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These night mode shots are seriously impressive. This might give DSLR manufacturers something to catch up with.

ansgri 7y ago
DSLR manufacturers already have compact mirrorless to catch up with. Now only if the mirrorless moguls would recognize the potential of ehnancing their comparatively giant APS-C sensors with at least half the computational photography wits of modern camera phones, now that would be magnificent. Also, for me personally, the next waypoint for the phones should be the development of compact telephoto lenses -- it seems only Huawei got that right with their P30Pro.
- dagw 7y ago
  I wonder why traditional camera manufacturers have been so reluctant to leverage the advances in computational photography that the mobile phone world has embraced. I mean I get why they want to have neutral default settings for people who want to do their own editing, but why are their 'scene' settings so crap when compared to mobile phones. Is it simply because they're worried that a sufficiently powerful processor is going to draw too much power?
  - willis936 7y ago
    Conservative management. What happens to those who don’t swim?
    - fock 7y ago
      I'm into taking photos to craft an image of reality. Myself. I couldn't care less for any AI crafting it's image of typical reality for me. I think that's quite set for anyone taking pictures for fun vs. admoney/instafame/...
      - ansgri 7y ago
        There's still such thing as physically correct image reconstruction, i.e. removing technical limitations via computational means. Super-resolution, focus stacking, HDR (proper one, without fake colors), highlight color preservation (try to photograph light source while preserving color while not underexposing everything around). Basically, make images that are currently possible on $3000+ hardware, on $600 hardware. There's also such thing as perceptually correct image rendering, but that's a whole another can of worms (image appearance models and the like), it isn't scientifically ready just yet.
        fock 7y ago
        And you can do all of this with an ILC too and will profit from the fact that it has far less technical limitations. Basically most of the really "cool" applications center around using the electronic shutter which up to 2-3years ago none of the ILC-companies dared to offer for the masses because it has some shortcomings which the "hey I can finally shoot in the dark"-crowd might not notice/care about, but people buying an ILC will, even if they're not technical enough to understand that it's their own problem...
        ansgri 7y ago
        I was talking of compact ILCs specifically, that they would profit from this to become comparable with bulky 'pro' gear.
        fock 7y ago
        ah, but then if you look at µ4/3 it's already there (6k/30fps bursts with the electronic shutter for selection afterwards, pixelshift to improve resolution, ...)
  - KineticLensman 7y ago
    I can't speak for the manufacturers but as a DLSR user I love the total predictability (exposure, DoF, focus, etc) when it is in manual mode. I really don't want the camera to try to anticipate the type of picture I am aiming for. This totally applies to scenes. Portrait, sports, landscape, etc are all just different permutations of shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
- charrondev 7y ago
  I’m not sure how it is at APS-C (I use a full frame DSLR) but I don’t think there’s much room in the workflow of a lot people using DSLRs for more computation I’m the camera itself. I know if I want a _great_ picture I - shoot raw. - shoot on manual mode (often still with auto exposure). - put the photo into Lightroom. With a huge sensor and a fast lens there’s no need for a lot of the computational photography phones are doing: - “portrait mode” - unneeded when you have a fast lens and can get more real bokeh than you could ever need. - “night mode” - with modern sensors you can get usable images even at 6400/12800 ISO. This lets you get a solid image even at a reasonable, handheld shutter speed. The real improvement other than sensor dynamic range and pixel count has been in autofocus. I still miss some some shots with my Canon because I didn’t react fast enough to nail my focus.
