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How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

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Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#81

Post by wonnage »

arrrg wrote: post #46
smackfu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would give a sense of how far they still have to go.

There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space. I expect noise to get lower and lower and low light performance to increase, leading to sharper (due to less noise reduction) and less noisier images in the coming years, though, due to the small available physical space and small sensor probably always a step behind larger sensors (like the ones one would find in larger cameras). Maybe it will be possibl…

Certainly true with traditional optics. I think computational optics will change things though - there's been research into using camera arrays for simulating a large aperture, for example. I don't actually know if this is physically feasible, but maybe in lieu of a single large sensor we simulate one with a ton of smaller ones (cool gifs: http://www.mit.edu/~sysun/MAS531_lightfield.html)

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#82

Post by tspike »

jeffmk wrote: post #76
jlarocco wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBH, the image quality isn't the limiting factor. The lack of interchangeable lenses, manual control, and RAW files will always limit the appeal of camera phones for pros and more advanced amateurs.

True in general but I disagree on specifics and magnitude. While those -- and other factors, such as exposure -- are limiting factors, and very important, THE primary limiting factor, for me -- who has used multiple dSLRs, POSes, and Androids- and iPhones-as-cameras -- and I suspect many others, has been one thing: time-to-capture. The time it takes between me pressing the shutter button until the camera records the…

On the flipside, the phone is what you always have with you, in a given moment, and reaching for a device in your pocket is much faster than going back to the car to dig through your camera bag for your massive SLR. I say this as someone who has used and loved SLRs since the film days. I'd love to see the time to capture on the phone approach that satisfying threshold you mention on SLRs, because they already help me capture so many moments I'd otherwise miss.

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#83

Post by jedrek »

ctdonath wrote: post #79
arrrg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space. I expect noise to get lower and lower and low light performance to increase, leading to sharper (due to less noise reduction) and less noisier images in the coming years, though, due to the small available physical space and small sensor probably always a step behind larger sensors (like the ones one would find in larger cameras). Maybe it will be possibl…

There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space. Where we are now is the "nowhere to go" of not long ago. I had a Kodak DC-1. The notion of "a digital camera the size of a sugar cube" was laughable. Now we've got something even smaller taking pictures most people can't distinguish from a DSLR. I expect the next breakthrough will be using the display itself as a platform for a phased-array "light as elec…

Yeah, but a lot of the limits we're hitting are tied to physics. But hey, we're used to trade offs and will go for slightly lower quality in exchange for ease of use and convenience

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#84

Post by semi-extrinsic »

thrownaway2424 wrote: post #72
andor wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will always limit? Android supports manual control and DNG raw files. Also, plenty of enthusiast cameras don't have interchangeable lenses.

_Those_ cameras are doomed because the iPhone does what they do, in many cases the iPhone does it better, and the iPhone is cheaper and smaller. At least an interchangeable lens camera will always have the feature that you can put a different lens on it. On the other hand people do make optics for the iPhone, too, so it's certainly not impossible for an "interchangeable lens iPhone" to exist in some way at some point…

I dunno, my non-interchangeable-lens camera (Canon SX40) has a whole range of features which are important to me and that the iPhone doesn't (and will never) have:

* 30x optical zoom

* optical image stabilization

* tripod mount

* flash hot shoe

* 58mm filter mount

* good ergonomics & no touchscreen

* RAW files

* scriptability of shooting e.g. for thunderstorms (camera triggered by lightning)

* replaceable battery

* removable storage

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#85

Post by nogridbag »

slig wrote: post #53
avn2109 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, how does one learn to use lightroom?

I learned by watching Antony Morganti's tutorials [1]. They're freely available on youtube and they cover everything you need to know. Watch the first 3 videos I linked, play with Lightroom, and then come back and watch again. You'll learn more now that you're familiar with the tool. [1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLllFqBuTM0WI0fC_PujkG...

Thanks, I've never seen lightroom before, but I've used photoshop extensively. I have a Sony A6000 and shoot jpeg as I'm a novice and probably won't bother modifying all of my vacation photos (the A6000 applies corrections for things like barrel distortion for the attached lens automatically when set in jpeg mode).

I watched the first three videos and it actually turned me off to lightroom a bit or at least the workflow that was demonstrated. For example, when the author used the clone stamp tool it was painful to me that he just left those duplicated clouds in the final image without attempting to merge them in more gracefully. The final post-processed images look really amateur to me - overly artificial but not in a tasteful way. But all the youtube comments seem to be very positive so take my comments with a grain of salt.

