure and shutter speed on your SLR came from?
Go watch some of the early AE-1 and Maxxum/Dynax commercials about ease of use. They've ALWAYS wanted more market share, and where does that come from?
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So here is a couple of pictures I took today. Both were taken within a minute of each other.
Nikon D7100. 14-24 mm 2.8 @ 14 mm. ISO 200, f 16, 1/125.
_DSC7503 by apple fanboy1, on Flickr
Notice the lens flare. The lens in question has a built in hood. Only edit I did on this was to remove some dirt spots from my sensor. RAW file imported to LR 5 and exported as J-peg.
iPhone 6 Plus 4.15 mm. ISO 32 f 2.2, 1/11883
IMG_1766 by apple fanboy1, on Flickr
I think this does a really good job for a phone camera. Again totally unedited. What do you think?
Nikon D7100. 14-24 mm 2.8 @ 14 mm. ISO 200, f 16, 1/125.
_DSC7503 by apple fanboy1, on FlickrNotice the lens flare. The lens in question has a built in hood. Only edit I did on this was to remove some dirt spots from my sensor. RAW file imported to LR 5 and exported as J-peg.
iPhone 6 Plus 4.15 mm. ISO 32 f 2.2, 1/11883
IMG_1766 by apple fanboy1, on FlickrI think this does a really good job for a phone camera. Again totally unedited. What do you think?
I've thoroughly enjoyed the silence of this thread after you posted those photos, Fanboy. Even though I say that iPhones are good but won't replace a DSLR, I am really impressed with the iPhone quality here. How is the 6+ holding up for you?
Alex
Really enjoying it tbh. Internet browsing and gaming are so much better on that screen. Whenever I have to look at a regular phone screen it just seems so small.
And yes I'm surprised by the lack of discussion. I thought the iPhone camera held up really well. There are of course advantages of the DSLR, like RAW files and all the advantages that brings. Plus this was quite an easy subject for the camera to cope with. In low light or with a fast moving subject would be interesting to compare. Maybe I'll do that next.
The color on the iPhone 6+ one is a bit dull compared to the Nikon (but that's a common thing). Like Meister said in another post, it still looks horrible at 100% too.
But very nice!
Anyone ever try shooting to TIFF? Tried it yesterday. The files were HUGE (30MB per shot).
But very nice!
Anyone ever try shooting to TIFF? Tried it yesterday. The files were HUGE (30MB per shot).
I'd be interested in how it compares to a 35mm or 50mm lens, with the same field of view zoomed in on the iPhone. See how far those 8 megapixels really go. No pressure though
Saying that, a 1080p screen at 4:3 size ratio of photo is only 1.56 megapixels. Kinda puts the megapixel war in perspective, huh?
Glad you're enjoying that fantastic screen. I haven't had the chance to get my hands on one to look at yet!
Alex
So here is a couple of pictures I took today. Both were taken within a minute of each other.
Nikon D7100. 14-24 mm 2.8 @ 14 mm. ISO 200, f 16, 1/125.
Notice the lens flare. The lens in question has a built in hood. Only edit I did on this was to remove some dirt spots from my sensor. RAW file imported to LR 5 and exported as J-peg.
iPhone 6 Plus 4.15 mm. ISO 32 f 2.2, 1/11883
I think this does a really good job for a phone camera. Again totally unedited. What do you think?
I think you could have saved your back and just taken your iPhone!
Haven't had a chance to really check out the camera on my 6 yet. Looking forward to it though!
I'll post some more later. The difference is pretty minimal. To do a thourugh test I shall edit both pics. Also the printing test, should set them apart.
I was browsing Westways, the SoCal mag from AAA of Southern Cal. They just had a photo contest.
The 2nd place winner was taken by an iPhone. Maybe the dude could have done as well with a M43 or whatnot, but it was perhaps some of the qualities of that little camera that made the shot. It reproduced well as a two-pager in the magazine, BTW. And in that format (the intended one) it looks better than online IMHO.
http://www.calif.aaa.com/home/publications/westways/photo-contest-winners.html
The 2nd place winner was taken by an iPhone. Maybe the dude could have done as well with a M43 or whatnot, but it was perhaps some of the qualities of that little camera that made the shot. It reproduced well as a two-pager in the magazine, BTW. And in that format (the intended one) it looks better than online IMHO.
http://www.calif.aaa.com/home/publications/westways/photo-contest-winners.html
Yet I have several 13x19 prints on my desk and people who walk buy ask how I get them so sharp when their 4x6's are all blurry.
That sounds interesting. I'm not being sarcastic, I used film for many years and have studied early colour schemes for film quite extensively, but never really thought about digital color sensors. So I looked it up and couldn't find anything, do you have a link?
