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The author, Om Malik[0], is a well-known technology blogger, not a social critic. He just happened to publish this piece in the New Yorker. 0: https://en.wikip
by w1ntermute 10y ago
The author, Om Malik[0], is a well-known technology blogger, not a social critic. He just happened to publish this piece in the New Yorker.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_Malik https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Om_Malik
- TillE 10y agoYeah he's definitely not a social commentator, but there's still a big problem if you're writing about digital cameras and you don't know the difference between a lens and a sensor.
- foobarbecue 10y agoInteresting. I overreacted. Still, there are some telling errors in this article. I admit I didn't read the whole thing, and my quick scan happened to hit the worst parts. Still, the article misses the main question -- are large sensors still required for high quality images?
- gfody 10y agoI think large sensors are the only thing required for high quality images. Capture enough light data and we can do everything in software - no lenses. Focus on this this and that, Bokeh blur algorithm #5 here and there - voila.
- dilemma 10y agoLenses are needed to capture light.
- joe5150 10y agoComing soon, Sony's 40MP pinhole camera: "Trust us, the software is there...."
- thaumasiotes 10y agoIt'll work fine; you just need long exposure times. Of course, taking pictures of something in motion will be harder.
- Someone 10y agoThat might be fine, if it had 40MP pinholes.
- gfody 10y agoSensors capture light. Lenses can be entirely virtualized in software. Whenever very large sensors become cost effective I'm sure smartphone cameras will all be "lightfield" cameras and there will be no more lense bulge. Post processing will also become way more interesting: https://pictures.lytro.com/charmingtoad/pictures/795243/embed https://pictures.lytro.com/charmingtoad/pictures/795243/embe...
- dpark 10y agoLytro cameras use lenses, too. In fact they use a huge number of micro lenses (in addition to larger traditional lenses) to capture the "light field". "Very large sensors" also seems to means something different to you than it does to me. I would not want a full frame sensor (which I would only consider large, not even "very large") on my phone even if it were cost effective and didn't require a large lens.
- gfody 10y agoOnce our sensors are dense/sensitive enough (it doesn't necessarily have to be very large) physical lenses will not be necessary. The Lytro link is about interesting post processing. Today's lensless cameras are very new and very limited but the concept is sound and the technology will get there. Eventually we will be reconstructing high quality photos from raw sensor data, applying all manner of algorithms to stabilize and accumulate brightness, stylized blur that isn't even optically possible, no shutter or lense or any moving parts really, and the whole thing will happen on your smartphone.
- fredophile 10y agoIt's been a long time since I looked into this stuff in depth so I may have some details wrong. You are incorrect about the importance of sensor size. For a high quality image I'd prefer a larger sensor over a small sensor with more megapixels. For one example where small dense sensors are worse look at noise in the image. As the pixel density increases each pixel is getting hit by fewer photons. This reduces the true signal so your signal to noise ratio goes up. Based on the use of Foveon sensors and light field tech from Lytro I wouldn't count on lens less cameras showing up in a phone in the next five years. A decade wouldn't surprise me but it's hard to predict tech trends that far out.
- rbritton 10y agoThe most significant thing you get from a large sensor is image fidelity. That is, the pixel data you get out of it is more true to the actual scene captured. Smaller sensors start to experience limitations in physics, of which noise is a major component.
- ekianjo 10y agoTech bloggers usually dont know all aspects of all techs well.
- w1ntermute 10y agoI didn't say they did. I said that if there's something wrong with this article, it's not because of a misguided attempt by the New Yorker to branch out into tech.