  - ansgri 7y ago
    It's exactly about rising the performance of current inexpensive APS-C cameras to the level of professional full-frame models. As an amateur photographer I'd never take with me a mammoth gear that is some Canon 5D mk3 w/ 70-200 F/4, yet I'm somehow pretty sure that some good processing would allow a compact like Sony a6000 w/ 18-135 F/5.6 get close to its performance in 90% of cases. The thing is, I sometimes can do that in Lr/Ps, but it's just much more work than I'd like to do for most of the photos.
  - prolepunk 7y ago
    Panasonic has really good image stabilization for MFT systems where lens stabilization and sensor stabilization system work in tandem allowing to take shots with up to 1 second exposure handheld. Basically it's like having gimble inside the camera. Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 (50mm f/3.5 equivalent full frame) is under $200 and is an excellent portrait lens. With initial release of GH5 autofocus was pretty bad, but with the last firmware upgrade apparently it's quite good now. I however cant yet justify upgrade from GH4, which doesn't have sensor stabilization.
- jug 7y ago
  > would recognize the potential Oh I'm sure they've recognized the potential all right. But these smartphone manufacturers have massive software development departments with heaps of funds poured into AI research for multiple reasons other than this specific field, which is now really starting to benefit them. It's a different culture. And even if we assume a camera manufacturer would have the finances to build this culture on their home turf (a huge assumption to make), they then run into the next problem that their sensors are too big! They can't compete as strongly here because they capture much more information with their larger sensor sizes and even with tiny smartphone sizes, you need laptop level performance on a ~7-10 nm transistor scale and dedicated AI hardware to pull it off without destroying battery life. They're so far behind both in know how and difficulty of the problem that I'm not sure how they'll ever be able to do it in the foreseeable future at least with full frame cameras.
  - ansgri 7y ago
    > they capture much more information with their larger sensor sizes Most modern cameras are around 24 MPx irrespective of sensor size, this one is 3x12=36 MPx which is about the same total information content (or even less) given these 24 MPx have more bits per pixel. Another point in case is that one could implement more in-camera techniques for collecting raw data for further offline processing, like focus stacking or aperture simulation which today require external hardware and a decent amount of skill.
oflannabhra 7y ago
I would love someone to design and manufacture an enclosure for an iPhone that allowed for better ergonomics and controls. I think the Camera app is one of the pinnacles of Apple's software engineering, but sometimes shooting on my DSLR really makes me value how beneficial things like knobs and buttons. Obviously this might require using a 3rd party app as well, but I would gladly pay several hundred dollars for such a device.
- coldtea 7y ago
  >I would love someone to design and manufacture an enclosure for an iPhone that allowed for better ergonomics and controls There are several third party solutions that offer just that, have been for years, e.g.: https://icdn9.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/pictar-iphone-camera-case-wm-5-1347x898.jpg https://icdn9.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/pictar-i... http://blog.incipio.com/home/incipio-focal-wireless-bluetooth-camera-case-for-iphone-55s.html http://blog.incipio.com/home/incipio-focal-wireless-bluetoot... and even more mainstream brands...
- charlieegan3 7y ago
