The phone I’m typing on has a really powerful processor on board.
Thanks, that's a good point. So the camera manufactures equivalent is to give you a mode for taking images that can be stacked, and saved in RAW, and you can do the processing on a computer.
My interest at the moment is the possibility of a kayak trip to a remote place with spectacular wildlife. I will be getting a new point and shoot waterproof camera, and have a TZ-90, and am wondering whether a DSLR would also be a good investment, given that it will be an expensive trip and I'll never go there again.
exactly, of course “proper” camera manufacturers would love to give you the option of a camera with all the processing power of an iPhone – it’s nothing to do with cost or battery life, they simply don’t have access to the technology.
Sony?
I much prefer using a camera over a phone but I cant stand lugging a big camera about.
I’m not sure about them not having access to the tech - lots of phones use 3rd party chips. I’d imagine the cost for a camera manufacturer to use that instead of their existing platform would be high, but might be viable for companies like Sony that already make phones.
Digital cameras already do a significant amount of processing on their images but it’s aimed towards capturing a detailed raw file from a large sensor - I think it’s still a challenge to do that as well as all the stacking and whatever else phones do. My camera takes a noticeably long time to catch up after shooting a burst or a long exposure as it is (maybe a bad example, it’s from 2014).
exactly, of course “proper” camera manufacturers would love to give you the option of a camera with all the processing power of an iPhone – it’s nothing to do with cost or battery life, they simply don’t have access to the technology.
I'm not so sure they would.
I mean Sony in particular have access to tech that none of the smartphones have with their MXF format. What Sony manages in camera on a chip takes a fair amount of PC power to achieve and isn't possible on a smartphone.
They're doing entirely different jobs though. A Smartphone might have a "portrait" mode that blacks out the background, a DSLR has as many portrait modes as you can think of.
^ If including external equipment/technique then any camera (regardless of its size) has as many ‘portrait modes’ you can think of.
Studio-lighting is one external technique available to any photographer who can afford it/access it (regardless if they own the smallest or biggest camera)
In early days when struggling to afford gear (nothing changes there!) I’d always wear a jet-black oversized hoodie so could drape it over a barbed wire fence (or something) so as to contrast/isolate flora/botanical subjects to be photographed as ‘portraits’.
^ If including external equipment/technique then any camera (regardless of its size) has as many ‘portrait modes’ you can think of.
True, but then you can't trigger an external flash from your smartphone without significant bodgery.
My point was that a smartphone you can take out into the middle of a field on a sunny day and make it look like a studio portrait if you want because someone's programmed that mode/filter into the software so anyone can do it.
A camera takes more work to get that look, but you can get any other look you can imagine for relatively equal effort too. The fact that it takes more effort is a feature not a bug. It's what let's the user get any style of shot they want.
A big camera isn't any more obsolete than paintbrushes just because a smartphone app can draw a picture that looks like it was painted too.
A big camera isn’t any more obsolete than paintbrushes just because a smartphone app can draw a picture that looks like it was painted too.
Straw-men defeated right there.
you can’t trigger an external flash from your smartphone without significant bodgery.
Which camera/software/flash are you using/did you use?
To sync an external flash to an iPhone camera using the Profoto camera app is (apparently):
1. Turn iPhone and external flash on
2. Select ‘sync>YES’ when the flash asks you.
My point was that a smartphone you can take out into the middle of a field on a sunny day and make it look like a studio portrait if you want because someone’s programmed that mode/filter into the software so anyone can do it.
Again, a smartphone has a camera on it. A decent smartphone has the option to bypass casual-user buttons (and filters, effects etc)
They can be turned off and you still have a camera.
A camera takes more work to get that look
Again, you still have a camera. You can still do flash photography. You can still work as hard as you like.
I’m still to grips with an iPhone 11. I favour natural light and will (for instance) indulge hours attempting to capture a candle flame and wax which looks close as is humanly possible using what tools I have to hand.
Straight away using the native iPhone Camera app the results were very disappointing. Sad face time. I switched over to ProCamera and chose to work simple at first with HEIC (will use RAW next). I’m going with f1.8 and 1/600s @ ISO 32 (thirty freaking two!) and 52mm equivalent.
Even before doing any simple post-processing/tidying you can see the results are night and day (no pun intended). 500% improvement on the native/dumb app.
nope, every word of that is bollocks! 😂I mean Sony in particular have access to tech that none of the smartphones have with their MXF format. What Sony manages in camera on a chip takes a fair amount of PC power to achieve and isn’t possible on a smartphone.
when I’ve looked at your images I have found myself trying to understand what it is you’re trying to say; what dialogue do you want to have with me as a viewer of your work? And there doesn’t even have to be an answer to that question either – certainly not one that validates what you’re doing, but since you and I are both here, and you’re showing me your work, then the question becomes implied
As always, your contributions to these debates are thoughtful and thought-provoking, but this one particularly jumped out at me...
