8 ms·

Phones don't rival or surpass DSLRs or any proper digital camera. They just have lots of fancy processing that makes quick snaps look better than the same amou

Phones don't rival or surpass DSLRs or any proper digital camera. They just have lots of fancy processing that makes quick snaps look better than the same amount of effort on a camera.

mc32 4y ago
Yeah, it's hard to compare 35mm full frame sensors with miniscule camera sensors. As you said the magic is their processing which compensates for that.
- scrumbledober 4y ago
  it is hard, but it's getting a little easier with the larger cameras
mkaic 4y ago
Until that same fancy processing is available on a DSLR, I think the comparison OP is making is valid. At the end of the day, what I as a consumer care about is "is photo look 1. pleasing, 2. accurate to my perception, and 3. easy to create?" and in those regards, the iPhone absolutely outperforms every DSLR I've ever used.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  I didn't say a phone camera isn't better for the average consumer... I use my phone camera far more often than my actual camera... But there's no world in which it's technically superior to a real camera, especially one with in-camera processing or in the hands of a professional with access to and skill with professional post-processing software.
  - stu2b50 4y ago
    The OP didn’t say it was technically superior as a camera - they said it produced better photos. Which you can argue it does, with all the fancy post processing. The statement was only about the final result, which for the eyes for whom most peoples photos are presented to are excellent.
    - refulgentis 4y ago
      Idk man. If I zoom out from parsing word by word... ...feels like I'm saying a Keurig "rivals and surpasses espresso machines" because it can produce a better espresso than an arbitrary espresso machine in arbitrary hands. Yeah, true. Not very meaningful though. There's probably a McDonald's hamburger analogy here that's better, but, here we are. My challenge to an ambituous reader looking to comment: make that one work too.
      - astrange 4y ago
        A lot of restaurants do use Nespressos when you order a coffee at the end of a meal, I think. …McDonalds isn't bad either these days. It's just too salty.
  - foldr 4y ago
    >real camera A minor and pedantic point, but could we stop with the idea that smartphone cameras are somehow not 'real'? They are enormously sophisticated imaging devices that comprehensively outperform, for example, the 35mm film SLRs that many photographers were using in the 90s. An iPhone 14 enables you to take technically superior photos to the photos that professional photographers were taking only a couple of decades ago.
    - cthalupa 4y ago
      >They are enormously sophisticated imaging devices that comprehensively outperform, for example, the 35mm film SLRs that many photographers were using in the 90s. I'm not so sure about that. I'm impressed by what smartphone cameras do these days, but the Nikon F100 snuck into the 90s and beats the pants off my iPhone 14 Pro's camera, while still being very much in the hobbyist/prosumer price range.
      - foldr 4y ago
        Have you done any side by side comparison shots? Even with a high quality scan, you're unlikely to get the same resolution and dynamic range from a 35mm negative. And that's leaving aside the obviously vast differences in convenience and flexibility. (I'm old enough to have used 35mm SLRs, and I have absolutely no nostalgia for that era.)
        cthalupa 4y ago
        I've long since lost or sold my F100, but you can go to Flickr or 500px and search for F100 photos - it's still relatively popular among people that want to shoot on film. Doing a quick side by side comparison of the 'selfie in the woods' shot with a shot of a person with a beard on 500px ( https://500px.com/photo/89633601/ge-by-nika-topuria https://500px.com/photo/89633601/ge-by-nika-topuria ), the F100 shot has similar levels of detail in the facial hair, despite being taken from farther away and with what looks to be a wider angle lens by my eyes. You can pick out single strands of hair and bits of fuzz on the subject's clothing, etc., as well. Bokeh is, of course, massively better on the F100. And I'll take basically any of the Fujia films over the color grading in the iPhone. Meanwhile, basically every single concert photo on flickr for the f100 absolutely destroys the iPhone in quality ( https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=nikon%20f100%20concert https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=nikon%20f100%20concert ) Looking at landscape shots, it does appear you'll get more detail out of the iPhone camera ( https://500px.com/photo/10782613/silent-chorus-by-chris-froelich https://500px.com/photo/10782613/silent-chorus-by-chris-froe... ), so I can't claim it's universally better, but I think the idea that phone cameras "comprehensively" outperform quality film SLRs from the 90s is false.
  - mkaic 4y ago
