ACJC.S
Street shot 48mp ProRAW Max
Street shooting with iPhone 15 Pro Max.
48mp 81.9mb ProRAW Max file post-processed externally.
Nobody bats an eyelid when it’s a smartphone, it’s the perfect street camera. It’s probably better to set it to 1.2x (28mm) or 1.5x (35mm) crop modes instead for street shooting.
One will have to be afflicted with a really severe case of knownothingitis to suggest that camera makers would do well to modernize their 1” sensor cameras to counter the latest smartphones.
Camera makers can never make cameras like smartphone makers simply because;
(1) Economies of scale weighs overwhelmingly in favor of smartphone makers by almost 100x,
(2) Software; camera makers lack the software know how of smartphone makers and
(3) Hardware; specifically smartphones can use expensive state of the art processors thanks to (1) above.
Bottomline is, camera makers can never make cameras incorporating smartphone technologies simply because they do not have the economies of scale to make it viable for the consumer.
If Apple was to make a P&S zoom lens camera with a 1” sensor, it could be a great offering but Apple won’t even bother because of the relatively microscopic size of the camera market vs the colossal smartphone market which is almost 100x bigger.
Existing camera makers' hypothetical beefed up 1” compact cameras will not be anywhere as good as what Apple or any top smartphone manufacturer can make simply because of the level of software sophistication and the expensive processors used. Even Sony has given up, their last 1” compact was the RX100VII from 2019. Sony’s Xperia 1 V smartphone is also not competitive against the likes of iPhone 14 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra from the same generation, no thanks to Sony’s tiny market share in the smartphone market and relative lack of software sophistication.
Olympus had the most advanced computational photography features of all current camera makers but yet their HHHR with a m4/3 sensor (>2x larger than the largest sensor of iPhone 15 Pro series) is no better than the iPhone’s Photonic Engine because the iPhone has gone beyond plain vanilla multiple frame stacking.
Olympus’ HHHR and Apple’s Photonic Engine both stack multiple images but the latter goes much further by selecting the best frames down to the pixel level with different frames optimized for different aspects such as EV, noise, color, type of subject (depth map) etc.
Today’s premium smartphones are essentially mini-computers with processors way more powerful than the best cameras. This will continue to drive greater sophistication in smartphones’ computational photography while camera makers’ attempts at this appears to be at a standstill.
Currently for smartphones, the biggest advances are in the main camera only, it will be interesting to see the day when all 3 cameras namely UWA, Wide and Telephoto all use state of the art 1” or larger sensors with global shutter and state of the art computational photography which is essentially about how much data (frames) you can squeeze in the milliseconds exposure and internally processed with minimal lag.
What changed from iPhone 11 Pro Max to iPhone 15 Pro Max is much more powerful processor(s) allowing computational photography to kick in much earlier in the imaging pipeline at greater bit-depth and deeper into the pixel level, more brackets are likely also possible with greater speed and better IBIS.
I’m less and less inclined to spend $$$ on latest cameras and lenses in view of the speed of advancement in smartphone cameras plus the fact that there has not been any meaningful breakthrough in camera tech in years.
Street shot 48mp ProRAW Max
Street shooting with iPhone 15 Pro Max.
48mp 81.9mb ProRAW Max file post-processed externally.
Nobody bats an eyelid when it’s a smartphone, it’s the perfect street camera. It’s probably better to set it to 1.2x (28mm) or 1.5x (35mm) crop modes instead for street shooting.
One will have to be afflicted with a really severe case of knownothingitis to suggest that camera makers would do well to modernize their 1” sensor cameras to counter the latest smartphones.
Camera makers can never make cameras like smartphone makers simply because;
(1) Economies of scale weighs overwhelmingly in favor of smartphone makers by almost 100x,
(2) Software; camera makers lack the software know how of smartphone makers and
(3) Hardware; specifically smartphones can use expensive state of the art processors thanks to (1) above.
Bottomline is, camera makers can never make cameras incorporating smartphone technologies simply because they do not have the economies of scale to make it viable for the consumer.
If Apple was to make a P&S zoom lens camera with a 1” sensor, it could be a great offering but Apple won’t even bother because of the relatively microscopic size of the camera market vs the colossal smartphone market which is almost 100x bigger.
Existing camera makers' hypothetical beefed up 1” compact cameras will not be anywhere as good as what Apple or any top smartphone manufacturer can make simply because of the level of software sophistication and the expensive processors used. Even Sony has given up, their last 1” compact was the RX100VII from 2019. Sony’s Xperia 1 V smartphone is also not competitive against the likes of iPhone 14 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra from the same generation, no thanks to Sony’s tiny market share in the smartphone market and relative lack of software sophistication.
Olympus had the most advanced computational photography features of all current camera makers but yet their HHHR with a m4/3 sensor (>2x larger than the largest sensor of iPhone 15 Pro series) is no better than the iPhone’s Photonic Engine because the iPhone has gone beyond plain vanilla multiple frame stacking.
Olympus’ HHHR and Apple’s Photonic Engine both stack multiple images but the latter goes much further by selecting the best frames down to the pixel level with different frames optimized for different aspects such as EV, noise, color, type of subject (depth map) etc.
Today’s premium smartphones are essentially mini-computers with processors way more powerful than the best cameras. This will continue to drive greater sophistication in smartphones’ computational photography while camera makers’ attempts at this appears to be at a standstill.
Currently for smartphones, the biggest advances are in the main camera only, it will be interesting to see the day when all 3 cameras namely UWA, Wide and Telephoto all use state of the art 1” or larger sensors with global shutter and state of the art computational photography which is essentially about how much data (frames) you can squeeze in the milliseconds exposure and internally processed with minimal lag.
What changed from iPhone 11 Pro Max to iPhone 15 Pro Max is much more powerful processor(s) allowing computational photography to kick in much earlier in the imaging pipeline at greater bit-depth and deeper into the pixel level, more brackets are likely also possible with greater speed and better IBIS.
I’m less and less inclined to spend $$$ on latest cameras and lenses in view of the speed of advancement in smartphone cameras plus the fact that there has not been any meaningful breakthrough in camera tech in years.