  I've thought about this a lot, it's certainly something I want too. I think a case with a dial in each corner for shutter speed, ev compensation, aperture and iso would be enough for me to consider selling my camera. Perhaps they could even be customised? For now, being able to quickly set one of these values depending on the scene is very important to me - so I keep the camera going for now...
- pdpi 7y ago
  The next step over from that logic is Fuji's XT-3 (and other cameras in that line) that have brought back many of the physical controls that have been removed from newer DSLR cameras.
elicash 7y ago
I'm not a photo guy -- I have like 4 photos on my phone total (one for each of the people I care the most about -- but it seems to me like Apple should just create a DSLR camera. It doesn't seem any more out-of-place for them as the HomePod, the idea of which is to have a bigger device just for listening because there's a physics limit to just using a tiny device for outputting sound. They then combine that with super advanced software for something unique. Doesn't sound different from photography, to me. Why wouldn't Apple want to create the best camera in the world?
- tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
  Because it is much more lucrative for them to have a phone with the best camera in the world.
  - elicash 7y ago
    In some ways, this reminds me of the debate over whether it's "worth it" to make the Mac Pro. As a percentage of sales it's tiny. But there are other reasons they do it that aren't about the profit they get from that single device sold, other ways it impacts the company.
- dagw 7y ago
  Why wouldn't Apple want to create the best camera in the world? To create "the best camera in the world" you have to be really really good at optics, sensor design and signal processing. Apples core strength using very clever software tricks to make pictures that look really good on a computer screen despite bad bad optics and sensors (in an absolute sense).
fock 7y ago
From a technical point of view I'm quite sure my >10 years old Rebel XSi will yield similar photos after editing the raw-file. If you are impressed by this you're probably not really following the tech, don't have any clue about image processing and are just blindly following what Apples advertising is selling you. Most of the "cool" iphone-pictures in non-optimal lighting are about 50% post-processing and they show (for example the linked pictures are about 1.5MP and while they have nicely matched colors, there's barely any texture left (it's the same for the ads on apple.com). This might be fine for viewing and even a small print but that's nothing a DSLR of yore couldn't do. And believe me, once you print a poster of the nice fisherman and compare image quality form the iPhone and a modern ILC you'll see that there's a lot to catch up for the iPhone. I'd take a typical ILC for ~300 USD over a iPhone everyday from a technical point of view (and so would most photographers if there wasn't the ad-money)
- nicoburns 7y ago
  You clearly didn't read the article (which covers the technical details of night mode). It's taking multiple exposures at different shutter speeds and combining together. Allowing you to take sharp photos with long exposure times, hand held. Your Rebel XSi (and even the latest Rebel) can't do that (although they have the advantage of a bigger sensor).
  - fock 7y ago
    Yeah I read the article alright, but what I see there is something you can do just fine "handheld" with any cheap(ish) ILC. Arguably the method is relatively irrelevant for such comparison.
- samvher 7y ago
  Thanks for the kind words! I would honestly be curious to see a low light comparison with (older or newer) DSLRs. You might be right that the comparisons on this blog post exaggerate the performance because the XS is just terrible, but the process described in the post where a series of images are merged together in post processing and you can make long-exposure hand-held shots is just not something that's going to work in DSLRs easily. I can imagine that there are situations where this would make certain shots feasible that would have motion blur on a DSLR. Then again, I've imagined wrong before.