I always assumed lightroom was used primarily to correct mistakes made by the photographer in exposure settings but it's use here seemed more artistic in nature... more like a fancier version of Adobe Elements. For example, one of the final steps in the author's workflow is to select a Camera Calibration which essentially applies some filter to the entire image like "Vivid" - which I thought negated all the effort to manually adjust all the individual colors, contrast, saturation, etc.

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#86

Post by arrrg »

e12e wrote: post #62
arrrg wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space. I expect noise to get lower and lower and low light performance to increase, leading to sharper (due to less noise reduction) and less noisier images in the coming years, though, due to the small available physical space and small sensor probably always a step behind larger sensors (like the ones one would find in larger cameras). Maybe it will be possibl…

> There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space. While true, also false. Take something like the Sony Nex series; mirrorless digital system camera. Not much larger than a (big) smart phone. Sure, bigger than an iPhone. But it might not be that difficult to fit the "rest" of a smart phone into one of those. In fact, it probably have all the parts: battery, (touch?)screen, microphone, wireless radio (no…

Look at the lens of those devices … I mean, really, it’s a basic physics problem.

The device itself can obviously be very, very small. Obviously. No one is disputing that. But the lens is the issue if the sensor gets larger and a smartphone with Sony Nex sensor size (APS-C) is impossible.

There is nowhere to go with the available space. Not if you want to keep the smartphone actually smartphone sized.

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#87

Post by arrrg »

semi-extrinsic wrote: post #84
thrownaway2424 wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_Those_ cameras are doomed because the iPhone does what they do, in many cases the iPhone does it better, and the iPhone is cheaper and smaller. At least an interchangeable lens camera will always have the feature that you can put a different lens on it. On the other hand people do make optics for the iPhone, too, so it's certainly not impossible for an "interchangeable lens iPhone" to exist in some way at some point…

I dunno, my non-interchangeable-lens camera (Canon SX40) has a whole range of features which are important to me and that the iPhone doesn't (and will never) have: * 30x optical zoom * optical image stabilization * tripod mount * flash hot shoe * 58mm filter mount * good ergonomics & no touchscreen * RAW files * scriptability of shooting e.g. for thunderstorms (camera triggered by lightning) * replaceable battery * r…

6S Plus has OIS.

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#88

Post by sirn »

qq66 wrote: post #73
e12e wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space. While true, also false. Take something like the Sony Nex series; mirrorless digital system camera. Not much larger than a (big) smart phone. Sure, bigger than an iPhone. But it might not be that difficult to fit the "rest" of a smart phone into one of those. In fact, it probably have all the parts: battery, (touch?)screen, microphone, wireless radio (no…

I saw someone with a really neat camera. It was an Olympus lens + sensor in a package that was hardly bigger than a camera lens, which wirelessly talked to a smartphone for image display and controls. A much smaller add-on than an entire mirrorless camera, acknowledging that most people are already carrying an LCD screen and flash storage.

Olympus Air[1] perhaps?

[1]: http://www.getolympus.com/us/en/air-a01.html

Re: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

#90

Post by alkonaut »

arrrg wrote: post #46
smackfu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would give a sense of how far they still have to go.

There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space. I expect noise to get lower and lower and low light performance to increase, leading to sharper (due to less noise reduction) and less noisier images in the coming years, though, due to the small available physical space and small sensor probably always a step behind larger sensors (like the ones one would find in larger cameras). Maybe it will be possibl…

> There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space.

I think that taking a classical digital still image on a tiny sensor is probably soon going to hit an "ISO-wall", but so far we haven't started doing much trickery with the images apart from simple noise/sharpness/toning treatments.

I think smartphones will lead the development of "cheats" to get better images. Imagine taking a portrait of 3 people in low-light by exposing a 1 second film (maybe including a couple of flashes). The processor then works (very hard) to build together single frame in which everyone's eyes are open, the moving subjects are frozen and sharp, and the shadow detail is pulled from the dark background by averaging out the noise from the thousands of frames.

I think the accelerometer should be used to trace the movement during this exposure, which can be used in combination with the anti-shake blur removal algorithms which are being introduced into various programs now.

Add to this some other technologies like deep learning that can be used to "guess" what's in a region of an image where we have noisy, obscured or OOF data.

I'm optimist, I think we will see not better classical images, but just better images. There will be lots of crazy "three-eyes"-artifacts produced by this, just like we see when programs try to stitch panoramas. Also, it will upset photography purists to no end. It will question the entire notion of what a photograph is.

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