If a smartphone user is all about taking high-def pics this story may be of interest, otherwise the pixel density rat-race is a side issue to more important items such as battery life, screen size, new apps, etc.
Years ago I bought a D60 instead of the venerable D40. I don't remember the specific feature that made me choose it over the D40 but I do remember the D40 having better low light performance than it's replacement.
the D40 was the last (of many D70, D50, D70s, D40) 6MP CCD sensor designs in Nikon DSLR line. D60 was one the first switch a newer 10 MP sensor (along with the D40x).
Who are you even arguing with because no where in my post did I ever suggest they add a 8 MP FaceTime camera. It is easy to win arguments when you just make up crap you hoped the other person said instead of actually arguing with what was posted. I simply said they really need to improve over the current 1.2 MP which leaves a lot of room between 1.2 MP and 8 MP.
1.2 MP is ok for forever on a phone image never to be printed. I won't complain if it's bumped up but I'm not worried about it.
Due to the aspect ratio of 4K video - 16:9 and 21:9, if Apple sticks with the 4:3 ratio 8MP sensor in the next iPhone, it won't be able to incorporate 4K video even if it wanted too. It would require at least a 13MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor to achieve that I think.
It's 8,294,400 pixels for a 4K 16:9 image. It's a question of bandwidth - can the device take video at that bit rate, at 30fps?
Maths: 8,294,400 * 32bpp * 30fps = 949.22 MBytes/sec. I doubt the flash storage can support that write rate - the MacPro6 can, but nothing else Apple ships at this time. They'd either have to have crap color, or a crap framerate in order to get the throughput down:
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 30fps = 711.92 MBytes/sec
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 24fps = 569.53 MBytes/sec
Even at the 24-bit color / 24fps rate, you're still filling a 16GB iPhone with 4k video in half a minute. Quite unlikely without a MASSIVE improvement in storage. Of course, this is uncompressed video, so there would be gains with H.264 / H.265; but the point still stands - you have to be able to process all that data in realtime instead of storing it.
Recall Apple get a very high margin on selling higher capacity iDevices. If Apple was doing this purely with the interest in reducing file size, it would have an effect of lowering the need for selling higher capacity iDevices; in effect lowering their margins. If they were concerned about file size they could always down sample in iDevice, and actually they already do this when they send up your photos to iCloud (aka Photostream). The photos are all down sampled to iPad Retina resolution (which is about 3MP IIRC).
You obviously don't know Apple. They do things that make sense and they care about the user experience.
1) They would never just purposely dump megabytes of crap on your device in the interest of selling you a larger capacity one.
2) If the phone auto-down-samples the images in every export method (text, email, cloud, etc) EXCEPT through a hard cable to a PC, what's the point in having high megapixels?!
3) The processing overhead required to down-sample images that are 40MB large wastes much more battery life than the current process does
2) If the phone auto-down-samples the images in every export method (text, email, cloud, etc) EXCEPT through a hard cable to a PC, what's the point in having high megapixels?!
You make a lot of sense here, but take the Nokia phone with 42 megapixels that ONLY takes downsampled images. Apparently those extra ones are just for getting “better quality” out of the downsampled pictures.
I don’t know if that’s anywhere near true, and as it probably isn’t I’d much rather not waste time with such things anyway, but…
I vote for 8Mp with improved sensors for low light and stabilization. File size for 8mpix is already big enough... Bigger files are just a pain to deal with. 4k video would be nice (Although I don't have a tv for it, and I imagine the file size would be brutal). Can't wait to upgrade 4s to 6 this fall...
I'm sorry mr. Perfect, I never realized you never made a mistake. Next time be less of a d-bag. (It's worth it). Still 1.2 MP is ok for forever on a phone image never to be printed. I won't complain if it's bumped up but I'm not worried about it.
You completely misrepresented what I said and created a fictitiously bogus straw man argument and got called out on it and I am a d-bag? I have no idea what you mean by " is ok for forever on a phone image never to be printed" My point stands. Apple need to also focus on improving the FaceTime camera as well as the rear one and I doubt few here would disagree with that statement.
