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> Is this an actual SLR replacement There's just no way to replace the massive 35mm sensor of a larger DSLR / mirrorless camera. The amount of light gathered c

> Is this an actual SLR replacement There's just no way to replace the massive 35mm sensor of a larger DSLR / mirrorless camera. The amount of light gathered can only be simulated by capturing many frames. True depth of field can only be emulated by imperfectly blurring estimated background area via software, leading to goofy blurred hairs. Even the reported megapixels of a smartphone contain a quarter or less the equivalent DSLR resolution detail (a 24MP smartphone photo is roughly equivalent to the detail of a 6MP DSLR photo).

deleted 1y ago
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josephg 1y ago
Yep this. I’ve been getting into photography over the last 9 months or so. I got a Sony a7iv and an increasing pile of lenses for it. It’s making me a huge camera snob. The truth is that nothing a phone can do can come close to the image quality of a proper modern camera. You can spot the difference a mile off. Photos from phones look like they’ve been passed through stable diffusion or something. They just look wrong in comparison to a real camera with real lenses and real lights. It shouldn’t be surprising. Real depth of field is physically impossible with a small lens. And cameras have teeny tiny lenses and sensors. It’s impressive how good the photos are given the hardware, but the hardware is very very bad in comparison to a dedicated camera with replaceable lenses.
- astrange 1y ago
  Nobody cares about image quality, that's not a goal in itself. (There's an old camera influencer named Ken Rockwell who constantly pushes this; he has every possible opinion at once and is trolling most of the time, but he's right about this.) The smallness of a phone means it can take pictures larger cameras can't because you have it with you when the picture is happening. And that's what really matters. > They just look wrong in comparison to a real camera with real lenses and real lights. You can use real lights with a phone camera all you want!
  - josephg 1y ago
    > Nobody cares about image quality Hi! I'm right here! I care about image quality! Image quality helps me feel proud of my photos. If I don't feel proud of my photos, its way less fun to wander around taking them - and I just don't bother. Image quality actively makes or breaks some of the joy of the medium for me. I went to a nature photography exhibit / competition today. The exhibition was full of incredible photos of nature taken from all over the world. But some of the images were lower quality. There weren't enough pixels for the printer to do a good job, or you could see digital noise in them. I wanted to like them just as much, but I didn't. The photos weren't as good. > The smallness of a phone means [...] you have it with you when the picture is happening. And that's what really matters. What a weird statement. "What really matters" is completely contextual. What matters when you're entering a photography competition is completely different from what matters at your friends' birthday party. Or at a wedding, or on a photo walk, or a live show. Use the right camera for the job. I personally hate the look of the photos my phone takes. My phone is almost never the right camera for me.
    - astrange 1y ago
      > There weren't enough pixels for the printer to do a good job, or you could see digital noise in them. Much of that can be fixed with shooting raw and editing in Lightroom, which is the same process you'd use for a bigger camera. As for printing, it matters how it's being viewed. You're looking at it up close, which is the physical equivalent of pixel peeping and relatively rare. For something like a highway billboard, a low resolution photo is actually fine because you're so far away from it. I'd suggest trying crappier traditional cameras to learn flexibility. Last time I took a photography class we used disposable B&W cameras and pinhole cameras and developed the film ourselves. Btw, one thing I've always found interesting is that people seem to think "DSLRs" are the higher quality competitors to phone cameras, but they aren't particularly high quality as far as these things go. For film cameras, rangefinders, medium- and large-format cameras have better "image quality" than SLRs. Those Apple product images that look like 3D renders are real photos shot with large-format digital backs from Phase One. (This is good to know if you have a mirrorless camera, because you can adapt rangefinder lenses to them and they're very cheap for the quality you get.)

deleted 1y ago

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josephg 1y ago

Yep this. I’ve been getting into photography over the last 9 months or so. I got a Sony a7iv and an increasing pile of lenses for it. It’s making me a huge camera snob. The truth is that nothing a phone can do can come close to the image quality of a proper modern camera. You can spot the difference a mile off. Photos from phones look like they’ve been passed through stable diffusion or something. They just look wrong in comparison to a real camera with real lenses and real lights. It shouldn’t be surprising. Real depth of field is physically impossible with a small lens. And cameras have teeny tiny lenses and sensors. It’s impressive how good the photos are given the hardware, but the hardware is very very bad in comparison to a dedicated camera with replaceable lenses.

astrange 1y ago
Nobody cares about image quality, that's not a goal in itself. (There's an old camera influencer named Ken Rockwell who constantly pushes this; he has every possible opinion at once and is trolling most of the time, but he's right about this.) The smallness of a phone means it can take pictures larger cameras can't because you have it with you when the picture is happening. And that's what really matters. > They just look wrong in comparison to a real camera with real lenses and real lights. You can use real lights with a phone camera all you want!
- josephg 1y ago
  > Nobody cares about image quality Hi! I'm right here! I care about image quality! Image quality helps me feel proud of my photos. If I don't feel proud of my photos, its way less fun to wander around taking them - and I just don't bother. Image quality actively makes or breaks some of the joy of the medium for me. I went to a nature photography exhibit / competition today. The exhibition was full of incredible photos of nature taken from all over the world. But some of the images were lower quality. There weren't enough pixels for the printer to do a good job, or you could see digital noise in them. I wanted to like them just as much, but I didn't. The photos weren't as good. > The smallness of a phone means [...] you have it with you when the picture is happening. And that's what really matters. What a weird statement. "What really matters" is completely contextual. What matters when you're entering a photography competition is completely different from what matters at your friends' birthday party. Or at a wedding, or on a photo walk, or a live show. Use the right camera for the job. I personally hate the look of the photos my phone takes. My phone is almost never the right camera for me.
  - astrange 1y ago
    > There weren't enough pixels for the printer to do a good job, or you could see digital noise in them. Much of that can be fixed with shooting raw and editing in Lightroom, which is the same process you'd use for a bigger camera. As for printing, it matters how it's being viewed. You're looking at it up close, which is the physical equivalent of pixel peeping and relatively rare. For something like a highway billboard, a low resolution photo is actually fine because you're so far away from it. I'd suggest trying crappier traditional cameras to learn flexibility. Last time I took a photography class we used disposable B&W cameras and pinhole cameras and developed the film ourselves. Btw, one thing I've always found interesting is that people seem to think "DSLRs" are the higher quality competitors to phone cameras, but they aren't particularly high quality as far as these things go. For film cameras, rangefinders, medium- and large-format cameras have better "image quality" than SLRs. Those Apple product images that look like 3D renders are real photos shot with large-format digital backs from Phase One. (This is good to know if you have a mirrorless camera, because you can adapt rangefinder lenses to them and they're very cheap for the quality you get.)