As ever, I think we are on opposite ends of ideas about what art is and how it works! I have no real interest in a 'dialogue' with the viewer - this can never really happen as the image is dumb and it therefore becomes an internal monologue for the viewer anyway. The viewers' question 'what are you showing me?' can be inferred but not implied. I have no issues with a viewer taking whatever meaning they want (or no meaning at all), but in that any intention I may or may not have is pretty much irrelevant - in Art Theory terms, I'm kind of a simple-minded structuralist I guess.
I'm (un?)lucky not to have to worry about that stuff too much though - while I earn my living indirectly through photography, I don't have to rely directly on images for an income so have the luxury of it being a sandpit for me. That's not to say I don't think quite a lot about the 'why' as well as the 'what' and 'how'.
(entirely skippable arty farty bollocks follows) I'm primarily interested in the visual rather than the conceptual (hence the lack of concern about messaging or meaning). As a painter I was/am concerned with texture, tonal contrast, colour, distortion, and the abstract impact of those elements within mostly representational images - and those things have carried through into my photography. If there's a theme underlying what I do though, it's about the artificiality of images - I want it to be obvious that there's something I've inserted between the real world and the viewer (whether that's a cheap, low quality camera, heavy-handed processing, or whatever) - I perceive that quite a lot of photographers want to make the camera conceptually invisible to remove as many barriers between the viewer and that 'reality' as possible. I find this a bit dishonest. Photographs are no more an accurate representation of the world than a 1920s Picasso portrait is but most people seem happy to accept them as a surrogate for reality? David Hockney is easily dismissable by some but he's said some interesting stuff about the nature of seeing that has resonated with me and lodged in my head over the last 30 years or so - mix in some Saul Leiter, Weegee and a vague idea about what if 'Lomography' was as enamoured with digital as it is with film and you've maybe kind of got a vague direction of where I'm coming from.
I have got more thoughts on the ongoing democratisation of photography, but I've probably waffled on enough for one post - if the thread lives a bit longer I'll come back with those...
And yes, all of this could easily be me ‘over thinking’ things and for this I am resolutely and entirely unapologetic. 👍😆
Now, that's something I think we do share, I'm not much one for apologising for it though... For me, if you (over)think about it it means it's probably important to you and you care (whatever others may think).
@colournoise what you said about texture, colour etc - I enjoyed messing around with this with my camera. Trying to take photos that are just shapes and colours and forms, but I found that I had to actually make something that couldn't be recognised as a real scene. So I'd take hugely out of focus pictures or long exposures. I tried taking long exposure defocused pictures of colourful fish in a tank swimming about, for example. It was only partly successful as I ended up focusing on the back of the tank so you could see all the grimy glass and screws holding the MDF up behind it in perfect detail 🙂
For me I think that the visual content of your sea-scape actually detracts from the visual textures by evoking the actual seaside. That said, I've got a bunch of pictures taken in the Netherlands that fulfil this brief but still contain real things in focus, let me see if I can find them.
For me I think that the visual content of your sea-scape actually detracts from the visual textures by evoking the actual seaside.
And that's the tension I really like TBH. It's easy to go full abstract with ICM, playing with focus, post-processing, etc. but I like trying to find the balance between those elements and the ability to actually recognise stuff. For me (and to use another painting analogy), it's the way that Rothko (as brilliant as he was) can alienate people or leave them cold versus the way they will more easily engage with Warhol, even though in some ways they're playing the same visual games (although their conceptual aims couldn't be further apart).
I guess more obvious examples might have been...
OP here very interesting discussion I take photo to capture memories rather than create art so was convinced not to get any of the cameras in my original post as I have a good enough camera on my phone. However I did put my order in today.
I bought some mid range binoculars and a mid range spotting scope as I plan to do more birdwatching. I bought some Olympus bins last Christmas but they are too heavy so never left the house.
I bought £200 worth of wine only 13 bottles so should be good for the wife’s 50th party.
Finally I bought a FZ82 super zoom. I was still on hols last week and played with both my iPhone and my go pro hero 7 (the photos are great the user experience dreadful) and was mostly happy with the results. But what i was missing with this combo was the zoom so I went all out and got the camera with the 60x zoom. I know it’s image quality won’t be as good as the iPhone or maybe even the go pro but at the end of the zoom range it’s going to look better than a 30 or 60 fold crop from either.
I was taking photo and videos of the boys playing on the the SUP boards and the close up photos look great but when they went far enough out to dive in they were too far out to get a good video from the phone. I did wade it to get closer but it would have been nice to stay dry.
I suppose the killer question is will I ever have it with me when I want to use it.
