The problem with the current iPhone 4 camera is the amount of post-processing that goes on. If you compare the shots it produces to a quality standalone camera (or the current gold standard in cameraphones, the Nokia N8), you can see how unnatural the colours look. Photos taken by the iPhone 4 tend to end up looking very cartoony - they're too colourful.
Hopefully the bigger aperture will mean that less post-processing will need to be done.
Unfortunately, that seems to be a trend these days. I know people who have cranked up the saturation on their cameras because they think it looks better.
In general, I'll be curious to see how the iP4S camera holds up to Apple's claims. Claiming DSL-like performance is going to be a stretch. But one area I hope it does better than most DSLs is dynamic focusing when shoot video. A low-end consumer camcorder will do a better job than most DSLs as keeping the scene in focus as the camera or the subject moves when shooting video.
Cell phones and other digital cameras of this type do not have a shutter. They imitate the effects of the shutter digitally. To do an article about a cell phone camera and imply that it's new and improved because now it has a shutter, is a misrepresentation.
There is also hardly even a mention of shutters in the article, and nothing about the new camera's digital approximation of a shutter that is either different from the last iPhone camera or any other cell phone camera. At least as far as the article describes.
It's just a generally poor and misleading title.
S is for speed, S is for Steve maybe, but S is definitely not for shutter.
I have no idea why you think that shutters have to be mechanical in nature. The shutters sole purpose is to provide a time controlled exposure of light to the light sensitive area.
It makes no difference if this is accomplished with mechanical shutter (leaf, focal plane...) or an electronic (global, rolling...) shutter. Both terms are used as "shutters".
For example, on the old Canon 1D, any shutter speed above 1/125 was 100% digitally controlled. The mechanical shutter would first open 100% and then the electronic shutter would expose. Regardless, when you talked about a shutter speed of 1/1000, you did not mention that the mechanical shutter was set to1/125 and the "imitated" shutter was 1/1000.
Title wise, they could have used "S is for Oh Snap!"
I won't be able to fully tell how good this is until I see a comparison of the same images from the iPhone 4 and the 4S.
There is one thing I won't like about the new lens. It's not as wide as it used to be. The old model was the equivalent of 29.4 mm, which was about right for general p & s photography. From the exif data that you can see in Apple's sample photos the new lens will be about 35 mm.
Gyro stabilization doesn?t remove motion blur as far as I know (doing so would give moving video an odd look anyway). It removes travel/jitter so that objects are in the same place from frame to frame.
That doesn?t apply to stills: there only IS one frame. There?s no jitter or travel to remove.
I would suggest this most certainly is a question to ask with respect to stills.
I have had awesome results with my DSLR Canon IS lense, and shit results on my 3GS camera, precisely due to the jitter from the time taken to take a photo. the IS lense has a gyro stabilising lense in the array that "keeps it on track" even if you move the camera whilst the shot is being "exposed" it would be really cool if the gyro was able to be used to assist with low light long exposure issues on single frame recordings..
Gyro stabilization doesn?t remove motion blur as far as I know (doing so would give moving video an odd look anyway). It removes travel/jitter so that objects are in the same place from frame to frame.
That doesn?t apply to stills: there only IS one frame. There?s no jitter or travel to remove.
I think that IS works on still cameras, using gyros, at least, it does according to Wikipedia.
An optical image stabilizer, often abbreviated OIS, IS, or OS, is a mechanism used in a still camera or video camera that stabilizes the recorded image by varying the optical path to the sensor.
...
it works by using a floating lens element that is moved orthogonally to the optical axis of the lens using electromagnets.[4] Vibration is detected using two piezoelectric angular velocity sensors (often called gyroscopic sensors), one to detect horizontal movement and the other to detect vertical movement.
What I find more impressive than the clarity is the focus. It seems the focus was trained on the lower half of the bill because the upper half seems slightly out of focus, due to the fact that the photo was taken at a slight angle rather than parallel. Amazing how one can see the fiber structure of the cotton/linen. Even the embossed relief of the FRB mark caused by the stamping process and the wicking of excess ink (on the signatures) during the intaglio process. Killer macro ability.....on a phone!!!!
Nothing ho-hum about this iP4S upgrade at all, IMHO.
With 8 megapixels, the camera will easily make quality prints larger than 8x10 inches. From the right viewing distance - street level - the iPhone could make photos that would look good on a billboard.
[QUOTE=Wiggin;1963505]Unfortunately, that seems to be a trend these days. I know people who have cranked up the saturation on their cameras because they think it looks better.
Most people do think pictures look better with increased color saturation, maybe because they do. The trend started back in the 80s with Fuji film, and it's what helped kill off Kodachrome, with its muted colors.
And there is no reason photographs have to mimic reality as closely as possible, is there?
Yes, it has five lenses and is f/2.4. But what is its focal length and what is its image chip size/format specs?
The iPhone 4 was said to be a 1/3.2'' chip, but that's not a diagonal measure, but a throwback to the size glass tube an image patch could fit inside back when vidicon drove the numbers. So what is the image chip's measurements, and what focal length is at work here?
Knowing these things means one could calculate the camera's hyperfocal distance, then lock focus at a specific distance, and be assured of the best depth of field.
Or, on the other hand, does anybody have a hyperfocal distance number for the iP4S?