    The world where it's superior is when I'm making a short film and want to be able to shoot it without a camera rental budget. As a low-budget filmmaker, my options for cameras are 1.) My old Canon 80D. One time purchase, decently compact, short battery. Produces an okay-ish image with moderate effort. 2.) Renting something nicer than my Canon 80D. Bulky, requires lots of know-how to operate, expensive if I break it. Have to use special cords, cards, lenses, mounts, etc. Produces a top-of-the-line image with high effort. 3.) My iPhone 12 Mini. One time purchase, very compact, multi-hour-battery. Works indoors, outdoors, day or night. Plug-n-play, extremely user friendly. Produces a darn-good image with minimal effort. I fully understand that it's not the best camera out there—but it seriously competes with everything up to fairly expensive professional cameras. I would not hesitate to use my iPhone for professional photography and videography if the client never found out about it (or was okay with it). At the end of the day, the ratio of quality to convenience it provides is simply higher than any other offering.
- appletrotter 4y ago
  Which is why DSLRs are for hobbyists and professionals. It's more work, for a reward. Or for people shooting at night. The sensors are too small on phones to gather enough light to look decent.
  - turbo_fart 4y ago
    With google night sight you can basically take pictures in the dark.
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    The sensors are small but the software is good. Night photography is easy on a recent smartphone and you don’t even need a tripod.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      I've tried it with an iPhone 13 and an older camera with significantly worse low light performance than any camera from the past 7 years, and even if I disable the built-in image stacking, the mirrorless camera with an f/1.4 lens is incomparably better. I could properly expose my backyard with nothing but light pollution handheld. Newer cameras can even film video with nothing but moonlight.
      - speedgoose 4y ago
        Which camera is it? My old X100T is a complete mess in extreme low light conditions and I don’t remember things to have improved much in the following years.
        sudosysgen 4y ago
        An A7ii with a Sigma EF 85mm f/1.4 (incidentally the whole set up used is about half the price of an iPhone 14 Pro). The X100T is a great camera for the experience, but it kinda sucks for low-light. If you want good low-light performance, then image stabilization is a must and full-frame with a lens faster than F2 makes a huge difference too. In the end I can hand-hold comfortably at 1/4th of a second, and the camera itself takes in 4x more light, so low light performance is much better than on an X100T. I can upload the pictures I'm talking about later today, if you want.
- bosie 4y ago
  Couldn't you take those photos and apply it back on the computer? Yet when i try to do HDR with 5 shots in Lightroom, it takes 10s of seconds or even minutes. It seems computer haven't caught up either?
  - squeaky-clean 4y ago
    Take a photo with your iPhone and very quickly tap the thumbnail of the new image that appears in the bottom left. You can watch it progressively process the image.
  - mkaic 4y ago
    Yes and no, Apple's models operate on the raw sensor data as far as I understand, and take advantage of hardware acceleration in the A-series chips' Neural Engine specifically designed for computational photography. Furthermore, Apple's models are proprietary—if you could access them, you could probably run them on your computer and get the same result, but you unfortunately can't access them.
criddell 4y ago
Are there any large sensor cameras that are working on computational photography? Seeing what Apple and Google get out of tiny sensors in a phone makes me wonder what would be possible on a big camera with a better sensor.
- Mikeb85 4y ago
  > Are there any large sensor cameras that are working on computational photography? Not sure about the current state of the art but I do know Fuji has had some pretty fancy in-camera processing for years now. When I was more into photography however it seemed the 'culture' was more into post-processing with computer software for reasons.
- formerly_proven 4y ago
  The computational photography for those is done on a computer.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Where it has more power, but lacks info like how the OIS was moving as the pictures were taken, so isn’t necessarily as good. And none of those products have nearly the sales of a smartphone to sustain R&D. Similar to how the headphone dongle of an iPhone is much cheaper and yet better quality than most audiophile equipment.
    - cthalupa 4y ago
      I would consider myself barely passable in skills compared to the average hobbyist photographer and have never seen in-phone computational work that I would take over what can be done manually in Lightroom, or if you want to go the automatic route, with Skylum's offerings.
      - astrange 4y ago
        The difficulty would be recreating Night Mode by yourself using phone raws as opposed to Sony a7s raws. Or handheld HDR stacking but they're more able to deal with that.
MBCook 4y ago
I always wonder what a one-off joint Apple DSLR/mirrorless could be. If they provided the smarts for a Sony or Canon or Nikon, just how good could the pictures be? Too bad we’ll never know.
adrr 4y ago
Raw photo off DSLR is very bland looking till you process it. No one is using raw information off a sensor as a final product and you need "fancy" processing to make it decent looking.
slowhand09 4y ago
Its not a phone. Its a camera with comms and apps capabilities.

