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Will a phone ever be anywhere as good as a DSLR?

Yes, right! I have a D4 and a D300,… but most of the time i carry the iPhone 5 only (or a compact)…. I did many very nice shots with the iPhone 5 since I bought it and I am constantly impressed with the image quality. I also like that it has only 8 MP (6 would be even better).

As the famous quote says: “the best camera is the one you have with you”.

The question is whether a phone camera is worth taking a picture with at all.

With phone cameras getting better, and with mankind sinking ever deeper into facebook-type mediocrity, the answer must have become a Yes several years ago – for most people

For me, it became a Yes with the Nokia 808, which is so close to a DSLR (in good light and with static subjects) that most non-photographers won’t tell the difference unless zooming/cropping.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
Facebook is a great tool. But like every tool you have to know what to do with it. To me this sounds iike “telephone mediocrity”. And I aslo don’t agree that ANY phone can be “close” to (any) DSLR.

I agree on everything else you wrote :-)))

I meant the sort of photos which people post on FB. Obviously most people are happy with them

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Oh, of course! For 99.999 percent of all photos that are taken daily, worldwide, any 0.5 MP 1995 phone camera would be good enough. … It’s really terrible!

As the famous quote says: “the best camera is the one you have with you”.

For that reason I have bought a Canon G15, because I just cant take the DSLR and some of my lenses ‘out and about’ all that easily. The G15 isn’t a bad price at £300, and although it’s only 12MP, it gives me the control, and the ability to take RAW pictures, neither of which I can get on my iPhone. And as a relatively serious hobby photographer, I feel its ‘dirty’ to use an iPhone now. Plus with the G15, no more silly iPhone wobbly prop syndrome

The G15 is a GREAT camera – all Canon compacts are much better than comparable Nikons (and I only buy Nikons …).
Be GLAD that it’s only 12 MP … nothing worse than a small sensor and many pixels, IMHO

Yes – we have had the Canon S90 and later S95 (which the G15 is a later version of, with more manual controls) and they were the best quality pocket-sized cameras available at any price. Not cheap – about £400.

I stopped using the S95 because the Nokia 808 matches the S95 for basic image quality (i.e. when you can set up the shot in your own time, which is most of my photography) but the S95 beats it in most practical applications, with its superior zoom, focus etc.

nothing worse than a small sensor and many pixels,

The 808 has 40MP and then averages adjacent ones to produce a 12MP image. Generally, noise gets reduced by sqrt ( # of samples averaged ) – the classical finite impulse response filter which is in widespread use in electronics and data acquisition. I am not sure whether this is better or worse in theory than having a 12MP sensor and using the data straight from that. Intuitively one would think the two should be the same, but thus far no phone camera gets anywhere near the 808 so evidently the downsampling method does have an advantage. Plus, in the right conditions, you have the option of taking a 40MP raw image; the quality is not good but it is very sharp

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I am not sure whether this is better or worse in theory than having a 12MP sensor and using the data straight from that.

Better, because the pixels are larger and capture more photons which results in a very much higher signal. It’s much easier to get a good s/n ratio from a single strong signal than by applying mathematical trickery to a collection of weak signals.

EDDS - Stuttgart

By the way, the S95 has nothing to do with the G15. The G15 is the top of the line compact, the S90/S95/S100 are the smaller line.
I had a S90 for some time and I only sold it because I didn’t like that loose wheel on the back that would constantly chane the settings … but i know they improved that.

My best compact cameras (and I had about 15 of the top models in the last 10 years) were the Canon S90 and the small waterproof Nikon AW110 I have now (it’s so flat you can always have it hanging around your neck and under the jacket). The Nikon P7000 is good too, but I don’t like the shutter lag. That has improved on later modesl too (7100, 7700). Some other models were SO BAD that I sold them after a week, one I gave back.

But I tend to use EITHER the iPhone which has a convincing image quality in good light and is even good in low light – or the D4. Although the D4 is a bit too buly in the cockpit and with the SOFTENING filters (=windows) the € 1500 lens doesn’t make much sense. Unfortuantely the SR22 has no windows, and I hesitate somewhat to cut holes into the windows. I did that in the Warrior (back seat, photo window) and it always produces some noise, even when closed. And with the Cirrus it would look really ugly too to have a “glider style” sliding window.

I like “pure 12 MP” better than any interpolation. I would actually prefer a 6 MP compact, but they don’t make them anymore and the old ones have other problems like shutter lag, bad batteries, terrible screens.

Last Edited by Flyer59 at 28 Feb 08:30
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