Comments
The problem with the current iPhone 4 camera is the amount of post-processing that goes on. If you compare the shots it produces to a quality standalone camera (or the current gold standard in cameraphones, the Nokia N8), you can see how unnatural the colours look. Photos taken by the iPhone 4 tend to end up looking very cartoony - they're too colourful.
Hopefully the bigger aperture will mean that less post-processing will need to be done.
Unfortunately, that seems to be a trend these days. I know people who have cranked up the saturation on their cameras because they think it looks better.
In general, I'll be curious to see how the iP4S camera holds up to Apple's claims. Claiming DSL-like performance is going to be a stretch. But one area I hope it does better than most DSLs is dynamic focusing when shoot video. A low-end consumer camcorder will do a better job than most DSLs as keeping the scene in focus as the camera or the subject moves when shooting video.
Exactly.
Cell phones and other digital cameras of this type do not have a shutter. They imitate the effects of the shutter digitally. To do an article about a cell phone camera and imply that it's new and improved because now it has a shutter, is a misrepresentation.
There is also hardly even a mention of shutters in the article, and nothing about the new camera's digital approximation of a shutter that is either different from the last iPhone camera or any other cell phone camera. At least as far as the article describes.
It's just a generally poor and misleading title.
S is for speed, S is for Steve maybe, but S is definitely not for shutter.
I have no idea why you think that shutters have to be mechanical in nature. The shutters sole purpose is to provide a time controlled exposure of light to the light sensitive area.
It makes no difference if this is accomplished with mechanical shutter (leaf, focal plane...) or an electronic (global, rolling...) shutter. Both terms are used as "shutters".
For example, on the old Canon 1D, any shutter speed above 1/125 was 100% digitally controlled. The mechanical shutter would first open 100% and then the electronic shutter would expose. Regardless, when you talked about a shutter speed of 1/1000, you did not mention that the mechanical shutter was set to1/125 and the "imitated" shutter was 1/1000.
Title wise, they could have used "S is for Oh Snap!"
I won't be able to fully tell how good this is until I see a comparison of the same images from the iPhone 4 and the 4S.
There is one thing I won't like about the new lens. It's not as wide as it used to be. The old model was the equivalent of 29.4 mm, which was about right for general p & s photography. From the exif data that you can see in Apple's sample photos the new lens will be about 35 mm.
Gyro stabilization doesn?t remove motion blur as far as I know (doing so would give moving video an odd look anyway). It removes travel/jitter so that objects are in the same place from frame to frame.
That doesn?t apply to stills: there only IS one frame. There?s no jitter or travel to remove.
I would suggest this most certainly is a question to ask with respect to stills.
I have had awesome results with my DSLR Canon IS lense, and shit results on my 3GS camera, precisely due to the jitter from the time taken to take a photo. the IS lense has a gyro stabilising lense in the array that "keeps it on track" even if you move the camera whilst the shot is being "exposed" it would be really cool if the gyro was able to be used to assist with low light long exposure issues on single frame recordings..
Gyro stabilization doesn?t remove motion blur as far as I know (doing so would give moving video an odd look anyway). It removes travel/jitter so that objects are in the same place from frame to frame.
That doesn?t apply to stills: there only IS one frame. There?s no jitter or travel to remove.
I think that IS works on still cameras, using gyros, at least, it does according to Wikipedia.
An optical image stabilizer, often abbreviated OIS, IS, or OS, is a mechanism used in a still camera or video camera that stabilizes the recorded image by varying the optical path to the sensor.
...
it works by using a floating lens element that is moved orthogonally to the optical axis of the lens using electromagnets.[4] Vibration is detected using two piezoelectric angular velocity sensors (often called gyroscopic sensors), one to detect horizontal movement and the other to detect vertical movement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image_stabilization
Assuming this is real, this is pretty impressive?
What I find more impressive than the clarity is the focus. It seems the focus was trained on the lower half of the bill because the upper half seems slightly out of focus, due to the fact that the photo was taken at a slight angle rather than parallel. Amazing how one can see the fiber structure of the cotton/linen. Even the embossed relief of the FRB mark caused by the stamping process and the wicking of excess ink (on the signatures) during the intaglio process. Killer macro ability.....on a phone!!!!
Nothing ho-hum about this iP4S upgrade at all, IMHO.
S is for Siri
S is for Shutter
S is for Speed
S is for Steve
S is for ??
Snappier
Snappier
I think the next one is "Same" as in, it looks the same as the last one.
Most people do think pictures look better with increased color saturation, maybe because they do. The trend started back in the 80s with Fuji film, and it's what helped kill off Kodachrome, with its muted colors.
And there is no reason photographs have to mimic reality as closely as possible, is there?
Of course there's no shutter in it. It's stretching accuracy a TINY bit for a clever play on words in the title. Chill out, kids.
The iPhone 4 was said to be a 1/3.2'' chip, but that's not a diagonal measure, but a throwback to the size glass tube an image patch could fit inside back when vidicon drove the numbers. So what is the image chip's measurements, and what focal length is at work here?
Knowing these things means one could calculate the camera's hyperfocal distance, then lock focus at a specific distance, and be assured of the best depth of field.
Or, on the other hand, does anybody have a hyperfocal distance number for the iP4S?