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The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

photographylife.com

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Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#101

Post by greggman2 »

starky wrote: post #25

Maybe because this is something very close to my wheelhouse, but this article seems to be overly wordy for something obvious. Smartphones are simply more convenient than a standalone camera can ever be. Add on top of that the incredible computational imaging capabilities that have been developed over the past few years and the quality of images you can get from the size of optics and pixels that these devices have is…

Sony does offer a bunch of over priced, buggy, bad UX, not fun to use on the camera "apps", at least on some series of cameras.

https://www.playmemoriescameraapps.com/portal/

They are almost universally features you can get on your phone cheaper or even free with much better UX. Maybe at the resolution or raw area or some other dimension they might be better. You can also tether to your phone but why would you? It's just too tedious.

I don't think anything is going to save cameras. I keep one which I pretty much only use for super telephoto (400-800mm) and for ultra wide/fisheye. If a phone optically offered both of those things built in I'd stop using that camera completely.

Note: A snap-on 3rd party lens system would not get me to switch but a built in mount might (if Apple or Google or Samsung, ideally Apple, designed some kind of mount for lens I'd totally by them). In fact I'm a little surprised Apple hasn't already done this. I can imagine 2 or 3 tiny notches or mag-divits or something in the back or edge of the case near the lens that external lenses attach to. Apple could offer 2 or 4 lenses and maybe a ring light and easily pull in another billion a year as all the instagrammers go buy them all.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#102

Post by ekianjo »

> But that’s just the start of the problem. Once beginners get their first camera system, they quickly realize that their expenses and time commitment do not stop there. All of a sudden, their computers are not fast enough to post-process those high-resolution images and video. Their storage is insufficient. Their computer screens that used to handle web browsing and occasional gaming just fine, are no longer good enough – they now need IPS monitors and screen calibration tools for a consistent editing experience.

That's the biggest difference between a market where casual users just want to take "pictures" vs the semi-pro market where users actually start caring about the process in itself rather than just the final outcome. It's not like "one size fits all" at all. I use both DSLRs, Mirrorless and smartphones to take pictures and I know when I want to use which. I also know that a DSLR picture is going to take more time to edit and all but I enjoy the process and I also find the picture is massively better than anything I can take with a smartphone: there's not even a metric where the best phone can compare with a medium-priced DLSR. I also know that my DLSR pictures will still look great 10 years from now while my smartphones pics are for instant consumption only and a good 75% of them are borderline junk (too much noise when it gets darker, distorsion, not taken exactly at the right moment, slightly blur, etc).

For me this is the same difference between people who buy computers just because they need one and hardcore gamers who assemble the best piece of hardware they can get their hands to because they have very specific needs or wishes. Looking thru a huge list of hardware options, comparing prices, is also fun if you are in the right mindset - and this is not "for all people".

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#103

Post by Lio »

Weirdly I use my iPhone for photos but I don’t enjoy the process.

I still have my Nikon DLSR set up but when I want to “do photography” for fun these days I use a Fuji X100F.

This is a somewhat limit camera although I can get fixed focal lengths from 28-100mm eqv. and it has some other neat tricks. I hardly ever shoot RAW now and if I do I process the RAW in camera.

This means I can’t take ever possible shot but I really enjoy working with the camera flaws and all. It’s only for fun so you get what you can.

What I don’t get is why the camera makers haven’t expanded on the creative options for their systems. Why aren’t they offering flash systems with better integration than say Godox?

Why don’t they offer control of flash colour temperature for balancing?

What about photo stacking in JPGs?

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#104

Post by Youden »

starky wrote: post #25

Maybe because this is something very close to my wheelhouse, but this article seems to be overly wordy for something obvious. Smartphones are simply more convenient than a standalone camera can ever be. Add on top of that the incredible computational imaging capabilities that have been developed over the past few years and the quality of images you can get from the size of optics and pixels that these devices have is…

> Why do we still have to mess about with camera tethering when it should be seamless to have photos transfer to a device for professional shoots, or to your smartphone for posting to social media?

I think this is the real answer for the standalone cameras: treat it as an extension of the smartphone.

