Smartphone sensor size on a rampage

[Andrew Reid]

Sensors in smartphones are getting larger. Much larger.

The progress in the last 7 years is remarkable (as my chart above shows). Smartphones have caught up and surpassed Super 16mm. Is Super 35mm next?

New blog post:

https://www.eoshd.com/news/smartphones-and-their-growing-threat-to-mirrorless-cameras-2022-edition/

 

[webrunner5]

I have been preaching that to the choir here and very few listen lol. Smartphones already are better other than maybe zoom lenses than nearly all consumer cameras now. Sure, top end cameras with top end glass are better but at what price?

And with the Motion Cam app you have Raw to boot on the Android phones. Amazing stuff for an amazing price these days right in your pocket.

[MrSMW]

I looked at various Android options before I went with my iPhone 13 with a view to the photo side, but in the end decided I would rather stay in the Apple ecosystem.

Not because I’m a fanboy (I prefer to buy unbranded products whenever I can and don’t like paying a premium to simply be a walking billboard) but rather because it works for me.

I went with the 13 to replace: an 8, a compact everyday camera and a dedicated drone controller.

I prefer the convenience of a phone as my every day camera, but the downside is the ergos/handling/use ability which definitely isn’t as nice as even a small ‘proper’ camera.

Still a long looooooong way off any kind of ‘phone’ taking over my pro needs and unlikely within the remainder of my career, but all that ‘stuff’ you speculated about Andrew will come because that’s where it’s headed.

It’s not just phone tech that is hurting actual ‘real’ camera budgets and development but stuff like AI. Perhaps even more so, ie, what is becoming possible with any old shitty footage. Or even no footage and the whole thing is fake…

It’s not going to take over and dominate for the 10-12 years I have to eke out a living, but I do think the photo industry (as we know it) especially is changing. That’s just reality and either adapt or die, or find a niche.

If it changes quicker than I anticipate, I’ll just start playing the retro card 😎

[EduPortas]

Bleh. I find no pleasure in shooting with my phone. It's just there to register. Besides, holding the phone to take a picture or shoot video doesn't look cool :p

A dedicated camera or videocamera requieres more work, yes, but there's an artisan's process that offers "something" that's not just there with the phone.

The technical aspect of our job can be spiritually rewarding.

[fuzzynormal]

I'll use whatever I think delivers what I want.  

The market is the market and it'll probably fragment the photo/hybrid cam segment by shifting demand, but that's been ongoing, as mentioned.  

Honestly, I'm playing with tools I never really thought I'd have easy access to, so I'm good with whatever moving forward.

[webrunner5]

Funny video showing 3 different approaches to phone footage. Motion Cam looks pretty good on it I think. No clue what phone he was using though.

 

[webrunner5]

This one is Really good. Shot on a HP Poco X3.

 

[kye]

Interesting stuff, but still a way to go.  

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra has a crop-factor of 2.7 (calculated from sensor width) with an f1.9 fixed wide (which equates to a 23mm f5 lens) and an f4.1 zoom (which equates to an f11 5x zoom lens) and a f2.2 ultra-wide (which equates to a 13mm f6 lens).

This means that even wide open its got deeper depth of field than decent lenses on a S16 camera:
https://www.vintagelensesforvideo.com/category/super16/

The codecs are getting better though - I noticed that my iPhone 12 does 10-bit video, which makes a huge improvement to the subtlety of colour and also to the DR which seems to just be chopped-off in 8-bit mode compared to 10-bit mode.  Prores and RAW are better still.

They're essentially really good, really small, camcorders.  Great if you want that look, but without ability to change lenses they're useless if you want any other look, which these days is what most people want.  They're also a pain to put an ND on if you want them to still fit in your pocket, so most users will just expose with SS making terrible motion cadence.

[webrunner5]

 

All you say is true but the video above your post was shot on an 275 dollar new phone in 10 bit Raw with a free app, and to my eye is not a hell of a lot off from the look of an OG BMPCC. That is pretty damn impressive. 

Sure, it is not an Arri but if you are a new videographer wow what an opportunity to show your stuff to the world no matter your income level. That alone makes it pretty freaking amazing to me. When I got into this stuff ANYTHING video related was a F ing fortune even used to buy. And even then, it was just 360p, 480p.

