Smartphones will kill off DSLR's soon/

[sarumbear]

If I spend a few minutes walking around the city, I will see thousands of people using smartphones. I assume they are somewhat representative of the market for such devices. It's not uncommon to see people with DSLRs either. If those strap-on appendages for phones were as common as you intimate them to be, I should be seeing them at least once a week. I'm not. Maybe they're really common in your end of town; I don't usually venture there. Be that as it may, those "shot on iPhone" adverts are clearly intended to imply that such image quality is readily achievable without lugging around a small photo studio. It's not. Therefore, the adverts are misleading.

Why would people carry around a camera setup that is for indoor studio use when out and about? Have you been into a high end photographic studio?

If you cannot differentiate between different camera setups you may want to investigate what you see and learn before blaming someone as misleading.

Or at least check who is “misleading you” by visiting their about section.

 

[majingotan]

IMO only niche that I see decades old DSLR being still superior is definitely night sky photos. I still wouldn't consider my iPhone photo as passable for night sky photography on a pitch-black place, but it does a pretty respectable job of capturing the Milky Way just missing those fine details that even a 12 year-old camera with a decent lens can capture

 

[caught gesture]

The iPhone at 15: pro photographers on how it changed their world

This week marks 15 years since the iPhone first went on sale and ushered in a new era: the age of the smartphone

www.theguardian.com

 

[pablolie]

The iPhone at 15: pro photographers on how it changed their world

This week marks 15 years since the iPhone first went on sale and ushered in a new era: the age of the smartphone

www.theguardian.com

These things about "shot with [whatever smartphone]" are in no way proof-points that pros are abandoning DSLRs at all. These are paid for infomercials: they pay the person, give them [whatever smartphone], and ask them "do what you can with this and make it look impressive". A gifted photographer can create great shots with a shoebox camera.

 

[caught gesture]

These things about "shot with [whatever smartphone]" are in no way proof-points that pros are abandoning DSLRs at all. These are paid for infomercials: they pay the person, give them [whatever smartphone], and ask them "do what you can with this and make it look impressive". A gifted photographer can create great shots with a shoebox camera.

Did you read the article? Plenty of the professional photographers say that there is no way an iPhone can replace their DSLR for important work. The article consists of interviews with actual professional photographers working across diverse styles of photography. I found it interesting that some of the photographers working in areas where a DSLR would attract attention from controlling authoritarian authorities are able to use their phone camera to easier document world events in difficult locations.
Where do you get your information from that these photographers are using iPhones provided by Apple free of charge as a marketing exercise?

 

[caught gesture]

IMO only niche that I see decades old DSLR being still superior is definitely night sky photos. I still wouldn't consider my iPhone photo as passable for night sky photography on a pitch-black place, but it does a pretty respectable job of capturing the Milky Way just missing those fine details that even a 12 year-old camera with a decent lens can capture

View attachment 214353

Thanks for going to the effort of taking these two photos as a comparison (and providing the data as well).

 

[JeffS7444]

Typical phone has only wide-angle lenses, and even if they offered manual aperture control, the combination of small sensor + short focal length optics offers limited selective focus capability. Software trickery can be used to simulate bokeh, but automated algorithms can deliver iffy results if photo lacks recognizable faces or other obvious points of interest.

Lytro had a very interesting technology which actually recorded 3D image data, allowing true ex post facto focus and depth of field adjustments to be made, but it never matured into a must-have product.

 

[mansr]

Lytro had a very interesting technology which actually recorded 3D image data, allowing true ex post facto focus and depth of field adjustments to be made, but it never matured into a must-have product.

IIRC, their sensor had micro-lenses that varied the focus distance pixel to pixel. It's a neat trick if you're willing to trade resolution for the ability to manipulate focus after the fact. Part of their failure was probably due to the ridiculous shape of the camera (see also: Pono player).

 

[pablolie]

Where do you get your information from that these photographers are using iPhones provided by Apple free of charge as a marketing exercise?

I was referring to the *ads* that Apple et al do about "shot with [whatever smartphone]. I repeat: ads. They *pay* the photographer in question enough to buy 20+ iPhones, never mind give them one.

I don't doubt there are cases where a very compact camera is an advantage. Those have always existed. Look up Minox. If that is hat the article is about, great. That's why action photographers carried a Minox in their pocket 50 years ago...

The corner case of a compact camera being convenient at times has zero to do with Smartphone cameras being in any way superior. They are optically inferior each and every time, which greatly limits anyone's creative envelope as a halfway ambitioned photographer, be is professional or even hobbyist. Try wildlife photography. Try delivering on exquisite bookeh in portrait photography and others. Try taking a pic of a hummingbird with your smartphone. A RAW pic from a large sensor camera will give you a zillion of possibilities, a smartphone cannot. But by all means - like everybody else, I can take great, entertaining and even memorable shots with my smartphone. So I *do* adhere to the opinion it is amazing to have and it's a stunning tool for quick results. I am not being combative here.

But nothing beats big, dedicated glass and a large sensor when it matters. And more AI digital algorithms -which is what overcomes the flaws of Smartphone optics- are being integrated into ILCs. Which I could do without, personally, because with stuff like Photoshop I can do the processing to my liking.

No fight here.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I was referring to the *ads* that Apple et al do about "shot with [whatever smartphone]. I repeat: ads. They *pay* the photographer in question enough to buy 20+ iPhones, never mind give them one.

