6 ms·

This is all really cool, but, there's one thing you can't make up for enough with processing: optical zoom, (digital zoom, however much temporal super resolutio

by tomxor 7y ago

This is all really cool, but, there's one thing you can't make up for enough with processing: optical zoom, (digital zoom, however much temporal super resolution trickery, has a different angle).

m463 7y ago
DSLRs have exceptional lenses with exceptional but large sensors, which means the zooms are modest (up to around ~600mm) So the really interesting long focal lenght cameras are the all-in-one superzoom cameras like the canon sx70hs and nikon p1000. They accomplish the high magnification by using a sort-of-good lens with a sort-of-good small sensor, achieving up to 3000mm "equivalent" zoom. Unfortunately, the "pro-sumer" design gives you an electronic viewfinder and slower less accurate focus and all kinds of other non-dslr mediocrity. sigh.
- LegitShady 7y ago
  The smaller cameras never really convjnced me as real DSLR replacements - they lacked the versatility and ergonomics of the DSLR and the smaller sensors meant more noise especially in dark scenes. The first camera that I use that has started being ok is the pixel phone cameras using night sight to improve overall resolution and detail.
  - rimliu 7y ago
    Define "smaller cameras". I (not so) recently replaced my Nikon D7100 with a collection of pro lenses with Olympus cameras (OM-D E-M1markII and OM-D E10markII to be specific). I could not be happier. The first one is small, has one of the best water/dust/freeze proofing available, extremely capable and customizable. Yes it has even smaller sensor than my APS-C Nikon had, but I can get better images with it. One interesting thing about Olympus cameras, that they do have a lot of computational photography things described in the article: - there is a "Live Composite" mode, which allows you to get those star trails, to do light painting, etc. - there is build-in focus stacking, very useful for macro photography - there is hi-res mode implemented with pixel (or rather sensor) shifting - there is IBIS and digital image stabilization.
    - LegitShady 7y ago
      Smaller = anything smaller than a consumer grade DSLR. The form factor make the smaller units far more difficult to hold properly while shooting, lack the optical viewfinder in most cases, etc. The only thing a person needs for Star trails is a tripod and the sky. Stars start to "trail" generally anything over 500/effective focal length in exposure time in seconds. Built in focus stacking does sound useful if it works well and macro shots are of interest. Hi res modes are fine but it can never make your pixels bigger - bigger pixels of the same generation more sensitive to light so less noise at higher isos. I have canon glass so tried one of their mirrorless cams and found its Ergonomics completely different to DSLRs and personally not in a good way.
HPsquared 7y ago
What's the difference? (Other than needing a really densely-packed sensor, of course)
- tomxor 7y ago
  Without using the proper optical terminology, the light is bending differently when you optically zoom with a large lense. It's not possible to make up for this with the types of sample based processing (temporal or spatial) being used in phone cameras. Standard digital zoom is essentially cropping of the image data, this can then only be improved in resolution by temporal sampling, but it will still look very different at extremes to an optical zoom. The only way would be a completely fake ML based manipulation of the image to distort the image based on object/scene detection.

by tomxor 7y ago

This is all really cool, but, there's one thing you can't make up for enough with processing: optical zoom, (digital zoom, however much temporal super resolution trickery, has a different angle).

m463 7y ago

DSLRs have exceptional lenses with exceptional but large sensors, which means the zooms are modest (up to around ~600mm) So the really interesting long focal lenght cameras are the all-in-one superzoom cameras like the canon sx70hs and nikon p1000. They accomplish the high magnification by using a sort-of-good lens with a sort-of-good small sensor, achieving up to 3000mm "equivalent" zoom. Unfortunately, the "pro-sumer" design gives you an electronic viewfinder and slower less accurate focus and all kinds of other non-dslr mediocrity. sigh.

LegitShady 7y ago
The smaller cameras never really convjnced me as real DSLR replacements - they lacked the versatility and ergonomics of the DSLR and the smaller sensors meant more noise especially in dark scenes. The first camera that I use that has started being ok is the pixel phone cameras using night sight to improve overall resolution and detail.
- rimliu 7y ago
  Define "smaller cameras". I (not so) recently replaced my Nikon D7100 with a collection of pro lenses with Olympus cameras (OM-D E-M1markII and OM-D E10markII to be specific). I could not be happier. The first one is small, has one of the best water/dust/freeze proofing available, extremely capable and customizable. Yes it has even smaller sensor than my APS-C Nikon had, but I can get better images with it. One interesting thing about Olympus cameras, that they do have a lot of computational photography things described in the article: - there is a "Live Composite" mode, which allows you to get those star trails, to do light painting, etc. - there is build-in focus stacking, very useful for macro photography - there is hi-res mode implemented with pixel (or rather sensor) shifting - there is IBIS and digital image stabilization.
  - LegitShady 7y ago
    Smaller = anything smaller than a consumer grade DSLR. The form factor make the smaller units far more difficult to hold properly while shooting, lack the optical viewfinder in most cases, etc. The only thing a person needs for Star trails is a tripod and the sky. Stars start to "trail" generally anything over 500/effective focal length in exposure time in seconds. Built in focus stacking does sound useful if it works well and macro shots are of interest. Hi res modes are fine but it can never make your pixels bigger - bigger pixels of the same generation more sensitive to light so less noise at higher isos. I have canon glass so tried one of their mirrorless cams and found its Ergonomics completely different to DSLRs and personally not in a good way.

HPsquared 7y ago

What's the difference? (Other than needing a really densely-packed sensor, of course)

tomxor 7y ago
Without using the proper optical terminology, the light is bending differently when you optically zoom with a large lense. It's not possible to make up for this with the types of sample based processing (temporal or spatial) being used in phone cameras. Standard digital zoom is essentially cropping of the image data, this can then only be improved in resolution by temporal sampling, but it will still look very different at extremes to an optical zoom. The only way would be a completely fake ML based manipulation of the image to distort the image based on object/scene detection.