DSLR manufacturers already have compact mirrorless to catch up with. Now only if the mirrorless moguls would recognize the potential of ehnancing their comparatively giant APS-C sensors with at least half the computational photography wits of modern camera phones, now that would be magnificent. Also, for me personally, the next waypoint for the phones should be the development of compact telephoto lenses -- it seems only Huawei got that right with their P30Pro.

dagw 7y ago
I wonder why traditional camera manufacturers have been so reluctant to leverage the advances in computational photography that the mobile phone world has embraced. I mean I get why they want to have neutral default settings for people who want to do their own editing, but why are their 'scene' settings so crap when compared to mobile phones. Is it simply because they're worried that a sufficiently powerful processor is going to draw too much power?
- willis936 7y ago
  Conservative management. What happens to those who don’t swim?
  - fock 7y ago
    I'm into taking photos to craft an image of reality. Myself. I couldn't care less for any AI crafting it's image of typical reality for me. I think that's quite set for anyone taking pictures for fun vs. admoney/instafame/...
    - ansgri 7y ago
      There's still such thing as physically correct image reconstruction, i.e. removing technical limitations via computational means. Super-resolution, focus stacking, HDR (proper one, without fake colors), highlight color preservation (try to photograph light source while preserving color while not underexposing everything around). Basically, make images that are currently possible on $3000+ hardware, on $600 hardware. There's also such thing as perceptually correct image rendering, but that's a whole another can of worms (image appearance models and the like), it isn't scientifically ready just yet.
      - fock 7y ago
        And you can do all of this with an ILC too and will profit from the fact that it has far less technical limitations. Basically most of the really "cool" applications center around using the electronic shutter which up to 2-3years ago none of the ILC-companies dared to offer for the masses because it has some shortcomings which the "hey I can finally shoot in the dark"-crowd might not notice/care about, but people buying an ILC will, even if they're not technical enough to understand that it's their own problem...
        ansgri 7y ago
        I was talking of compact ILCs specifically, that they would profit from this to become comparable with bulky 'pro' gear.
        fock 7y ago
        ah, but then if you look at µ4/3 it's already there (6k/30fps bursts with the electronic shutter for selection afterwards, pixelshift to improve resolution, ...)
- KineticLensman 7y ago
  I can't speak for the manufacturers but as a DLSR user I love the total predictability (exposure, DoF, focus, etc) when it is in manual mode. I really don't want the camera to try to anticipate the type of picture I am aiming for. This totally applies to scenes. Portrait, sports, landscape, etc are all just different permutations of shutter speed, aperture and ISO.
charrondev 7y ago
I’m not sure how it is at APS-C (I use a full frame DSLR) but I don’t think there’s much room in the workflow of a lot people using DSLRs for more computation I’m the camera itself. I know if I want a _great_ picture I - shoot raw. - shoot on manual mode (often still with auto exposure). - put the photo into Lightroom. With a huge sensor and a fast lens there’s no need for a lot of the computational photography phones are doing: - “portrait mode” - unneeded when you have a fast lens and can get more real bokeh than you could ever need. - “night mode” - with modern sensors you can get usable images even at 6400/12800 ISO. This lets you get a solid image even at a reasonable, handheld shutter speed. The real improvement other than sensor dynamic range and pixel count has been in autofocus. I still miss some some shots with my Canon because I didn’t react fast enough to nail my focus.
- ansgri 7y ago
  It's exactly about rising the performance of current inexpensive APS-C cameras to the level of professional full-frame models. As an amateur photographer I'd never take with me a mammoth gear that is some Canon 5D mk3 w/ 70-200 F/4, yet I'm somehow pretty sure that some good processing would allow a compact like Sony a6000 w/ 18-135 F/5.6 get close to its performance in 90% of cases. The thing is, I sometimes can do that in Lr/Ps, but it's just much more work than I'd like to do for most of the photos.
- prolepunk 7y ago
  Panasonic has really good image stabilization for MFT systems where lens stabilization and sensor stabilization system work in tandem allowing to take shots with up to 1 second exposure handheld. Basically it's like having gimble inside the camera. Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 (50mm f/3.5 equivalent full frame) is under $200 and is an excellent portrait lens. With initial release of GH5 autofocus was pretty bad, but with the last firmware upgrade apparently it's quite good now. I however cant yet justify upgrade from GH4, which doesn't have sensor stabilization.
jug 7y ago
> would recognize the potential Oh I'm sure they've recognized the potential all right. But these smartphone manufacturers have massive software development departments with heaps of funds poured into AI research for multiple reasons other than this specific field, which is now really starting to benefit them. It's a different culture. And even if we assume a camera manufacturer would have the finances to build this culture on their home turf (a huge assumption to make), they then run into the next problem that their sensors are too big! They can't compete as strongly here because they capture much more information with their larger sensor sizes and even with tiny smartphone sizes, you need laptop level performance on a ~7-10 nm transistor scale and dedicated AI hardware to pull it off without destroying battery life. They're so far behind both in know how and difficulty of the problem that I'm not sure how they'll ever be able to do it in the foreseeable future at least with full frame cameras.
- ansgri 7y ago
  > they capture much more information with their larger sensor sizes Most modern cameras are around 24 MPx irrespective of sensor size, this one is 3x12=36 MPx which is about the same total information content (or even less) given these 24 MPx have more bits per pixel. Another point in case is that one could implement more in-camera techniques for collecting raw data for further offline processing, like focus stacking or aperture simulation which today require external hardware and a decent amount of skill.

oflannabhra 7y ago

I would love someone to design and manufacture an enclosure for an iPhone that allowed for better ergonomics and controls. I think the Camera app is one of the pinnacles of Apple's software engineering, but sometimes shooting on my DSLR really makes me value how beneficial things like knobs and buttons. Obviously this might require using a 3rd party app as well, but I would gladly pay several hundred dollars for such a device.