Recall Apple get a very high margin on selling higher capacity iDevices. If Apple was doing this purely with the interest in reducing file size, it would have an effect of lowering the need for selling higher capacity iDevices; in effect lowering their margins. If they were concerned about file size they could always down sample in iDevice, and actually they already do this when they send up your photos to iCloud (aka Photostream). The photos are all down sampled to iPad Retina resolution (which is about 3MP IIRC). [/QUOTE] You obviously don't know Apple. They do things that make sense and they care about the user experience. 1) They would never just purposely dump megabytes of crap on your device in the interest of selling you a larger capacity one. 2) If the phone auto-down-samples the images in every export method (text, email, cloud, etc) EXCEPT through a hard cable to a PC, what's the point in having high megapixels?! 3) The processing overhead required to down-sample images that are 40MB large wastes much more battery life than the current process does [/QUOTE] I pretty sure I do know Apple. My statement about eating up storage was playing devil's advocate. As for your second point, I agree, however that is exactly what Nokia does in their 40MP camera in their phone (down samples to 5MP ). For your 3rd point, I agree about needing to use battery but the fact of the matter is that is what Apple does to get photos from your iPhone camera into iCloud photo stream. Waste battery, or Bandwidth sending full MP photo back and forth over the net. Those are your choices. Apple chose "Waste battery".
Ps. Down samples always get created for the thumbnails in the camera roll also.
But but...its all about the megapixels! More megapixels, means better photos!!!
/s
Remember the Megahertz Myth? Apple tried for years to convince the buying public that the speed of the processor was only one factor in system performance. Remember the PPC and its RISC instruction set that was more efficient than the Intel X86? But the buying public fell for the “faster is better” argument anyway. Remember when Apple (Jobs) finally succumbed to the myth? I certainly do since I purchased the water cooled G5 tower that leaked and fried the power supply about four years later.
This is the same thing happening again. It doesn’t matter that experts like Andy Ihnatko have declared the iPhone camera the best in the business because of the superior software the runs it. Joe and Judy walk into Best Buy and the sales drone quickly points out that the Samsung product has a 12 megapixel camera while the iPhone “only” has 8 megapixels.
These things go both ways. Look at Apple going 64-bit and everyone else saying that it doesn't matter just to obfuscate the real changes Apple made which went beyond just 64-bit.
Apple is getting better at this battle. Look at the commercials they put out with the 5S video quality and the commercials focusing on camera quality in general. Seeing is believing and people are starting to see that Apple focuses on quality and they don't have to look at a spec sheet before they buy. They are learning to trust Apple will deliver what they want without having to do a huge amount of technical research to buy a product. To me, that is a key point in that Apple is selling experiences and not specifications. Most Apple customers are buying experiences and not specifications at this point.
Here is my thinking on 4K video. The 8Mpx camera can already is equivalent to a 4K frame. And Apple recently hired that sole developer who wrote a clever app that would allow the device to take something like 10-20 8Mpx images per second. If Apple can use a faster sensor they could probably get that up to 30 still shots per second which would then be 30 frames per second for 4K video.
Quote:
Originally Posted by 1983
Due to the aspect ratio of 4K video - 16:9 and 21:9, if Apple sticks with the 4:3 ratio 8MP sensor in the next iPhone, it won't be able to incorporate 4K video even if it wanted too. It would require at least a 13MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor to achieve that I think.
What is the point of 4K unless you can store it and play it back at 30 fps? In order to do that they will likely need a faster processor and faster memory. I am waiting for the next GoPro which is rumored to have 4K and also 720 HD at 120 frames for super slowmo. Apparently it is a lot harder than many people think. You need a lot of horsepower.
Due to the aspect ratio of 4K video - 16:9 and 21:9, if Apple sticks with the 4:3 ratio 8MP sensor in the next iPhone, it won't be able to incorporate 4K video even if it wanted too. It would require at least a 13MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor to achieve that I think.
