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  • plopke - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    I do not take a lot of pictures on my phone and never been a argument for me to by a smartphone but damm the evolution of mobile photography over the last 20 years.
  • philehidiot - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    I have a DSLR and my phone and nothing in between. In some situations my DSLR fails me completely (or, more likely, my skill level fails to impress it and so it churns out crap) and my phone (being newer with HDR) produces the better photograph. Best thing about a good phone camera is it's always with you, followed by the advantage of actually having your photos with you all the time. Take them on a proper camera and they're on your PC, you never sit and sort through them properly and always end up with loads that you never look at because well... flash memory, why not have it on continuous shooting followed by I can't be bothered to sort through 200 photos of my dog just now. Add infinitum (or until photos > free HDD space).

    Take them with a phone and you have to consider it more due to the limitations of the device, space must be considered and so you end up sorting as you go, often enhancing on the phone and you have them to hand if you want to show someone something. I also find the search function in Google Photos pretty damned useful - if someone expresses a desire to go somewhere on holiday, instead of ploughing through 2000 photos to find the ones from your trip, you can search "Barcelona" and it'll bring them all up immediately. And I just can't extol the virtues enough of being able to post a photo of your breakfast onto Facebook instantly whilst "tagging" everyone you know in it to ensure they all receive a notification and so they definitely see that which you're going to crap out in a few hours time. Showing them a photo of the end result is also important to ensure they're fully informed of the complete cycle of your food consumption.

    There is a big downside however in that the extra you spend on a flagship phone with a decent camera every couple of years is way more than you'd spend on an Android phone with a mediocre camera but is perfectly functional in nearly every other way. It's also more than you'd spend on a compact camera which would probably last 5+ years and you're spending that every 2. For a way more limited camera. I personally think that decent cameras with decent post processing will remain the remit of flagship devices as it's one of the few ways they can continue to get people to pay the 50% premium for the top of the range phone.
  • dullard - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    1) If your phone takes better photos than your DSLR, then as you admit yourself, the problem is you.

    2) While it isn't quite as convenient, you can buy cameras with Wi-Fi or even SD cards with Wi-Fi built in. Take a great shot with your real camera, send it to your phone, put it on Facebook or whatever you want. Sure it is one more step, but it isn't very difficult.

    3) Or you can get one of many phones still with micro SD card slots. Take a great photo on a real camera, move the micro SD card over, upload.

    I use three cameras regularly. A phone when I don't care about quality. A small pocketable camera when I want a great shot but don't want to carry my phone or DSLR (such as hiking through the rain to a mountain top). And a DSLR to take great photos. Even with flagship smartphones, the photo quality pales in comparison to a real camera.
  • philehidiot - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    Yeh you make perfectly decent points. I would add that the times when I get a better shot with the phone is when it can employ HDR whereas my DSLR is very old (6MP by konika minolta who don't even make cameras anymore - not exactly rocking the modern stuff). And yes, the problem is me - I'm not as good as I'd like to be at it, well pointed out. And my DSLR also uses CF and doesn't have WiFi or anything else. These days I struggle to afford to replace the telephoto lens that has broken (gears gone, won't focus) so I sure as hell can't afford a new DSLR body with all the trimmings. If you'd like to buy me one, feel free. Sony if you don't mind as I've got a really nice 50mm prime lens I'd rather like to keep using.

    Phone budget is different and serves a different purpose which as I've pointed out above is more useful to me than the DSLR.
  • lmcd - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link

    I don't know if 6MP by Konika Minolta counts as a relevant datapoint.
  • Rοb - Sunday, September 3, 2017 - link

    > "And my DSLR also uses CF and doesn't have WiFi or anything else.".

    He is suggesting to buy a Memory Card with WiFi built-in, it transfers to your Phone automatically which can then upload your Photos: https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-add-wi-fi-to-yo... .

    A new Phone can also provide excellent results, the HTC U11 scores 90 on DxOMark. With 3rd Party Lenses you can also get 'snap-on lens quality and variety'.

    The Oppo with 5x Optical Zoom interests me, as this is about all that's missing from Cellphones (unless you want a 2000mm Lens, but there are Adapters for that).
  • darkich - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link

    Damn what a comment..:)
  • funkforce - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    God! I cant stop laughing!

    "And I just can't extol the virtues enough of being able to post a photo of your breakfast onto Facebook instantly whilst "tagging" everyone you know in it to ensure they all receive a notification and so they definitely see that which you're going to crap out in a few hours time. Showing them a photo of the end result is also important to ensure they're fully informed of the complete cycle of your food consumption."