It's embarassing that in 2019 it's _still_ not possible to wirelessly transfer RAW files from a camera to a phone. I haven't seen a single camera that can do this. iOS is perfectly ready for it too: there's platform-level support for RAW images and processing and plenty of apps take advantage of it, including the built-in Photos app.

Related: does anyone know why cameras typically have horrendously slow wireless transfer speeds? My iPhone can easily reach 600Mbps over WiFi yet even third-party devices made solely for the purpose of quickly transferring photos can only manage ~60Mbps.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#105

Post by greggman2 »

nradov wrote: post #17
jseliger wrote: post #2

The strangest thing is the camera industry's non-response to smartphones. There's a fellow named Tom Hogan who writes in extreme detail about the camera industry and noticed years ago that camera makers should open up their APIs and work much harder to integrate with smartphones. Here's one recent example of that message: http://dslrbodies.com/newsviews/are-customers-asking-for.htm... Still, Apple discovered a user p…

The camera industry's failure to react effectively isn't strange at all when you look at the history of disruptive innovations. In fact it's the typical pattern. Incumbent market leaders usually lack the corporate culture to recognize a disruptive competitor or react effectively.

I'm not sure what camera companies could have done short of to stop being a camera company and being a phone company which seems unrealistic. They only have experience with cameras, not with the amount of software dev needed to ship a competitive smartphone.

What did livery owners do when the car came? They closed shop is my guess.

I don't really think there is much the camera companies could do. They've tried making it so you can use your camera from your phone. It's too cumbersome. They've tried making it so you can post images directly from the camera to the various services. Again too cumbersome. I have my phone always. I rarely have my camera. They've added apps stores to their cameras. They've added APIs. No one cares, it's not enough. Except for a few pros they're just not something anyone needs anymore.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#106

Post by greggman2 »

kaffeemitsahne wrote: post #91
cookingrobot wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I can find the 1DsIII has a dynamic range of 8.8 stops and the iPhone 11 has 10 stops. Have you found measurements otherwise? Single exposure cameras are really no match for computational photography in this area because it gives an effectively infinite dynamic range. You can take the equivalent of a long exposure photo for every shadow on a sunny day.

But then when something moves, it will look weird, right?

At 960fps all 10 shots were taken in a 1/100th of a second. So same as 1 shot at 1/100th. Probably good enough for most shots except sports/action and my guess is the computational photography can deal with that too in various way.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#107

Post by no_gravity »

Lio wrote: post #103

Weirdly I use my iPhone for photos but I don’t enjoy the process. I still have my Nikon DLSR set up but when I want to “do photography” for fun these days I use a Fuji X100F. This is a somewhat limit camera although I can get fixed focal lengths from 28-100mm eqv. and it has some other neat tricks. I hardly ever shoot RAW now and if I do I process the RAW in camera. This means I can’t take ever possible shot but I re…

How much better are the photos you get out of the Fuji then the ones you get out of your iPhone?

The Fuji X100F is about 3 times as heavy then a usual smartphone. So carrying it around would quadruple the weight of my "camera equipment".

I wish somebody would run around with a pocket camera and a phone for a day and then write a blog posts with comparison shots.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#108

Post by ggm »

I enjoy using my Fuji x20 and if I could afford it I would get a xt3 or similar.

It's not always about the result, sometimes it's about how you got there. That said, my phone takes awesome snaps

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#109

Post by sealthedeal »

Seems to me, the biggest argument is iPhone camera is 12MP baseline DSLR is 24. If you are 100% certain you need that additional clarity in your photos (maybe landscape) then you go with DSLR. Otherwise the smartphone is the way to go for all your family photos and videos, etc. I would be VVV nervous if I was a camera manufacturer...

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#110

Post by sealthedeal »

sealthedeal wrote: post #109

Seems to me, the biggest argument is iPhone camera is 12MP baseline DSLR is 24. If you are 100% certain you need that additional clarity in your photos (maybe landscape) then you go with DSLR. Otherwise the smartphone is the way to go for all your family photos and videos, etc. I would be VVV nervous if I was a camera manufacturer...

*not just family photos, I’m assuming most consumers use it for that. Or I’m just biased because I have a 5 week old lol.
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