It's 8,294,400 pixels for a 4K 16:9 image. It's a question of bandwidth - can the device take video at that bit rate, at 30fps?
Maths: 8,294,400 * 32bpp * 30fps = 949.22 MBytes/sec. I doubt the flash storage can support that write rate - the MacPro6 can, but nothing else Apple ships at this time. They'd either have to have crap color, or a crap framerate in order to get the throughput down:
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 30fps = 711.92 MBytes/sec
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 24fps = 569.53 MBytes/sec
Even at the 24-bit color / 24fps rate, you're still filling a 16GB iPhone with 4k video in half a minute. Quite unlikely without a MASSIVE improvement in storage. Of course, this is uncompressed video, so there would be gains with H.264 / H.265; but the point still stands - you have to be able to process all that data in realtime instead of storing it.
Your argument is terrible. You don't store uncompressed video, so why cite the space it could take if it were sent to flash? You do know that Samsung supports 4K video right? You only need that bandwidth from the sensor to the hardware encoder.
4K files are going to be roughly 4X the size of 1080p, but the final size is tied to the quality of the encoder. I'm seeing lots of H.265 in this thread and people don't know how hard that is at the moment. It will start showing up as a decoder in mobile before you can do any reasonable resolution of encoding. I saw Cisco announced some new video conferencing products that can encode H.265. It is worth noting that they said it was only point to point support. The same endpoints are multipoint capable with H.264 and a hosting system can decode, composite, and transcode 4 full 1080p streams for all four systems in a call in that scenario. That says quite a bit about the horsepower it requires to do H.265. We need to see some hardware decoders in SoCs, but they are still on the horizon. Obviously Apple could push it in first, but I'm not seeing that as a priority since you wouldn't be able to play the H.265 video on most devices. Same goes for 4K. Downscaling 4K to play everywhere just wastes resources.
What is the point of 4K unless you can store it and play it back at 30 fps? In order to do that they will likely need a faster processor and faster memory. I am waiting for the next GoPro which is rumored to have 4K and also 720 HD at 120 frames for super slowmo. Apparently it is a lot harder than many people think. You need a lot of horsepower.
Agreed. Also, whats the point of 4K if it looks like crap because the sensor used to capture it was too small? You could shoot at 1080p and linearly scale it up to 4K, and get about the same result in terms of quality with much less horsepower. Effectively what "up converting" Bluray players do with DVDs.
don't even get me started on audio quality and disk space and bandwidth required to transfer 4K video from a phone and once you have it do post. marketing insanity, even more so than the MP spec race on phones.
Megapixel count still helps for digital zoom. Since most phones dont have optical zoom, you cant just discard that spec...
Most phones? Has there ever been any smart phone with a true (focal length and perspective changing) optical zoom??
Quote:
Originally Posted by zoetmb
I don't think so. I think we're going to see 50MP full-frame DSLRs within 24 months. The only thing holding that back is that the DSLR market (actually the entire photography market) is in decline, so the major camera manufacturers are holding back on investment.
Nikon released the 38MP D800 in 2012. Most of the rest of the line is 24MP with the exception of the retro Df, which is 16MP as is the top-of-the-line just released D4s. The Sony A7r mirrorless uses the same sensor as the D800 and the A7 uses a 24MP sensor. Most Canon DSLRs (both full-frame and APS-C) are 18 to 20 MP. While I would personally prefer to see improvements in focus, UI, communications and video, I don't think we've seen the last of the MP race, even though unless you're blowing up an image larger than 24" or so, one would never perceive the difference.
The review I saw of the Sony Mirrorless line recommended the model with the smaller sensor for most photogs for most use cases.... ...regardless of the fact that the 24MP model is hundreds of $'s cheaper....
In part 1 of this series he mentions how much to expect to pay for a decent 4K lens. I'm not holding my breath thinking I need 4K video out of my phone. Absolutely ridiculous.
Most phones? Has there ever been any smart phone with a true (focal length and perspective changing) optical zoom??