Phones don't rival or surpass DSLRs or any proper digital camera. They just have lots of fancy processing that makes quick snaps look better than the same amount of effort on a camera.

mc32 4y ago

Yeah, it's hard to compare 35mm full frame sensors with miniscule camera sensors. As you said the magic is their processing which compensates for that.

scrumbledober 4y ago
it is hard, but it's getting a little easier with the larger cameras

mkaic 4y ago

Until that same fancy processing is available on a DSLR, I think the comparison OP is making is valid. At the end of the day, what I as a consumer care about is "is photo look 1. pleasing, 2. accurate to my perception, and 3. easy to create?" and in those regards, the iPhone absolutely outperforms every DSLR I've ever used.

Mikeb85 4y ago
I didn't say a phone camera isn't better for the average consumer... I use my phone camera far more often than my actual camera... But there's no world in which it's technically superior to a real camera, especially one with in-camera processing or in the hands of a professional with access to and skill with professional post-processing software.
- stu2b50 4y ago
  The OP didn’t say it was technically superior as a camera - they said it produced better photos. Which you can argue it does, with all the fancy post processing. The statement was only about the final result, which for the eyes for whom most peoples photos are presented to are excellent.
  - refulgentis 4y ago
    Idk man. If I zoom out from parsing word by word... ...feels like I'm saying a Keurig "rivals and surpasses espresso machines" because it can produce a better espresso than an arbitrary espresso machine in arbitrary hands. Yeah, true. Not very meaningful though. There's probably a McDonald's hamburger analogy here that's better, but, here we are. My challenge to an ambituous reader looking to comment: make that one work too.
    - astrange 4y ago
      A lot of restaurants do use Nespressos when you order a coffee at the end of a meal, I think. …McDonalds isn't bad either these days. It's just too salty.
- foldr 4y ago
  >real camera A minor and pedantic point, but could we stop with the idea that smartphone cameras are somehow not 'real'? They are enormously sophisticated imaging devices that comprehensively outperform, for example, the 35mm film SLRs that many photographers were using in the 90s. An iPhone 14 enables you to take technically superior photos to the photos that professional photographers were taking only a couple of decades ago.
  - cthalupa 4y ago
    >They are enormously sophisticated imaging devices that comprehensively outperform, for example, the 35mm film SLRs that many photographers were using in the 90s. I'm not so sure about that. I'm impressed by what smartphone cameras do these days, but the Nikon F100 snuck into the 90s and beats the pants off my iPhone 14 Pro's camera, while still being very much in the hobbyist/prosumer price range.
    - foldr 4y ago
      Have you done any side by side comparison shots? Even with a high quality scan, you're unlikely to get the same resolution and dynamic range from a 35mm negative. And that's leaving aside the obviously vast differences in convenience and flexibility. (I'm old enough to have used 35mm SLRs, and I have absolutely no nostalgia for that era.)
      - cthalupa 4y ago
        I've long since lost or sold my F100, but you can go to Flickr or 500px and search for F100 photos - it's still relatively popular among people that want to shoot on film. Doing a quick side by side comparison of the 'selfie in the woods' shot with a shot of a person with a beard on 500px ( https://500px.com/photo/89633601/ge-by-nika-topuria https://500px.com/photo/89633601/ge-by-nika-topuria ), the F100 shot has similar levels of detail in the facial hair, despite being taken from farther away and with what looks to be a wider angle lens by my eyes. You can pick out single strands of hair and bits of fuzz on the subject's clothing, etc., as well. Bokeh is, of course, massively better on the F100. And I'll take basically any of the Fujia films over the color grading in the iPhone. Meanwhile, basically every single concert photo on flickr for the f100 absolutely destroys the iPhone in quality ( https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=nikon%20f100%20concert https://www.flickr.com/search/?text=nikon%20f100%20concert ) Looking at landscape shots, it does appear you'll get more detail out of the iPhone camera ( https://500px.com/photo/10782613/silent-chorus-by-chris-froelich https://500px.com/photo/10782613/silent-chorus-by-chris-froe... ), so I can't claim it's universally better, but I think the idea that phone cameras "comprehensively" outperform quality film SLRs from the 90s is false.
- mkaic 4y ago
  The world where it's superior is when I'm making a short film and want to be able to shoot it without a camera rental budget. As a low-budget filmmaker, my options for cameras are 1.) My old Canon 80D. One time purchase, decently compact, short battery. Produces an okay-ish image with moderate effort. 2.) Renting something nicer than my Canon 80D. Bulky, requires lots of know-how to operate, expensive if I break it. Have to use special cords, cards, lenses, mounts, etc. Produces a top-of-the-line image with high effort. 3.) My iPhone 12 Mini. One time purchase, very compact, multi-hour-battery. Works indoors, outdoors, day or night. Plug-n-play, extremely user friendly. Produces a darn-good image with minimal effort. I fully understand that it's not the best camera out there—but it seriously competes with everything up to fairly expensive professional cameras. I would not hesitate to use my iPhone for professional photography and videography if the client never found out about it (or was okay with it). At the end of the day, the ratio of quality to convenience it provides is simply higher than any other offering.
appletrotter 4y ago
Which is why DSLRs are for hobbyists and professionals. It's more work, for a reward. Or for people shooting at night. The sensors are too small on phones to gather enough light to look decent.
- turbo_fart 4y ago
  With google night sight you can basically take pictures in the dark.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  The sensors are small but the software is good. Night photography is easy on a recent smartphone and you don’t even need a tripod.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    I've tried it with an iPhone 13 and an older camera with significantly worse low light performance than any camera from the past 7 years, and even if I disable the built-in image stacking, the mirrorless camera with an f/1.4 lens is incomparably better. I could properly expose my backyard with nothing but light pollution handheld. Newer cameras can even film video with nothing but moonlight.
    - speedgoose 4y ago
      Which camera is it? My old X100T is a complete mess in extreme low light conditions and I don’t remember things to have improved much in the following years.
      - sudosysgen 4y ago
        An A7ii with a Sigma EF 85mm f/1.4 (incidentally the whole set up used is about half the price of an iPhone 14 Pro). The X100T is a great camera for the experience, but it kinda sucks for low-light. If you want good low-light performance, then image stabilization is a must and full-frame with a lens faster than F2 makes a huge difference too. In the end I can hand-hold comfortably at 1/4th of a second, and the camera itself takes in 4x more light, so low light performance is much better than on an X100T. I can upload the pictures I'm talking about later today, if you want.
bosie 4y ago
Couldn't you take those photos and apply it back on the computer? Yet when i try to do HDR with 5 shots in Lightroom, it takes 10s of seconds or even minutes. It seems computer haven't caught up either?
- squeaky-clean 4y ago
  Take a photo with your iPhone and very quickly tap the thumbnail of the new image that appears in the bottom left. You can watch it progressively process the image.
- mkaic 4y ago
  Yes and no, Apple's models operate on the raw sensor data as far as I understand, and take advantage of hardware acceleration in the A-series chips' Neural Engine specifically designed for computational photography. Furthermore, Apple's models are proprietary—if you could access them, you could probably run them on your computer and get the same result, but you unfortunately can't access them.

