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Yeah, I was vehemently anti-mirrorless until maybe just like 6 weeks ago. I tried to use every reason to stick with the latest Canon DSLR, but there are just t

Yeah, I was vehemently anti-mirrorless until maybe just like 6 weeks ago. I tried to use every reason to stick with the latest Canon DSLR, but there are just too many advantages with the mirrorless R5. And a lot of advantages are the computational tech in the cameras that you speak of. The eye tracking and focus is absolutely incredible. Those that claim cellphone cameras will replace dedicated cameras have no idea the advances that are taking place in the cameras. Camera companies are not sitting by idle and waiting for cellphones to make themselves obsolete. They are making incredible strides. With the advantages of the sensor sizes and lens physics, I'm not going to say cellphones will never catch up, but I find it hard to believe they will.

jhoechtl 5y ago
And then came the next iPhone. I am by no means an Apple zealot but its astonishing that with every iteration they set new standards.
- snapetom 5y ago
  My wife has the latest Pro Max. I have a mini. I also have one of the latest Canon mirrorlesses and pounds and pounds of lenses. Give me my setup any day, but I'm looking at it for what I love to do - wildlife, sports, cityscapes. I don't care about portraits, I don't care about taking picture of food, I don't care about capturing life memories/events. Sure my use case is not what a regular consumer uses a camera for, but a cellphone can't come anywhere close to what I do.
  - UltraViolence 5y ago
    In my experience even the cheapest (mirrorless) digital snapshot camera runs circles around any mobile phone's. I used to have a cheap Nikon camera and its pictures still stand-out compared to those of even high-end mobile phones (like my Samsung Galaxy S9), especially in low-light or imperfect lighting situations. If you want to take great looking pictures, buy a camera. Don't settle for a mobile phone.
    - snapetom 5y ago
      I agree. Light issues are like distance issues. It's about capturing data, which cellphones will never match given their sensor and lens limitations. Sure Apple/Samsung boats how good their phones are in low light situations these days. But people forget how awful they were in the past. Cellphones were useless for low light even just a few years ago. They've made great strides, but the lower and lower light you go, cameras are the clear winner.
      - meraklis56 5y ago
        I read somewhere, the photos from phones are looking great when are viewed on phones. The moment you view them on a big screen, you immediately understand the picture is not that great as you thought. One could argue the great screens of phones nowadays and the vivid colors affect the perception of the image
        ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        What really is the mark of a pro photographer, is composition, and control of light. My wife is a far better photographer than I am. We could be standing next to each other, shooting the same subject. When people look at my photos, they go “That’s great!”, but when they look at hers, they forget all about mine.
        snapetom 5y ago
        Absolutely. How you view photos absolutely come into play. Digital? Print? Viewing them on a monitor, even a huge one, has different requirements than, say taking a photo and making a wallpaper (as in a real wallpaper, on a real wall) out of it. I have terabytes of photos that look fine on screen, but if I printed it on an 8x10 to hang up, they look like crap.
    - mattlutze 5y ago
      This feels a little like a decade-old maxim that needs a refresh. Most comparisons that I find of modern flagship handsets against even mid-range point-and-shoots show the dedicated cameras failing to dominate. Particularly with computational processing it gets really tough to honestly just wave a hand and scoff at the mobile as a primary choice for most casual photo situations (and some professional, as well!) I too love my manual-operation DSLRs and mirrorless swappable cameras, and just bought a new lens for my go-to. But I've not found myself in years compelled to spend what I'd need to on a pocket camera that'd beat what my phone can do.
  - spindle 5y ago