Yes, in fact there have been dozens of phones with optical zoom and for quite a very long time. back before smart phones were even the rage my old Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Sharp clam shell type phones all had optical zoom. This was around the 1999-2004 timeframe. Most have been bulky though but they certainly existed. Just a few here
You make a lot of sense here, but take the Nokia phone with 42 megapixels that ONLY takes downsampled images. Apparently those extra ones are just for getting “better quality” out of the downsampled pictures.
I don’t know if that’s anywhere near true, and as it probably isn’t I’d much rather not waste time with such things anyway, but…
The Lumia 1020 takes both a 5MP and 34(for 16:9)/38(for 4:3) picture. The 34/38 image is used for editing things including zoom. The purpose of the huge sensor, aside from generally sharper image quality, is to be able to zoom without having your phone look like this:
The 5MP oversampled image is for sharing via e-mail or social networks.
The full high resolution photos from the Lumia 1020 range between 9 and 15MB each, with the smaller oversampled one coming in at 3MB.
Oversampling is Nokia's way of saying "taking roughly seven pixels and squashing them into one pixel".
But megapixels notwithstanding, it's still a great camera:
41 megapixel sensor
Back-side illuminated (BSI) for low light performance
You make a lot of sense here, but take the Nokia phone with 42 megapixels that ONLY takes downsampled images. Apparently those extra ones are just for getting “better quality” out of the downsampled pictures.
I don’t know if that’s anywhere near true, and as it probably isn’t I’d much rather not waste time with such things anyway, but…
The 5MP oversampled image is for sharing via e-mail or social networks.
oversampling sounds like a cool marketing term, certainly better than what is really happening which is "downsampling". I'd like to know which social network they are talking about that lets you store 5MP images? 5MP is enough to print an 8x10 photo at full resolution. Even Retina iPad screen is only 3MP.
oversampling sounds like a cool marketing term, certainly better than what is really happening which is "downsampling". I'd like to know which social network they are talking about that lets you store 5MP images? 5MP is enough to print an 8x10 photo at full resolution. Even Retina iPad screen is only 3MP.
Are you seriously suggesting that you can't upload even a 5MP photo to Facebook? I guess my photographer friends really don't have DSLRs.
Comments
If a smartphone user is all about taking high-def pics this story may be of interest, otherwise the pixel density rat-race is a side issue to more important items such as battery life, screen size, new apps, etc.
Years ago I bought a D60 instead of the venerable D40. I don't remember the specific feature that made me choose it over the D40 but I do remember the D40 having better low light performance than it's replacement.
the D40 was the last (of many D70, D50, D70s, D40) 6MP CCD sensor designs in Nikon DSLR line. D60 was one the first switch a newer 10 MP sensor (along with the D40x).
1.2 MP is ok for forever on a phone image never to be printed. I won't complain if it's bumped up but I'm not worried about it.
Due to the aspect ratio of 4K video - 16:9 and 21:9, if Apple sticks with the 4:3 ratio 8MP sensor in the next iPhone, it won't be able to incorporate 4K video even if it wanted too. It would require at least a 13MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor to achieve that I think.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_(resolution)
It's 8,294,400 pixels for a 4K 16:9 image. It's a question of bandwidth - can the device take video at that bit rate, at 30fps?
Maths: 8,294,400 * 32bpp * 30fps = 949.22 MBytes/sec. I doubt the flash storage can support that write rate - the MacPro6 can, but nothing else Apple ships at this time. They'd either have to have crap color, or a crap framerate in order to get the throughput down:
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 30fps = 711.92 MBytes/sec
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 24fps = 569.53 MBytes/sec
Even at the 24-bit color / 24fps rate, you're still filling a 16GB iPhone with 4k video in half a minute. Quite unlikely without a MASSIVE improvement in storage. Of course, this is uncompressed video, so there would be gains with H.264 / H.265; but the point still stands - you have to be able to process all that data in realtime instead of storing it.
