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Digital Camera Vs. Camera Phone
An anonymous reader writes "CNet.co.uk has done some simple head-to-head testing of camera phones alongside digital cameras to see which device takes the best quality pictures. The results are surprising, with Nokia's latest handset, featuring a built-in 5-megapixel camera, taking more vibrant pictures in medium light conditions than a 10-megapixel dSLR. Of course, the pictures aren't fully representative of how the images would look at full size; but given that most people resize images to put on Flickr, we could start to see a decline in dedicated digital cameras sales and an increase in camera phone sales."
I'd rather have a crappy phone on a good camera rather than a crappy camera on a good phone.
Someone call me when they make a "Phone Camera"
It was interesting to see that this "test" consisted of a single scene.
Exactly. C|Net wouldn't know how to do a real photographic "test" if Ansel Adams came back from the dead and held them by the hands while explaining the Zone System - which is still a great way to understand sensitometry.
Bzzzt wrong answer. I shoot both 645 and digital professionally and film still has many advantages- better dynamic range, better resolution, less noise at high ISO, much better enlargeability, true black and white, and permanence.
Much of that stuff was accurate two years ago; that doesn't make it so today.
The widest dynamic range for slide film is Fuji's duplicating film, CDU-II. About eight stops, compared to ten or more for most digital SLRs. Negative film may get you nine stops in ideal conditions, but it's a mistake to say that the best DSLRs and studio backs have short dynamic range.
Film does have the advantage of a non-linear response to light - and non-linear response to color, which is one attraction to film - each has a unique palette. Digital sensors respond in a linear fashion. I prefer the character of film for this reason, but again, I find no reason to shoot film in most situations; grand landscape work with my 4x5 is one place where film clearly wins. In smaller formats, digital is recording more information in a wider range than any camera or film.
You won't find film capable of recording density that the best sensors are capable of. Not anymore. The only way to get ahead of large sensors today is with square inches of film; that's why I still shoot 4x5. After making test prints from a Canon 1DS mkII and 6x7 slide film scanned on a Tango at 3500 dpi, I'm convinced the 1DS is of comparable, if not better quality - and this was almost two years ago.
The clean signal of these newer, better sensors mean more of the information captured is usable as image data; there's no grain, and at low ISO, no discernible noise.
What is this "true" black and white of which you speak? Colored filters in front of black and white film do affect the image; black and white images are made by exposing color-sensitive emulsion that is made with a single layer of un-dyed silver halide. Same thing as Kodachrome slide film - without the dye.
All black and white films are sensitive to different wavelengths on the spectrum. By post-processing your own black and white using Channel Mixer in Photoshop, you're doing the same thing - selecting the percentage of each primary color portrayed as a monochrome image. Seriously - did you not understand that this is how black and white film works?
The concept of "true" black and white may make sense to someone who doesn't understand how film works - but even Photo 101 students know that "black and white" films are color sensitive.
Permanence is one department in which film wins hands down for ease of handling, cataloging, and durability - but make a print of your digital file on to Fuji Crystal Archive (a silver-based paper popular for printing digital work) and your permanence problem becomes a lot less scary - suddenly you have a more permanent copy that is human readable.
I somewhat agree about the 300D lens. It's a LOT better than most of the smaller cameras I've seen, but it pales compared to the same camera with a nicer lens. I found that out when I borrowed a prime lens from one of my coworkers while my lens was malfunctioning. Wow.
I now have a much nicer lens and only use the stock lens when I'm in a high risk situation (e.g. the beach). :-)
When I saw the flash photos fo the D95, the word "cartoony" came to mind. Anybody else think so?
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Flickr is more than a place to upload pictures - it's also a community of photography aficionados, with categorized groups (think yahoo or google groups for photos). There are groups dedicated to photo critiques, so you can post your shots there for hopefully constructive analysis from other flickr users. It's a really interesting place, and I for one go there 75% of the time just to look at other people's works.
And I dunno, the N95 shots do look good _at the resolution presented_. A handy device to have, if you don't have your SLR or P&S with you. Of course, for high res pixel-per-pixel quality, nothing beats SLR. (And cameraphones will suck in low-light.)
We'd like to think that money we've invested wasn't a waste. :)
Mr. Hawthorne01:
There are always those who would rather spend money than effort.
It's disappointing you didn't expand on this rather than ranting. If anything, TFA needs some comments about light.