    My experience is similar, and I bet our experience is very common (among people who've tried both). My prosumer DSLR and medium-expensive lens is so much better than any phone for wildlife photography. For indoor low-light portraits, though, my Google Pixel 3 is actually better than my DSLR, and I say that as someone who very much expected the opposite.
- goblin89 5y ago
  Different purposes of computational capabilities in modern cameras vs. phones place them reliably in different categories. The former aim to computationally adjust settings and make it easier to capture raw scene data the way you intend. The “magic” happens on lower levels (e.g., tracking subject), and you generally feel in control of how it’s applied. The latter focus on computationally interpreting raw data and generating a display-referred image. The “magic” happens throughout the process, and is mostly a black box (recall that case where iPhone camera replaced human head with a leaf on a group photo). If you use phone camera to capture raw image, phone software may still be able to assist to a degree, but challenges arising from sensor size and lens limitations would become more obvious. (I would, however, watch out for the line becoming blurred if/when phones—hopefully not cameras!—start to capture computational raws. Potential improvements offered by applying extensive magic at unmosaiced raw signal level would for me be killed by that human-head-turned-to-leaf possibility, which would ruin phone photography for me.)
  - orbital-decay 5y ago
    1. GCam, MotionCam etc were always able to output stacked raws. In case of raws, "computational" is pretty much a marketing buzzword that means very little, it's just good old exposure fusion and stacking in bayer domain, with in-camera alignment robust enough to shoot a long stack handheld. They pretty much have the same exposure/iso priority and controls you expect to simplify capturing the most of the scene data unchanged. There's even experimental RAW video recording in MotionCam, however ridiculous that might sound. 2. RAW is also pretty much meaningless with modern mirrorless since it's not literally raw. They also do a lot of stuff under the hood for years, including "computational" stuff like noise suppression or pixel shift/superresolution in bayer domain. So the line isn't just blurred, it doesn't exist at all. All this "computational" stuff is here precisely to capture more of the real data, not to draw something that never existed.
    - goblin89 5y ago
      I don’t know what are things you reference in (1), some apps? In (2), either you are speaking about consumer point-and-shoots, or you are speaking of features that can be turned off, or more typically have to be turned on. (Have you ever tried to use pixel shift, by the way? What kind of magic do you think does it do, except for capturing multiple pixel-shifted exposures?) Mirrorless cameras I use get me a dumb array of raw light values, and I am free to apply (or not) noise reduction as I interpret the data. And if they were applying noise suppression, I would not put it anywhere in the same domain as computationally detecting and smoothening human skin or the like. The line is there, and at this time it’s pretty sharp. If you don’t believe, try some of the latest “dumb” pro mirrorless cameras with the latest iPhone and compare their respective raw captures.
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
The new Sony flagship[0] is awesome. It’s a $7,000 body that they can’t keep in stock. Sony also has great glass. [0] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1619483-REG/sony_ilce_1_b_alpha_a1_mirrorless_digital.html?ap=y&smp=y https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1619483-REG/sony_ilce...
- snapetom 5y ago
  At that MP and that price, it's dipping its toe into medium format photography. Ultimately, in the hardware sense, I think making medium format technology accessible to the masses, is where Canon/Sony/Nikon is heading. It's going to be about striking a balance between camera size, sensor size, using software to fill in the compromises, and of course, cost. However the point is that while cellphones are catching cameras, cameras are also moving ahead.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
    Medium (and large) format has more to do with the size of the sensor. Big sensors require big housing, a minimum optical distance, and big, expensive glass. Ansel Adams must have been pretty diesel. He used to haul these gigantic cameras around in the wilderness. They often had a plate size of 8” X 10”.