Recall Apple get a very high margin on selling higher capacity iDevices. If Apple was doing this purely with the interest in reducing file size, it would have an effect of lowering the need for selling higher capacity iDevices; in effect lowering their margins. If they were concerned about file size they could always down sample in iDevice, and actually they already do this when they send up your photos to iCloud (aka Photostream). The photos are all down sampled to iPad Retina resolution (which is about 3MP IIRC).
You obviously don't know Apple. They do things that make sense and they care about the user experience.
1) They would never just purposely dump megabytes of crap on your device in the interest of selling you a larger capacity one.
2) If the phone auto-down-samples the images in every export method (text, email, cloud, etc) EXCEPT through a hard cable to a PC, what's the point in having high megapixels?!
3) The processing overhead required to down-sample images that are 40MB large wastes much more battery life than the current process does
You make a lot of sense here, but take the Nokia phone with 42 megapixels that ONLY takes downsampled images. Apparently those extra ones are just for getting “better quality” out of the downsampled pictures.
I don’t know if that’s anywhere near true, and as it probably isn’t I’d much rather not waste time with such things anyway, but…
My Lumix GH2 has "only" 16MP , yet every camera geek compare it not to other DSLR but professional RED camera.
Can't wait to upgrade 4s to 6 this fall...
I'm sorry mr. Perfect, I never realized you never made a mistake. Next time be less of a d-bag. (It's worth it). Still 1.2 MP is ok for forever on a phone image never to be printed. I won't complain if it's bumped up but I'm not worried about it.
You completely misrepresented what I said and created a fictitiously bogus straw man argument and got called out on it and I am a d-bag? I have no idea what you mean by " is ok for forever on a phone image never to be printed" My point stands. Apple need to also focus on improving the FaceTime camera as well as the rear one and I doubt few here would disagree with that statement.
[QUOTE name="snova" url="/t/166994/apple-expected-to-sit-out-on-megapixel-horserace-with-2014-iphones/40#post_2493306"]
Recall Apple get a very high margin on selling higher capacity iDevices. If Apple was doing this purely with the interest in reducing file size, it would have an effect of lowering the need for selling higher capacity iDevices; in effect lowering their margins. If they were concerned about file size they could always down sample in iDevice, and actually they already do this when they send up your photos to iCloud (aka Photostream). The photos are all down sampled to iPad Retina resolution (which is about 3MP IIRC).
[/QUOTE]
You obviously don't know Apple. They do things that make sense and they care about the user experience.
1) They would never just purposely dump megabytes of crap on your device in the interest of selling you a larger capacity one.
2) If the phone auto-down-samples the images in every export method (text, email, cloud, etc) EXCEPT through a hard cable to a PC, what's the point in having high megapixels?!
3) The processing overhead required to down-sample images that are 40MB large wastes much more battery life than the current process does
[/QUOTE]
I pretty sure I do know Apple. My statement about eating up storage was playing devil's advocate. As for your second point, I agree, however that is exactly what Nokia does in their 40MP camera in their phone (down samples to 5MP ). For your 3rd point, I agree about needing to use battery but the fact of the matter is that is what Apple does to get photos from your iPhone camera into iCloud photo stream. Waste battery, or Bandwidth sending full MP photo back and forth over the net. Those are your choices. Apple chose "Waste battery".
Ps. Down samples always get created for the thumbnails in the camera roll also.
But but...its all about the megapixels! More megapixels, means better photos!!!
/s
Remember the Megahertz Myth? Apple tried for years to convince the buying public that the speed of the processor was only one factor in system performance. Remember the PPC and its RISC instruction set that was more efficient than the Intel X86? But the buying public fell for the “faster is better” argument anyway. Remember when Apple (Jobs) finally succumbed to the myth? I certainly do since I purchased the water cooled G5 tower that leaked and fried the power supply about four years later.
This is the same thing happening again. It doesn’t matter that experts like Andy Ihnatko have declared the iPhone camera the best in the business because of the superior software the runs it. Joe and Judy walk into Best Buy and the sales drone quickly points out that the Samsung product has a 12 megapixel camera while the iPhone “only” has 8 megapixels.