criddell 4y ago

Are there any large sensor cameras that are working on computational photography? Seeing what Apple and Google get out of tiny sensors in a phone makes me wonder what would be possible on a big camera with a better sensor.

Mikeb85 4y ago
> Are there any large sensor cameras that are working on computational photography? Not sure about the current state of the art but I do know Fuji has had some pretty fancy in-camera processing for years now. When I was more into photography however it seemed the 'culture' was more into post-processing with computer software for reasons.
formerly_proven 4y ago
The computational photography for those is done on a computer.
- astrange 4y ago
  Where it has more power, but lacks info like how the OIS was moving as the pictures were taken, so isn’t necessarily as good. And none of those products have nearly the sales of a smartphone to sustain R&D. Similar to how the headphone dongle of an iPhone is much cheaper and yet better quality than most audiophile equipment.
  - cthalupa 4y ago
    I would consider myself barely passable in skills compared to the average hobbyist photographer and have never seen in-phone computational work that I would take over what can be done manually in Lightroom, or if you want to go the automatic route, with Skylum's offerings.
    - astrange 4y ago
      The difficulty would be recreating Night Mode by yourself using phone raws as opposed to Sony a7s raws. Or handheld HDR stacking but they're more able to deal with that.

MBCook 4y ago

I always wonder what a one-off joint Apple DSLR/mirrorless could be. If they provided the smarts for a Sony or Canon or Nikon, just how good could the pictures be? Too bad we’ll never know.

adrr 4y ago

Raw photo off DSLR is very bland looking till you process it. No one is using raw information off a sensor as a final product and you need "fancy" processing to make it decent looking.

slowhand09 4y ago

Its not a phone. Its a camera with comms and apps capabilities.