jhoechtl 5y ago

And then came the next iPhone. I am by no means an Apple zealot but its astonishing that with every iteration they set new standards.

snapetom 5y ago
My wife has the latest Pro Max. I have a mini. I also have one of the latest Canon mirrorlesses and pounds and pounds of lenses. Give me my setup any day, but I'm looking at it for what I love to do - wildlife, sports, cityscapes. I don't care about portraits, I don't care about taking picture of food, I don't care about capturing life memories/events. Sure my use case is not what a regular consumer uses a camera for, but a cellphone can't come anywhere close to what I do.
- UltraViolence 5y ago
  In my experience even the cheapest (mirrorless) digital snapshot camera runs circles around any mobile phone's. I used to have a cheap Nikon camera and its pictures still stand-out compared to those of even high-end mobile phones (like my Samsung Galaxy S9), especially in low-light or imperfect lighting situations. If you want to take great looking pictures, buy a camera. Don't settle for a mobile phone.
  - snapetom 5y ago
    I agree. Light issues are like distance issues. It's about capturing data, which cellphones will never match given their sensor and lens limitations. Sure Apple/Samsung boats how good their phones are in low light situations these days. But people forget how awful they were in the past. Cellphones were useless for low light even just a few years ago. They've made great strides, but the lower and lower light you go, cameras are the clear winner.
    - meraklis56 5y ago
      I read somewhere, the photos from phones are looking great when are viewed on phones. The moment you view them on a big screen, you immediately understand the picture is not that great as you thought. One could argue the great screens of phones nowadays and the vivid colors affect the perception of the image
      - ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
        What really is the mark of a pro photographer, is composition, and control of light. My wife is a far better photographer than I am. We could be standing next to each other, shooting the same subject. When people look at my photos, they go “That’s great!”, but when they look at hers, they forget all about mine.
      - snapetom 5y ago
        Absolutely. How you view photos absolutely come into play. Digital? Print? Viewing them on a monitor, even a huge one, has different requirements than, say taking a photo and making a wallpaper (as in a real wallpaper, on a real wall) out of it. I have terabytes of photos that look fine on screen, but if I printed it on an 8x10 to hang up, they look like crap.
  - mattlutze 5y ago
    This feels a little like a decade-old maxim that needs a refresh. Most comparisons that I find of modern flagship handsets against even mid-range point-and-shoots show the dedicated cameras failing to dominate. Particularly with computational processing it gets really tough to honestly just wave a hand and scoff at the mobile as a primary choice for most casual photo situations (and some professional, as well!) I too love my manual-operation DSLRs and mirrorless swappable cameras, and just bought a new lens for my go-to. But I've not found myself in years compelled to spend what I'd need to on a pocket camera that'd beat what my phone can do.
- spindle 5y ago
  My experience is similar, and I bet our experience is very common (among people who've tried both). My prosumer DSLR and medium-expensive lens is so much better than any phone for wildlife photography. For indoor low-light portraits, though, my Google Pixel 3 is actually better than my DSLR, and I say that as someone who very much expected the opposite.
goblin89 5y ago
Different purposes of computational capabilities in modern cameras vs. phones place them reliably in different categories. The former aim to computationally adjust settings and make it easier to capture raw scene data the way you intend. The “magic” happens on lower levels (e.g., tracking subject), and you generally feel in control of how it’s applied. The latter focus on computationally interpreting raw data and generating a display-referred image. The “magic” happens throughout the process, and is mostly a black box (recall that case where iPhone camera replaced human head with a leaf on a group photo). If you use phone camera to capture raw image, phone software may still be able to assist to a degree, but challenges arising from sensor size and lens limitations would become more obvious. (I would, however, watch out for the line becoming blurred if/when phones—hopefully not cameras!—start to capture computational raws. Potential improvements offered by applying extensive magic at unmosaiced raw signal level would for me be killed by that human-head-turned-to-leaf possibility, which would ruin phone photography for me.)
- orbital-decay 5y ago
  1. GCam, MotionCam etc were always able to output stacked raws. In case of raws, "computational" is pretty much a marketing buzzword that means very little, it's just good old exposure fusion and stacking in bayer domain, with in-camera alignment robust enough to shoot a long stack handheld. They pretty much have the same exposure/iso priority and controls you expect to simplify capturing the most of the scene data unchanged. There's even experimental RAW video recording in MotionCam, however ridiculous that might sound. 2. RAW is also pretty much meaningless with modern mirrorless since it's not literally raw. They also do a lot of stuff under the hood for years, including "computational" stuff like noise suppression or pixel shift/superresolution in bayer domain. So the line isn't just blurred, it doesn't exist at all. All this "computational" stuff is here precisely to capture more of the real data, not to draw something that never existed.
  - goblin89 5y ago
    I don’t know what are things you reference in (1), some apps? In (2), either you are speaking about consumer point-and-shoots, or you are speaking of features that can be turned off, or more typically have to be turned on. (Have you ever tried to use pixel shift, by the way? What kind of magic do you think does it do, except for capturing multiple pixel-shifted exposures?) Mirrorless cameras I use get me a dumb array of raw light values, and I am free to apply (or not) noise reduction as I interpret the data. And if they were applying noise suppression, I would not put it anywhere in the same domain as computationally detecting and smoothening human skin or the like. The line is there, and at this time it’s pretty sharp. If you don’t believe, try some of the latest “dumb” pro mirrorless cameras with the latest iPhone and compare their respective raw captures.

ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago

The new Sony flagship[0] is awesome. It’s a $7,000 body that they can’t keep in stock. Sony also has great glass. [0] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1619483-REG/sony_ilce_1_b_alpha_a1_mirrorless_digital.html?ap=y&smp=y https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1619483-REG/sony_ilce...

snapetom 5y ago
At that MP and that price, it's dipping its toe into medium format photography. Ultimately, in the hardware sense, I think making medium format technology accessible to the masses, is where Canon/Sony/Nikon is heading. It's going to be about striking a balance between camera size, sensor size, using software to fill in the compromises, and of course, cost. However the point is that while cellphones are catching cameras, cameras are also moving ahead.
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Medium (and large) format has more to do with the size of the sensor. Big sensors require big housing, a minimum optical distance, and big, expensive glass. Ansel Adams must have been pretty diesel. He used to haul these gigantic cameras around in the wilderness. They often had a plate size of 8” X 10”.