See this is where you make yourself sound silly. What does the fact that I'm using a DSLR have to do with the fact that iOS software simulations for DSLR optics look like crap?
Um...what does Desaturation filters or software lens correction for SLR lenses have to do with iOS software imitating what DSLRs do optically? Did you even read the question you're trying to answer? It was to name something your iOS can simulate in software that an SLR does in optics that doesn't look like cheap gimmicky crap on the iPhone.
Really, because I'm sure Nikon and Canon are hurting from lost P&S sales and they'd be bankrupt right now if they tried to beat iPhone at the cheap "Wafer C" market rather than focusing on quality.
Leica charges something like $8000 for a black and white only camera and that seems to be working out quite well for them. The specialized sensor does a much better job on black and white than any other camera on the market and there's enough people willing to drop the cash on it.
Not sure what point you're trying to make here. Nikon sets their prices to maximize profits. In my case it worked, I bought. Maybe others would have bought at $2000 but didn't. At $4000 who knows what I would have done.
But what does this have to do with SLR vs iPhone? It sounds like you're just on an erratic rant here.
Wow. My choices aren't even fringe like Leica and Leica is doing just fine. So you really should try opening your eyes it is not me and 3 other people using D810's.
It was your analogy. So you're the one who set out ignorant position and then trying to make it mine? You are a strange one, that's for sure.
So basically you're saying is iPhones will be toys for people who want to take pictures of their food and post it to instagram while people who care about their pictures will buy real cameras.
Too funny. So the conspiracy nuts will post your blurry pic on their walls (hey aliens only land at night when your iPhone is at its worst), and everyone else will laugh at you.
McDonalds sells a lot more food than any steak house. And I'm sure the steak houses would love McDonalds dollars. Doesn't make a greasy McBurger better than a 5-star steak though. So what's your point. You're raving is getting to the foaming at the mouth point.
What does 25 million people using iPhones to post their food and cats to facebook have to do with what makes a good camera?
Ok, let me address just this part of your post, first. You say you are asking an honest question. I will give you an honest answer. Because I have no clue where you stand on this, understand that I am not trying to be snarky, but I am starting at "first the earth cooled" so to speak.
The 'D' in DSLR stands for 'Digital' it is powered by a computer chip that is making a discrete digital signal out of our analog world. So lets pretend were going to make a VERY basic sensor. Instead of megapixels, ours has just 25 pixels in a 5*5 array and they are only black OR white (1 bit color).
OOOOO OOOOO
OOOOO OXXXO
OOOOO OXXXO
OOOOO OXXXO
OOOOO OOOOO
So the image on the left is blank, and the one on the right is a square, right? Depending on your font spacing, anyway. That said, our 25 pixel sensor does not have the resolution to display a circle. We could pull some tricks, but it would really end up looking like 1970's video games (for the same reason really). We can add more pixels to make it resemble a circle more and more, but it would never really be a circle. For example, the screen you are looking at is composed of pixels. If you zoom in enough, you will see the jaggies in a pure black OR white image.
This is one example of a digital artifact. You 36Mp Nikon has 36 million pixels compared to your 1080p display's 2.1 million, but there are still a very specific number of them. The jaggies are much adder to see like that, but they are still there.
Now, lets talk about color. If, instead of restricting ourselves to black OR white, lets go from black to white on a scale of 0-7. 0 is black and 7 is white. Now, wherever there are jaggies, we can put a pixel next to them that is 3 or 4. This is anti-aliasing, and it fools the eye into thinking the spine is more like a real curve and less like a stair stepped approximation. It is still a digital trick, though.
So we have to spend a moment to talk about bits. A computer counts in base 2. So everything is either 0 or 1. Instead of a 10's column and a 1 column, you have a 2's column and a one. 10 = 2 (1*2 + 0*1). It takes TWO bits to do that (one for each column), and it could count form 0-3.
With 8 bits you would ave a 1's column, 2's, 4's, 8's 16's, 32's 64's and 128's column. If they were all set to one, you would get 255 (128+64+32+16+8+4+2+1 = 255). You've see that 0-255 in photoshop or similar applications.
Now we make all the colors were see in a computer by mixing red, green, and blue light. We adjust the brightness of the light from 0-255 (8 bits per channel 8 3 channels = 24 bit color). This yields 16.7 million different colors. The AVERAGE human eye can distinguish about 4 million non-adjacent colors. This means that if I showed the AVERAGE person a grey card with 128 red, 128 green, 128 blue, and then showed them 128,128,127, they would think it was the same color. They could only tell them apart if they were right next to each other. People are different, and some folks can better tell colors apart. It stands to reason that those people might be better at photography so you might well be one of them.
The Leaf system I mentioned used a "black and white" sensor and simply dropped filters in front of each of three exposures then recombined them. Obviously, the camera and subject could not be moving. It was 'good enough' for product shots, but was useless for children.
