Future iPhones may use optical image stabilization to create 'super-resolution' images

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  • Reply 61 of 88
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    flaneur wrote: »
    I give up. I can't top that ^ . Was it an Ampex?

    But I do remember the commercial, the American version anyway. What was the commercial TV in the UK at the time?

    That commercial ran in the 1950's here I seem to recall, on the one and only TV station that ran ads, ITV. P&G must have been studying the competition. I am wracking my brains to recall the make, it could well have been Ampex. The machine had been in a cupboard for years I am sure when I got my hands on it.

    EDIT : said ran 'here' meaning UK but I've been 'here' 25 years in the States ... Freudian slip!
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  • Reply 62 of 88
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    Well Nikon does make the best 24-70mm f/2.8 on the market. It is so good that Canon users buy adapter rings to mount it. Losing AF, and metering. Just say... I won't mention my D800 or D4. Still just saying... :)

    I was a Nikon devotee in film days but for some reason I forget, moved to Canon for DSLRs. They are both great companies. I spent the last few months messing with DSLRs for video and ended up with a ton of extra gadgets to get it to be useable, I eventually caved and bought a new Sony 4K dedicated video camera. I did buy a nice 17 -55 F/2.8 IS USM lens originally for just for video on the Canons but I don't regret that, I love the lens anyway. In the end I just want to get footage to play with on my new Mac Pro and FCP X :D

    Back on C v N though, the pro shooters seem to overwhelmingly use Canon for some reason these days, any idea why? Here is my favorite post on the subject from a guy I respect immensely:

    http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/nikon-vs-canon.htm
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  • Reply 63 of 88
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post





    BTW, have you seen the new film regarding the likely use of the camera obscurer in his work? I know it has long been a theory but this new documentary, which in no way tries to diminish the art, seems to confirm it pretty much. It explains the super human ability with perspective not common in the day, I suspect a chap called Leo in Italy a few centuries earlier also figured this out.

     

    The film, called "Tim's Vermeer," was really great. My wife had just read a positive review and thought we should check it out. I didn't know whether it was a drama or what, and I was prepared to be somewhat bored. I was very pleasantly surprised.

     

    I think there are still some out there that think Vermeer "cheated" by using an optical rig, but the take away (mine anyway) was that what Vermeer did was more like photography before photography was even invented. Like any artist, he still had to carefully compose his scenes and pay attention to lighting. Of course, the other name in the title, Tim Jenison of Video Toaster/LightWave/TriCaster fame, is a pretty amazing talent too. What a lot of work he put into this!

     


    It's directed by Teller of Penn & Teller, with Penn narrating. I'd say it's somewhat appropriate to have illusionists take an interest in this and make this film. 


     

    For anyone that is interested in the intersection of art and science, I highly recommend it. 

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  • Reply 64 of 88
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    The film, called "Tim's Vermeer," was really great. My wife had just read a positive review and thought we should check it out. I didn't know whether it was a drama or what, and I was prepared to be somewhat bored. I was very pleasantly surprised.

    I think there are still some out there that think Vermeer "cheated" by using an optical rig, but the take away (mine anyway) was that what Vermeer did was more like photography before photography was even invented. Like any artist, he still had to carefully compose his scenes and pay attention to lighting. Of course, the other name in the title, Tim Jenison of Video Toaster/LightWave/TriCaster fame, is a pretty amazing talent too. What a lot of work he put into this!
     
    It's directed by Teller of Penn & Teller, with Penn narrating. I'd say it's somewhat appropriate to have illusionists take an interest in this and make this film. 
     
    For anyone that is interested in the intersection of art and science, I highly recommend it. 

    I agree totally with your take.
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  • Reply 65 of 88
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by cnocbui View Post

     

     

    Olympus's sensor shift IS has overtaken what Canon in lens stabilisation can achieve at all but long focal lengths.  1.5 to 2 second hand held exposures are possible with an E-M1 - or around 5 stops or more.  Which is why I mentioned it being near magic.  I am well aware in lens IS has been around for quite some time.

     



    And if they did they would be following in existing footsteps:

     

    http://www.gizmag.com/samsung-liquid-zoom-lens-plans/16851/

     

    in 2010.

     


     

    Prior art, oil and water immersion microscopy as has been done for decades.

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  • Reply 66 of 88
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post





    Personal example I have to prove your point. In the days of dark rooms and chemicals when i was a teenager, I totally gave up on extreme shallow DOF macro photography which I longed to perfect. Only when I got to see the 8 x 10 would i discover the focus just missed the tip of a fern frond or a butterfly's antennae. It was too costly and frustrating for me. Thanks to DSLRs, preview zoom and IS and so on, now 40 years later, I can select which part of the antennae is in focus and know what the results will look like as I take the photograph.