I don't doubt there are cases where a very compact camera is an advantage. Those have always existed. Look up Minox. If that is hat the article is about, great. That's why action photographers carried a Minox in their pocket 50 years ago...

The corner case of a compact camera being convenient at times has zero to do with Smartphone cameras being in any way superior. They are optically inferior each and every time, which greatly limits anyone's creative envelope as a halfway ambitioned photographer, be is professional or even hobbyist. Try wildlife photography. Try delivering on exquisite bookeh in portrait photography and others. Try taking a pic of a hummingbird with your smartphone. A RAW pic from a large sensor camera will give you a zillion of possibilities, a smartphone cannot. But by all means - like everybody else, I can take great, entertaining and even memorable shots with my smartphone. So I *do* adhere to the opinion it is amazing to have and it's a stunning tool for quick results. I am not being combative here.

But nothing beats big, dedicated glass and a large sensor when it matters. And more AI digital algorithms -which is what overcomes the flaws of Smartphone optics- are being integrated into ILCs. Which I could do without, personally, because with stuff like Photoshop I can do the processing to my liking.

No fight here.

I actually think it is more that add on device displayed up thread. The photographer is using the iPhone and getting some good results, especially with video. They never mentioned there was this big honking set of lenses added to the front of the phone which you definitely cannot carry in your pocket. The truth, just not the whole truth. Lies by omission in the ads.

I was on a kayaking day trip once, and had nothing except a smartphone. Wanted a picture, but was too far away. I had some very nice binoculars. I put them on a fat log aimed where I wanted the photo, laid down to stabilize myself and get the phone lens in just the right spot. Got a real nice pic with my Pixel. View was a bit narrow after I squared it up, but easy to see how add on lenses can help some, but you are defeating the point of the pocket camera.

Courtesy of NTK a couple pages back.

Video: Those 'Shot on iPhone' ads are not what they seem

YouTuber Marques Brownlee reveals the truth behind those ultra-cinematic, gorgeous looking 'Shot on iPhone' ads that seem too good to be true.

www.dpreview.com

 

[Jmudrick]

Nikon pulls plug on SLR camera development in shift to mirrorless

Smartphones push Japan maker to drop once-coveted single-lens reflex models

asia.nikkei.com

 

[Rednaxela]

Smartphones push Japan maker to drop once-coveted single-lens reflex models

That says it all, right?

 

[jbattman1016]

I wonder what sales we can get from this ?

 

[jbattman1016]

In 30 years someone is going to say, "Check out this vintage camera! Writes to something called an SD card...."

 

[anphex]

I have a Nikon D750 and have made some nice photo albums or night sky shots with it. It's just a different mindset when you have your camera around your neck and are actively looking for nice shots while wandering the world. Pointing, adjusting and shooting is a lot faster than with a smartphone (and it's more stable). This and the huge sensor and good lenses give you far far far more flexiblity in post processing and editing than a small smartphone camera and sensor.

I wouldn't buy a new one. Once the mirror of the D750 breaks I'll get one of this 1" sensors smartphones and be happy ever after. My neck will be grateful. In the end the camera market will split into full on smartphone sensor industry and high end / pro mirrorless cameras with medium or large frame sensors above 10k $ like Leica or Hasselblad.

But I can imagine lots of people would still buy DSLR/mirrorless cameras for the nostalgia or experience of shooting with a "real" camera. It's kind of like vinyl probably in the long run.

 

[Ron Texas]

Nikon pulls plug on SLR camera development in shift to mirrorless

Smartphones push Japan maker to drop once-coveted single-lens reflex models

asia.nikkei.com

I just saw this elsewhere.

 

[Ron Texas]

@Blumlein 88 in Costa Rica a few years ago the guide let everyone take pictures through his spotting scope. lots of vignetting.

 

[Blumlein 88]

@Blumlein 88 in Costa Rica a few years ago the guide let everyone take pictures through his spotting scope. lots of vignetting.

I've had a couple of spotting scopes with an attachment to directly put the camera body on and basically the scope becomes the lens. You have to space things right to prevent vignetting, but it can work pretty well. And yes I've used binoculars and sometimes spotting scopes by putting the full camera with lens up to the eyepiece and living with the narrow field of view and some vignetting.

 

[mhardy6647]

@Blumlein 88 in Costa Rica a few years ago the guide let everyone take pictures through his spotting scope. lots of vignetting.

Yeah, but it does work. I remember doing this many (many) years ago with our first digital camera (a very basic Olympus point and shoot with only an optical viewfinder; no display) and Mrs. H's 80 mm Swarovski spotting scope.
Results were... mixed. Good images were pretty good though -- one just obtained them kind of randomly.

That's a male sharp-shinned hawk sitting on the infrastructure of an outdoor screenhouse we had at our old house in MA (photo from 2004).

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yeah, but it does work. I remember doing this many (many) years ago with our first digital camera (a very basic Olympus point and shoot with only an optical viewfinder; no display) and Mrs. H's 80 mm Swarovski spotting scope.
Results were... mixed. Good images were pretty good though -- one just obtained them kind of randomly.

View attachment 217983

That's a male sharp-shinned hawk sitting on the infrastructure of an outdoor screenhouse we had at our old house in MA (photo from 2004).

The main thing to do is figure out how to control focus to get more consistent results.