That said, 24 bit color, with 16.7 million flavors, is largely considered 'good enough.' Other solutions offering thousands of colors were not. This is why video cards raced to 24 bits and then pretty much stopped.
Now it may LOOK like every color, but red isn't limited to 256 values. It could be 122.37. Your eye may or may not be good enough to tell the difference between 122 and 122.37, but red COULD be that number. This is the difference between digital and analog. With analog, it can be any real number (unless you're having dinner with Stephen Hawking on the bleeding edge of physics, but we will ignore that for now as it is WAY beyond human perception).
So a camera that shows 64,000 colors would look kinda cheap and gimmicky, but one that shows 16.7 million colors would be 'good enough' most of the time. Now The sensors in cameras go a bit further because 'good enough' is too low a bar in our circles. I believe the current sensors actually capture at 14 bit for a range that the vast majority of people cannot distinguish from real world color, but it is STILL an approximation. It is just a better one than people can see. Like is the jaggies were to small to see.because the pixels were microscopic.
Of course, the computer graphics card you are using to display it on your monitor probably doesn't have that range so you may still end up not seeing it all.
Hopefully, this covers a enough of how digital SLRs are digital approximations of an analog world.
Now, more to the argument we have been having:
When DXO does a lens correction, it is a digital change. Move this pixel by this much to make a fisheye look normal sort of thing (the actual algorithm is much more complicated, of course). But the real lens on your camera isn't EXACTLY like the one on mine. So it is a 'best guess' to cover both your lens and mine.
In the end, it is the same idea though. Instead of moving pixels, a digital DOF effect might apply gaussian blur based on distance from lens (which could be read from some sci-fi autofocus system or something).
Yes the early versions would probably be crappy, but they would improve, just like numbers of pixels and numbers of colors and light sensitivity. Eventually, it gets so good you cannot tell the difference even in a still photograph (like 14 bit color). Then they shrink that down until it fits in a cell phone.
Just like the first CCD was 100 pixels by 100 pixels by 8 bits (monochrome), and grew into the sensor you love in your Nikon, so do other features. There are still artifacts from that 36 million pixel sensor. They arrange the pixels, they make them scan faster and so on.
All of this high end stuff will eventually trickle down to smaller cameras though. Just like the original DSLR stats wouldn't compare well to a cell phone today (1987 1.3 mega pixel sensor)
Here is an image from one http://eocamera.jemcgarvey.com/img/HET2.jpg
No, not as good as an iPhone 6.
So I maintain that phone cameras will continue to improve until they are too good to tell the difference with human eyes. If folks what shallow DOF and Bokeh to go along with that, they will find a way to do so. This, too, will eventually get too good to tell.
Nice post v3rlon. I understood the basics before and I imagine a lot of people on this forum understand a lot more deeply than me but you explained it all in a very easily understood manner. You should teach (if you don't already).
I agree that as long as there's a demand and something doesn't come along to replace the cell phone (brain implants with optical 3D inserts?) that phone cameras will continue to improve and discover ways to pack more capability into a tiny package. I think though for someone that has grown up with a "full body" camera I will always want that "feel" of an SLR over a smaller form factor (though there are sometimes great reasons to have a smaller factor).
Your digital approximation discussion is interesting. What would be the next digital step beyond trickery (anti-aliasing) or increasing amounts of smaller and smaller pixels? An entirely new way to compute the information? Organic computing? Something beyond the binary code? It's kind of fascinating to think about. I guess theoretically the purest it could ever get digitally would be to replicate the way a human brain resolves reflected light into a mental image. Maybe? But then, you said that modern digital systems can already produce more colors than we can see. What if one day the screen itself can digitally reflect exactly what it's positioned in front of with no lens at all.
Meh, it's late and I should stop or it will keep me awake wondering. Glad this discussion is still going.
I agree that as long as there's a demand and something doesn't come along to replace the cell phone (brain implants with optical 3D inserts?) that phone cameras will continue to improve and discover ways to pack more capability into a tiny package. I think though for someone that has grown up with a "full body" camera I will always want that "feel" of an SLR over a smaller form factor (though there are sometimes great reasons to have a smaller factor).
Your digital approximation discussion is interesting. What would be the next digital step beyond trickery (anti-aliasing) or increasing amounts of smaller and smaller pixels? An entirely new way to compute the information? Organic computing? Something beyond the binary code? It's kind of fascinating to think about. I guess theoretically the purest it could ever get digitally would be to replicate the way a human brain resolves reflected light into a mental image. Maybe? But then, you said that modern digital systems can already produce more colors than we can see. What if one day the screen itself can digitally reflect exactly what it's positioned in front of with no lens at all.
Meh, it's late and I should stop or it will keep me awake wondering. Glad this discussion is still going.