     

    You can also stack focal "slices" in software to create macro shots with a deeper depth of field, but only when everything is held very still.

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  • Reply 67 of 88
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post





    Back in the day, the thing I loved about using large medium format cameras was that it slowed me down and thus I took the time to look over the entire image in the view finder. I found it liberating in a way because trying to do something similar in a 35 mm view finder was next to impossible. Look at the ground glass was very much like looking at an LCD, given shielding from ambient light.



    Bad photography can really spoil ones meal. I remember years ago going into Red Lobster and looking at some of their menus with complete disgust. I'm assuming the photographer was a professional but apparently was only equipped with limited ability because depth of field was terrible in the pics. I really have to question the leadership of any company that would have permitted such pictures in their consumer facing materials. Maybe the problem no longer exists, I don't know because it has been years since I've been in a Red Lobster, but I do know I got turned off to the place because of this. Accepting crappy photography just announces to the world that the company has low standards. Your comments about DOF brought all of this vividly back to life for me and is something I had forgotten about.

     

    I took a photo at a football game of a try being scored right in front of me after waiting over an hour, got a beautiful, crisp clear in focus shot...

     

    ...of some guy in front of me's cap, with all the action in a blurry background.

     

    Damn it ;)

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  • Reply 68 of 88
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by thompr View Post

     

    It's not just about low-light conditions, although you are right that that is a concern...

     

    All debate about mega-pixels aside, one of the things that is actually limiting picture quality is the resolution of the optics.  Teeny tiny lenses with a short focal length typically have point spread functions that are already several times larger than the pixels on the sensor at the focal plane.  In other words, after some point, adding ever more pixels is only providing more of those blurry pixels.  I think we reached that point for camera phones with tiny lenses quite a few mega-pixels ago.  This is kind of like continually increasing the horsepower of a car's engine long past the point at which the transmission can deliver any more torque.  Just wasted horsepower, but great on a spec sheet.  The megapixel race is just a marketing spec.

     

    By employing this super-resolution technique - and if it works - Apple may be able to virtually shrink that optical point spread function, making those pixels more representative of the scene and not the optics.  This is a great thing.  It could make Apple's images have higher quality even if they have fewer pixels than the competition.

     

    Hope it works, but I'm skeptical about it.

     

    Thompson


     

    Current phone megapixel race:-

     

    Sony Xperia Z2 20.4

    Samsung Galaxy S5 16

    iPhone 5s 8

    HTC One M8 4

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  • Reply 69 of 88
    Marvinmarvin Posts: 15,585moderator
    hill60 wrote: »
    Current phone megapixel race:-

    Sony Xperia Z2 20.4
    Samsung Galaxy S5 16
    iPhone 5s 8
    HTC One M8 4

    That's sensor resolution, if the optics among other things don't produce that effective resolution, the sensor's not going to be much benefit. The Galaxy S5 camera doesn't look to be any better than the 5S:

    http://blog.laptopmag.com/iphone-5s-vs-galaxy-s5

    The Lumia 1020 had a 42 megapixel sensor and it at least delivered on the quality somewhat:

    http://www.trustedreviews.com/nokia-lumia-1020_Mobile-Phone_review_camera-image-quality_Page-4

    "First, let’s tackle optical image stabilisation. The Lumia 1020’s lens ‘floats’, in that it can be tilted many times a second using tiny motors that live in the phone’s camera housing. This lets the phone take sharp (or relatively sharp) images using longer exposure times without using a tripod.

    However, when shooting people OIS is far less useful. A longer shutter speed turns moving limbs into blurs. Unless your shots are entirely posed, OIS does not result in good low-light photos of people."
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  • Reply 70 of 88
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    hill60 wrote: »
    I took a photo at a football game of a try being scored right in front of me after waiting over an hour, got a beautiful, crisp clear in focus shot...

    ...of some guy in front of me's cap, with all the action in a blurry background.

    Damn it ;)

    That's where light field optics (https://www.lytro.com) would be nice. Imagine opening the RAW image in Aperture (future version of course) and moving the focal plane back to your player and increasing the DOF till it was just right for the ball. I really believe that technology will come from Apple one day.
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  • Reply 71 of 88
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post





    That's where light field optics (https://www.lytro.com) would be nice. Imagine opening the RAW image in Aperture (future version of course) and moving the focal plane back to your player and increasing the DOF till it was just right for the ball. I really believe that technology will come from Apple one day.