    *crying from laughing*
    This was the funniest shit in a long time, pun intended. You are a wicked genius!
  • philehidiot - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    Thanks, however I can only credit my British upbringing and therefore instinctive urge to leap on any opportunity for toilet humour.
  • darkich - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link

    Damn what a comment:)
  • close - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    "ISPs (image sensor processors)" - Dial S for Signal.

    Anyway, I imagined they found a way to squeeze an actual zoom lens (variable focal length) in a phone. "5X zoom" doesn't really make sense since the "zoom" part is basically the ratio between the minimum and maximum focal length the lens offers. No variable focal length, no optical zoom. It's 2 fixed focal lengths and an ISP.

    I know marketing is always coming up with snazzy names that fake the real deal but come on, I expected Anandtech to take the extra step in explaining this to readers. Next up you're going to tell us about the phone with infinite zoom because you can always walk the camera closer to the subject or use Photoshop.
  • philehidiot - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    Yeh when I saw zoom and what they'd done I expected that they'd be able to move the lens elements for a variable zoom. I suppose though there's nothing stopping them using more space for a variable focal length device for phones targeted at specific markets - i.e. the mobile photographer. Occasionally these kinds of phones crop up and when one comes along that isn't grossly disproportioned (i.e. a compact camera with a phone on the back) I would be tempted to invest.

    I'm kind of hoping this is proof of concept and the next evolution will be using this to either move the prism between two lens stacks or move the lens stack itself for a variable focal length.
  • MrSpadge - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    Good catch. And I wondered why they used 2 cameras at all if they have "zoom".
  • philehidiot - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    Yeh at first I thought it was a quality issue given you're always going to have some attenuation / distortion going though a different material but it seems like this is just a wide angle and fixed 5X zoom. Not to be sniffed at but equally not the kind of progress I'd like.

    Because I'm a consumer and therefore impossible to please.
  • jjj - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    It would be easier to have a rotating upper bezel and while at it add cams and mics for 360 video, pics and audio.

    The dimensions of the senors would be a problem, just like they are with their solution as you end up with a 10mm thick phone so ideally the sensor would be at an angle but then you have the mirrors problem.

    Anyway , such solutions are rather retro and could have been used a long time ago.
  • kenansadhu - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link

    That's 100% an OPPO thing. They literally did it few years back (search OPPO N1)
  • jjj - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link

    No you missed the point, i was talking about a system like this one one that gives them Z height for zoom and not a silly front/back thingy.
    So the top bezel would be like a cylinder with the main cam at the end of it(side of the phone) and it would rotate 90 degrees on the horizontal.
  • asfletch - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link

    Like the Nokia N90/N93?
  • serendip - Tuesday, March 14, 2017 - link

    What happened to using huge sensors and downsampling to get good quality zoomed images? My ancient Nokia 808 has a 42 mp sensor combined with a custom Toshiba imaging processor. Five years on, I still haven't come across any other phone or compact camera that has the same amount of detail.

    It's even replaced my DSLR because I hated carrying a big camera with no connectivity. Surely today's Snapdragons and whatnot have imaging blocks capable of processing and down sampling huge images on the fly.
  • close - Thursday, March 16, 2017 - link

    For example the Snapdragon 835's ISP can handle one 32MP camera or two 16MP. That's a long way from the 42MP on the 808. And such a large sensor kind of implies a pretty big camera bump. Which is why dual-camera setups are so popular now and large sensors are relegated to a couple of experiments by Nokia (mainly the 808 and the 1020).
  • Danvelopment - Sunday, March 19, 2017 - link

    Could they not just use the second sensor and the free space of the first sensor to make the second sensor move? That would give you everything in between, only one sensor and swapping or quality change.
  • p51d007 - Sunday, March 19, 2017 - link

    Smartphones have pretty much replaced the pocket/compact camera, or, will in a few years.
    A smartphone can never replace a traditional dSLR. It's just not possible, given the SIZE of the smartphone sensor, and the size of a dSLR sensor, even an APS-C sensor.
    It's about gathering light. The super tiny size of the smartphone sensors, versus the size of the DSLR sensors means they just cannot gather the same amount of light. Plus, the more sensors you pack, into a smartphone sensor, means the distance between each sensor is reduced, and increasing the likelyhood of crosstalk, signal to noise between the sensors.
    I have a Huawei, Mate8 and it has a pretty good camera, but, there is no way any smartphone camera will ever come close to reaching the light gathering data, depth of field, clarity of a dSLR. Shoot, just look at the size of the glass on the front of a dSLR. There is a reason some dSLR lenses are so expensive.
  • Rοb - Sunday, September 3, 2017 - link

    It is likely that the Camera is the Corephotonic Falcon, here is a few Videos: https://youtu.be/uoLYHr7-oQI?list=PLWa6uO3ZUweAsW8... .

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