The whole idea of comparing phonecams to digicams to SLRs with the approach taken in TFA is ludicrous. It makes horrendous unstated assumptions, so even if they draw conclusions similar to a more rigorous study that is likely to be serendipity.
Focusing purely on light. The vast majority of non-photograhic "white" lights are extremely yellow. In order to get anything approaching "true" (day) light you need a bulb which errs towards blue, and you can buy "northlight" or "craft light" bulbs of transparent blue glass for indoor craft work where colour accuracy is important, such as counted cross stitch.
I find the yellow appearance of some of the un-flashed photos in TFA entirely unsurprising. Furthermore I suspect those which are more-white-than-yellow either (a) have the flash permanently enabled or (b) have automatic white balance over which you have no control.
For the low light conditions, I do not understand how someone would expect even reasonably good photos in poor light without either additional lighting or a lens designed to operate in those conditions. Also, flash photography often makes things look "false" - there is an unnatural brightness, shadows form where they wouldn't normally, you get bounce even from skin, colours outside flash range look muted. As Mr Hawthorne01 alluded, making natural-looking portraits under artificial lighting requires a lot of equipment... or post-processing which alters what the lens originally captured.
All the above having been said, and regarding Mr. timeOday's comment, I find it pleasantly surprising that small sensors in phonecams can take pictures in variable conditions which are by-and-large good enough to be acceptable. You certainly don't need a fancy camera for the majority of "happy snaps" which most people take most of the time.
I've always loved big sheets of film. My P&S back in the day was a 6x7 so that I could make contact prints big enough to be viewable and give away to friends. My 4x5 negs are the treasured records of my youth. So when you say digital is better than film, I'll just wear a little smile and remember that generalizations are bad but that you generally can't convince people of that.
Once we get into little-camera world (35mm-size SLRs and smaller), you make lots of sense. I *really* want to get heavily into digital photography and I always have a digital camera of some sort that will make photographs good enough for web publishing. HOWEVER, my big stumbling block is image quality from cameras small enough to carry around. Back in the day, it was possible to buy a 35mm film "pocket" camera with a high-quality 35/2.8 lens and be able to produce killer-quality photos easily and conveniently as long as you knew what you were doing and had a good method of defeating camera vibration during exposure. (A monopod works for me, even if it does seem a little silly to be holding an Olympus Stylus Epic atop one.)
What kills me about this whole digital business is this question: Why doesn't some manufacturer recognize that there are people like me out here and make a camera for us? Give me a full sized (24x36) sensor, a fixed 35/2.8 lens, and a good viewfinder. That's all I really want. I can give up the LCD on the back. I can give up the 27 preset modes that include making me coffee first thing in the morning. Hell, I'd give up internal storage and put up with either a wireless or tethered link to a battery operated hard drive carried in my pocket for storing all those RAW files (and you know a camera like this should output only RAW, right?).
How about it, camera makers? Wanna build a digital P&S for us quality-conscious luddites? Pretty please?
And if you do, then lets talk about morphing it into a non-interchangeable lens, short-zoom, true ZLR format, next, OK?
First this article make no sense. Second, good luck with making a 12x lens for a camera phone (which doesn't make the phone bulky). Third, if you want to take excellent photos, take a course, or at least read the freaking manual. Fourth, I seriously doubt any mfg will make an underwater housing for a phone. The way I pick my digi-cams is based on the specs of the housings. I know, I'm not most people, but with the current price of dive housing, there are more and more diver with digicams. I am an amateur (almost wrote armchair) photographer, and the photos which receive most of the compliments from friends & family are my underwater photos. Rant-out.
n95 : 160,158,165 (5.1); 225,212,227 (11.5); 208,210,210 (1.6)
400d: 174,145,106 (48.3); 232,199,168 (45.3); 219,187,146 (51.7)
Can you look at those numbers and still argue both cameras are equally wrong? It isn't even close! The D400's error is many times that of the n95 in this particular image.
There's no question an SLR can capture motion better and reduce depth of field much more than a cellphone cam. But I don't think there's any question that most people want white things to look white when they shoot under tungsten lighting, and in this particular image, those other subtleties are hard to notice compared to the strong brown cast on Canon image.
Sure, it would be a mistake to draw general conclusions like "dSLR's have bad auto white balance" from one image from one model. I'm just surprised anybody can look down that page of photos with their own eyes and not admit that, in this particular case, the best looking image is from a cell phone.