The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry • Hacker News Board

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#161

Post by chendragon » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:15 PM UTC

megaremote wrote: post #72

kenhwang wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Sony could realistically do both in one product. They already make flagship smartphones that are hardware-competitive with everyone else's flagships. They supply the camera sensors for everyone's flagship product. They have the best DSLM and reasonably competitive lenses. Just take their current flagship smartphone, double the thickness to fit a halfway-between-smartphone-and-full-frame sensor, an SD card slo…

> Just take their current flagship smartphone, double the thickness to fit a halfway-between-smartphone-and-full-frame sensor, an SD card slot, ability to export RAWs, and a compact zoom lens, and sell it for like $2000. And no one will buy it. It has been tried before, by Nokia.

I was under the impression the Nokia that did this failed because it ran Windows Phone and not Android.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#162

Post by dharma1 » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:20 PM UTC

Youden wrote: post #104

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 h…

This is a real pain. And the fact camera OS are mostly proprietary walled gardens means others can't add these simple features either.

For Sony cameras, the fact they can run android .apk's allows some workarounds for jpg/raw WiFi transfer, see http://www.stg-uploader.xyz/

You can backup via WiFi to Google photos or FTP, then open from there with mobile Lightroom on your phone/tablet

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#163

Post by dharma1 » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:25 PM UTC

I wish there was an external usb-c video/stills camera module that would work with smartphones and still fit in your pocket. Something the size of a matchbox. Just the sensor (and maybe fast storage) on the camera module, everything else on the phone - battery, processing, software, display - all on the phone. Would be great if it supported raw stills and video, or at least 10bit h265.

Camera manufacturers can't make competitive software, and usually end up gimping cameras because they have different competing product lines. Just give us an external sensor with either a good fast fixed lens, or a reasonable lens mount, to hook up to a phone/tablet, those do everything else better than a camera. Usb-c has good enough bandwidth and can provide enough power to the external sensor module.

For stills mobile phones with small sensors are already pretty close to DSLR quality, for video it will be a while - the small sensor/pixel size means lots of noise and you can't fix it with multiple exposure averaging like you can with stills. Similarly faking shallow DOF for video is a much harder task than for stills

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#164

Post by subpixel » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:39 PM UTC

freetime2 wrote: post #59

Most of the images in that article were outdoors with lots of natural light, stationary subjects, wide angle compositions, and a large depth of field. Basically ideal conditions for smartphone photography. I find that in many everyday situations my smartphone just doesn’t cut it. Trying to take photos of my kids running around at dusk or indoors, for example. Or trying to take a decent portrait. I bought an A7iii to…

Same story, different camera (mine is an x-t30)

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#165

Post by dharma1 » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:42 PM UTC

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…

Technically you can run any android APK on a Sony camera. It's just the supported API version is old and many things might not work

https://github.com/ma1co/Sony-PMCA-RE

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#166

Post by nikhizzle » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:49 PM UTC

dharma1 wrote: post #163

I wish there was an external usb-c video/stills camera module that would work with smartphones and still fit in your pocket. Something the size of a matchbox. Just the sensor (and maybe fast storage) on the camera module, everything else on the phone - battery, processing, software, display - all on the phone. Would be great if it supported raw stills and video, or at least 10bit h265. Camera manufacturers can't make…

You are describing the dxo one.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#167

Post by overcast » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:52 PM UTC

Smartphones win on convenience. Standalone wins on focal lengths, and low light performance from large sensors that smartphones will NEVER be able to overcome. If you don't need those features, then you're not the target audience, and can stick with a smartphone.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#168

Post by simonh » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 3:58 PM UTC

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…

It's the same old story.

Computer + X = Computer

It doesn't matter if X is a screen, an audio system, a network terminal, a phone, a GPS locator, a fingerprint reader, a 3D scanner or a camera. What matters is the fact it's a computer, and the standalone thing will either retreat into a specialist niche or die. Even train tickets and credit cards are going the same way.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#169

Post by BeetleB » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 4:08 PM UTC

There are 2 reasons for the decline of the DSLR camera.

The first is the complete lack of innovation. Without any meaningful APIs, end users cannot do much with their DSLR. There's no app store where I can buy apps to enhance my DSLR. There's a lot of room for creative photography if we could only program our own DSLRs. Smartphones, on the other hand, often do provide such APIs. This is how you get people doing astrophotography on a smartphone with a vastly inferior sensor.

The other reason is much more banal. For various reasons, people jumped to the DSRL bandwagon thinking that would make for better photos compared to more compact cameras (false for most people). DSLRs never should have become as popular as they did. In the film days you had simple compact cameras and SLRs. Only enthusiasts bought SLRs. That was the case in the early digital days, but then around 2005 people suddenly decided to switch to DSLRs, despite their not benefiting from them.

Over a decade later, people have realized that the eagerness with which they jumped to SLRs was misguided, and are now back to using something convenient. Unfortunately, camera manufacturers assumed this temporary rise in interest in DSLRs would be permanent.

Re: The Smartphone vs. the Camera Industry

#170

Post by subpixel » Sat, Nov 02, 2019, 4:09 PM UTC

no_gravity wrote: post #107

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.

I started with an X100F because I was really fixated on the idea that a small flat/pancake lens would mean I’d more likely take the camera with me than leave it home.

In reality the X100F, while compact, is camera-size and camera-weight, so the actual dimensions matter little. It won’t fit in a pocket, that’s the dimension that really matters.

I swapped for a slightly better camera (X-T30) which is about the same size and with a lens that is also slightly longer (talking actual length here).

The shots I get of my family and kids are the prize. The difference between my phone and camera results make the strap around my neck worth it. But it’s still a challenge not to leave it at home.