These things go both ways. Look at Apple going 64-bit and everyone else saying that it doesn't matter just to obfuscate the real changes Apple made which went beyond just 64-bit.
Apple is getting better at this battle. Look at the commercials they put out with the 5S video quality and the commercials focusing on camera quality in general. Seeing is believing and people are starting to see that Apple focuses on quality and they don't have to look at a spec sheet before they buy. They are learning to trust Apple will deliver what they want without having to do a huge amount of technical research to buy a product. To me, that is a key point in that Apple is selling experiences and not specifications. Most Apple customers are buying experiences and not specifications at this point.
Due to the aspect ratio of 4K video - 16:9 and 21:9, if Apple sticks with the 4:3 ratio 8MP sensor in the next iPhone, it won't be able to incorporate 4K video even if it wanted too. It would require at least a 13MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor to achieve that I think.
What is the point of 4K unless you can store it and play it back at 30 fps? In order to do that they will likely need a faster processor and faster memory. I am waiting for the next GoPro which is rumored to have 4K and also 720 HD at 120 frames for super slowmo. Apparently it is a lot harder than many people think. You need a lot of horsepower.
Due to the aspect ratio of 4K video - 16:9 and 21:9, if Apple sticks with the 4:3 ratio 8MP sensor in the next iPhone, it won't be able to incorporate 4K video even if it wanted too. It would require at least a 13MP 4:3 aspect ratio sensor to achieve that I think.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4K_(resolution)
It's 8,294,400 pixels for a 4K 16:9 image. It's a question of bandwidth - can the device take video at that bit rate, at 30fps?
Maths: 8,294,400 * 32bpp * 30fps = 949.22 MBytes/sec. I doubt the flash storage can support that write rate - the MacPro6 can, but nothing else Apple ships at this time. They'd either have to have crap color, or a crap framerate in order to get the throughput down:
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 30fps = 711.92 MBytes/sec
8,294,400 * 24bpp * 24fps = 569.53 MBytes/sec
Even at the 24-bit color / 24fps rate, you're still filling a 16GB iPhone with 4k video in half a minute. Quite unlikely without a MASSIVE improvement in storage. Of course, this is uncompressed video, so there would be gains with H.264 / H.265; but the point still stands - you have to be able to process all that data in realtime instead of storing it.
Your argument is terrible. You don't store uncompressed video, so why cite the space it could take if it were sent to flash? You do know that Samsung supports 4K video right? You only need that bandwidth from the sensor to the hardware encoder.
4K files are going to be roughly 4X the size of 1080p, but the final size is tied to the quality of the encoder. I'm seeing lots of H.265 in this thread and people don't know how hard that is at the moment. It will start showing up as a decoder in mobile before you can do any reasonable resolution of encoding. I saw Cisco announced some new video conferencing products that can encode H.265. It is worth noting that they said it was only point to point support. The same endpoints are multipoint capable with H.264 and a hosting system can decode, composite, and transcode 4 full 1080p streams for all four systems in a call in that scenario. That says quite a bit about the horsepower it requires to do H.265. We need to see some hardware decoders in SoCs, but they are still on the horizon. Obviously Apple could push it in first, but I'm not seeing that as a priority since you wouldn't be able to play the H.265 video on most devices. Same goes for 4K. Downscaling 4K to play everywhere just wastes resources.
What is the point of 4K unless you can store it and play it back at 30 fps? In order to do that they will likely need a faster processor and faster memory. I am waiting for the next GoPro which is rumored to have 4K and also 720 HD at 120 frames for super slowmo. Apparently it is a lot harder than many people think. You need a lot of horsepower.
Agreed. Also, whats the point of 4K if it looks like crap because the sensor used to capture it was too small? You could shoot at 1080p and linearly scale it up to 4K, and get about the same result in terms of quality with much less horsepower. Effectively what "up converting" Bluray players do with DVDs.
don't even get me started on audio quality and disk space and bandwidth required to transfer 4K video from a phone and once you have it do post. marketing insanity, even more so than the MP spec race on phones.