     

    This was a Sony NEX 7 using a 300mm lens, I had it set to take fast action shots as no time to manually adjust focus, the cap guy jumped up cheering just as I snapped it.

     

    The joys of photography from the stands.

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  • Reply 72 of 88
    philboogiephilboogie Posts: 7,675member
    Wait a minute .... DARK ROOM????? WTF?

    He was making a joke at the pinhole comment.

    flaneur wrote: »
    I'm old enough to remember the first portable Betamax deck, by the way.

    I loved Betamax. So much better than VHS. Stupid porn killed that off.

    Back on C v N though, the pro shooters seem to overwhelmingly use Canon for some reason these days, any idea why?

    Supposedly women buy Canon because their cameras usually are lighter. Other than that, I have no foundation, preference, myself. I only have Nikon, but that's because a friend of mine used to work there and I got everything half price, sometimes even less.
    Here is my favorite post on the subject from a guy I respect immensely:
    http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/nikon-vs-canon.htm

    I like Ken as well, been reading his site close to 10 years now. Donate him yearly. He's quite controversial, so not for everyone.
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  • Reply 73 of 88
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    hill60 wrote: »
    This was a Sony NEX 7 using a 300mm lens, I had it set to take fast action shots as no time to manually adjust focus, the cap guy jumped up cheering just as I snapped it.

    The joys of photography from the stands.

    OK but my point was one day you'd be able to correct that in post I hope with Light Field technology. I have to think Apple are looking at this and now they are embracing my other passion, larger sensors, by hiring Ari Partinen my hopes are even higher. Apple are thinking outside the box and ignoring Pixel Myth nut jobs.
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  • Reply 74 of 88
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    philboogie wrote: »
    He was making a joke at the pinhole comment.
    I loved Betamax. So much better than VHS. Stupid porn killed that off.
    Supposedly women buy Canon because their cameras usually are lighter. Other than that, I have no foundation, preference, myself. I only have Nikon, but that's because a friend of mine used to work there and I got everything half price, sometimes even less.
    I like Ken as well, been reading his site close to 10 years now. Donate him yearly. He's quite controversial, so not for everyone.


    "Supposedly women buy Canon because their cameras usually are lighter" hahaha ... Oh so beneath you ;)
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  • Reply 75 of 88
    benjamin frostbenjamin frost Posts: 7,203member
    flaneur wrote: »
    LOL

    Then there was Johannes Vermeer who seems to have had the best of both worlds. :D

    Ha! So says the dumbed down iPad painter David Hockney, if I'm not mistaken.

    Awwww, I love David Hockney. He captures the English countryside so well.
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  • Reply 76 of 88
    benjamin frostbenjamin frost Posts: 7,203member
    iqatedo wrote: »
    LOL


    Then there was Johannes Vermeer who seems to have had the best of both worlds. :D

    Love Vermeer's work. Beautifully rendered lives of often ordinary people.

    Me too. And haven't his paintings been described as photo-realistic?
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  • Reply 77 of 88
    benjamin frostbenjamin frost Posts: 7,203member
    kkqd1337 wrote: »
    this doesn't sound battery friendly; multiple pictures, more processing.

    why is battery technology so crappy.

    there's nobel prize out there somewhere.

    Ha, yes. Battery technology is a real block. It seems to me that there's been no significant improvement for decades. Gradual, yes. Will the day ever come that we can make batteries that last miles longer than today? We can only dream.
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  • Reply 78 of 88
    MacPromacpro Posts: 19,873member
    Me too. And haven't his paintings been described as photo-realistic?

    Check out the movie referred to earlier in the thread regarding the Photorealism ... fascinating.
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  • Reply 79 of 88
    flaneurflaneur Posts: 4,526member
    Owwww, I love David Hockney. He captures the English countryside so well.

    Agreed, I was being sarcastic about Hockney, since the topic was technology vs. "authentic" artistic struggle. He's done wonders for the iPad as a serious creation device.
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  • Reply 80 of 88
    waterrocketswaterrockets Posts: 1,231member
    Interesting idea. Seems like the biggest challenge will be overcoming user hand movements in a manner that's accurate enough to still guarantee that the incremental angles are as intended. The other problem is the change in angle to the subject from handheld translation issues, with phones being held at arms-length and dealing with normal movements on the order of 1-cm.

    Seems like some clever software could get around these issues though, and it could fake the rest.

    The other benefit is that you're looking at the ability to stack images, so resolution can go up just from the increase in contrast and correcting for any noise in the image.

    Strange to call this "existing IOS tech" when so much is being added, from a hardware perspective, even in the very unlikely event of re-using a sensor.

    I'm sure the Nokia camera guy will accelerate this action.
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