coldtea 7y ago
>I would love someone to design and manufacture an enclosure for an iPhone that allowed for better ergonomics and controls There are several third party solutions that offer just that, have been for years, e.g.: https://icdn9.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/pictar-iphone-camera-case-wm-5-1347x898.jpg https://icdn9.digitaltrends.com/image/digitaltrends/pictar-i... http://blog.incipio.com/home/incipio-focal-wireless-bluetooth-camera-case-for-iphone-55s.html http://blog.incipio.com/home/incipio-focal-wireless-bluetoot... and even more mainstream brands...
charlieegan3 7y ago
I've thought about this a lot, it's certainly something I want too. I think a case with a dial in each corner for shutter speed, ev compensation, aperture and iso would be enough for me to consider selling my camera. Perhaps they could even be customised? For now, being able to quickly set one of these values depending on the scene is very important to me - so I keep the camera going for now...
pdpi 7y ago
The next step over from that logic is Fuji's XT-3 (and other cameras in that line) that have brought back many of the physical controls that have been removed from newer DSLR cameras.

elicash 7y ago

I'm not a photo guy -- I have like 4 photos on my phone total (one for each of the people I care the most about -- but it seems to me like Apple should just create a DSLR camera. It doesn't seem any more out-of-place for them as the HomePod, the idea of which is to have a bigger device just for listening because there's a physics limit to just using a tiny device for outputting sound. They then combine that with super advanced software for something unique. Doesn't sound different from photography, to me. Why wouldn't Apple want to create the best camera in the world?

tyri_kai_psomi 7y ago
Because it is much more lucrative for them to have a phone with the best camera in the world.
- elicash 7y ago
  In some ways, this reminds me of the debate over whether it's "worth it" to make the Mac Pro. As a percentage of sales it's tiny. But there are other reasons they do it that aren't about the profit they get from that single device sold, other ways it impacts the company.
dagw 7y ago
Why wouldn't Apple want to create the best camera in the world? To create "the best camera in the world" you have to be really really good at optics, sensor design and signal processing. Apples core strength using very clever software tricks to make pictures that look really good on a computer screen despite bad bad optics and sensors (in an absolute sense).

fock 7y ago

From a technical point of view I'm quite sure my >10 years old Rebel XSi will yield similar photos after editing the raw-file. If you are impressed by this you're probably not really following the tech, don't have any clue about image processing and are just blindly following what Apples advertising is selling you. Most of the "cool" iphone-pictures in non-optimal lighting are about 50% post-processing and they show (for example the linked pictures are about 1.5MP and while they have nicely matched colors, there's barely any texture left (it's the same for the ads on apple.com). This might be fine for viewing and even a small print but that's nothing a DSLR of yore couldn't do. And believe me, once you print a poster of the nice fisherman and compare image quality form the iPhone and a modern ILC you'll see that there's a lot to catch up for the iPhone. I'd take a typical ILC for ~300 USD over a iPhone everyday from a technical point of view (and so would most photographers if there wasn't the ad-money)

nicoburns 7y ago
You clearly didn't read the article (which covers the technical details of night mode). It's taking multiple exposures at different shutter speeds and combining together. Allowing you to take sharp photos with long exposure times, hand held. Your Rebel XSi (and even the latest Rebel) can't do that (although they have the advantage of a bigger sensor).
- fock 7y ago
  Yeah I read the article alright, but what I see there is something you can do just fine "handheld" with any cheap(ish) ILC. Arguably the method is relatively irrelevant for such comparison.
samvher 7y ago
Thanks for the kind words! I would honestly be curious to see a low light comparison with (older or newer) DSLRs. You might be right that the comparisons on this blog post exaggerate the performance because the XS is just terrible, but the process described in the post where a series of images are merged together in post processing and you can make long-exposure hand-held shots is just not something that's going to work in DSLRs easily. I can imagine that there are situations where this would make certain shots feasible that would have motion blur on a DSLR. Then again, I've imagined wrong before.