Megapixel count still helps for digital zoom. Since most phones dont have optical zoom, you cant just discard that spec...
Most phones? Has there ever been any smart phone with a true (focal length and perspective changing) optical zoom??
I don't think so. I think we're going to see 50MP full-frame DSLRs within 24 months. The only thing holding that back is that the DSLR market (actually the entire photography market) is in decline, so the major camera manufacturers are holding back on investment.
Nikon released the 38MP D800 in 2012. Most of the rest of the line is 24MP with the exception of the retro Df, which is 16MP as is the top-of-the-line just released D4s. The Sony A7r mirrorless uses the same sensor as the D800 and the A7 uses a 24MP sensor. Most Canon DSLRs (both full-frame and APS-C) are 18 to 20 MP. While I would personally prefer to see improvements in focus, UI, communications and video, I don't think we've seen the last of the MP race, even though unless you're blowing up an image larger than 24" or so, one would never perceive the difference.
The review I saw of the Sony Mirrorless line recommended the model with the smaller sensor for most photogs for most use cases.... ...regardless of the fact that the 24MP model is hundreds of $'s cheaper....
great to see this interview with Vincent Laforet about the need for 4K.
http://www.adorama.com/alc/0014108/article/Interview-Director-Pulitzer-Prizewinner-Vincent-LaForet-Part-2
In part 1 of this series he mentions how much to expect to pay for a decent 4K lens. I'm not holding my breath thinking I need 4K video out of my phone. Absolutely ridiculous.
Most phones? Has there ever been any smart phone with a true (focal length and perspective changing) optical zoom??
Yes, in fact there have been dozens of phones with optical zoom and for quite a very long time. back before smart phones were even the rage my old Toshiba, Fujitsu, and Sharp clam shell type phones all had optical zoom. This was around the 1999-2004 timeframe. Most have been bulky though but they certainly existed. Just a few here
Images for phone with optical zoom camera
You make a lot of sense here, but take the Nokia phone with 42 megapixels that ONLY takes downsampled images. Apparently those extra ones are just for getting “better quality” out of the downsampled pictures.
I don’t know if that’s anywhere near true, and as it probably isn’t I’d much rather not waste time with such things anyway, but…
The Lumia 1020 takes both a 5MP and 34(for 16:9)/38(for 4:3) picture. The 34/38 image is used for editing things including zoom. The purpose of the huge sensor, aside from generally sharper image quality, is to be able to zoom without having your phone look like this:
The 5MP oversampled image is for sharing via e-mail or social networks.
The full high resolution photos from the Lumia 1020 range between 9 and 15MB each, with the smaller oversampled one coming in at 3MB.
Oversampling is Nokia's way of saying "taking roughly seven pixels and squashing them into one pixel".
But megapixels notwithstanding, it's still a great camera:
along with manual pre-shot adjustments for ISO, white balance, exposure etc.
Source- WPCentral
You make a lot of sense here, but take the Nokia phone with 42 megapixels that ONLY takes downsampled images. Apparently those extra ones are just for getting “better quality” out of the downsampled pictures.
I don’t know if that’s anywhere near true, and as it probably isn’t I’d much rather not waste time with such things anyway, but…
The 5MP oversampled image is for sharing via e-mail or social networks.
oversampling sounds like a cool marketing term, certainly better than what is really happening which is "downsampling". I'd like to know which social network they are talking about that lets you store 5MP images? 5MP is enough to print an 8x10 photo at full resolution. Even Retina iPad screen is only 3MP.
oversampling sounds like a cool marketing term, certainly better than what is really happening which is "downsampling". I'd like to know which social network they are talking about that lets you store 5MP images? 5MP is enough to print an 8x10 photo at full resolution. Even Retina iPad screen is only 3MP.
Are you seriously suggesting that you can't upload even a 5MP photo to Facebook? I guess my photographer friends really don't have DSLRs.