Terrible looking stuff, but it was the best there was even broadcast wise. You had to squint to even look at it lol. Didn't matter if you were in focus or not nobody could tell.

[kye]

40 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

All you say is true but the video above your post was shot on an 275 dollar new phone in 10 bit Raw with a free app, and to my eye is not a hell of a lot off from the look of an OG BMPCC. That is pretty damn impressive. 

Sure, it is not an Arri but if you are a new videographer wow what an opportunity to show your stuff to the world no matter your income level. That alone makes it pretty freaking amazing to me. When I got into this stuff ANYTHING video related was a F ing fortune even used to buy. And even then, it was just 360p, 480p.

Terrible looking stuff, but it was the best there was even broadcast wise. You had to squint to even look at it lol. Didn't matter if you were in focus or not nobody could tell.

Sure - I'll revise my statement to "They're essentially really good, really small, really affordable, camcorders."

Were you comparing the "Smell of Village" video to the OG BMPCC?  If so, the video looked good and was obviously shot as RAW, but beyond it being RAW and deep DoF, it doesn't look anything like a OG BMPCC to me.  It looks more like a smartphone that can record RAW.

I looked at OG BMPCC footage only days ago, and even SOOC the footage just screamed "film" to me.  The grain and texture and resolution and sharpness are all on-point for film, and nothing like the high-quality high-resolution very-modern presentation of that "Smell of Village" film.

I've said it in other threads but it's worth repeating - I think people have forgotten what film actually used to look like.  If someone posted stills of non-recognisable moments from big blockbuster films and TV shows shot on film, the response would be akin to "your lens is broken" rather than "looks cinematic".

[webrunner5]

Sure but you can put film grain on anything in this day and age. So, if the person did that than it looks more like film. Well, it might, you are sort of right. But film has some magic pixie dust that to be honest I can't put my finger on, and I think most people can't either. On paper it ought to sort of suck, but it doesn't. 

I am not sure the OGBMPCC has grain to it, or it is just sort of shity and it worked out to be great. Probably both reasons, more to the latter.  All I know is in this day and age the footage from one is a wee bit dated and sort of out of fashion, I think.  The PK4 is pretty much in in this era.   So that video is better than you think.

[Andrew Reid]

9 hours ago, kye said:

Interesting stuff, but still a way to go.  

The Xiaomi 12S Ultra has a crop-factor of 2.7 (calculated from sensor width) with an f1.9 fixed wide (which equates to a 23mm f5 lens) and an f4.1 zoom (which equates to an f11 5x zoom lens) and a f2.2 ultra-wide (which equates to a 13mm f6 lens).

This means that even wide open its got deeper depth of field than decent lenses on a S16 camera:
https://www.vintagelensesforvideo.com/category/super16/

9mm F1.9 prime on Super 16mm is considered a decent lens. That's what the 12 Ultra has.

The telephoto has a deep DOF, which is quite useful actually as you can get a lot in focus whereas 135mm on full frame, it is more challenging to not just see the subject and nothing else. At closer focus distances you have a very shallow DOF regardless on both of these lenses.

You can also buy a DOF adapter and use DSLR lenses on it.

 

[FHDcrew]

Yeah but the optics in the DOF adapter often gives questionable results as far as final image quality. 

[Kisaha]

I went with the family for a long weekend first time without a camera, I took 3-4 photos with my phone.

Last time on a long weekend a month ago or so, almost 200 photos with the NX500.

[MrSMW]

2 hours ago, Kisaha said:

 

I went with the family for a long weekend first time without a camera, I took 3-4 photos with my phone.

Last time on a long weekend a month ago or so, almost 200 photos with the NX500.

 

Pretty sure I’d take around the same whichever device I had with me, camera or phone.

I would rather have/use a camera but the reality is it’s an extra device to be porting around and whenever I have taken both, I ended up either replicating or using the phone more.

Like many others, I take little to no joy using my phone. For anything. It is literally just a functional tool to me.

I do not spend any time looking at reviews or news about phones (other than briefly and specifically when buying a new one) and subscribe to any kind of user or tech channel that blathers on about phones? Eugh, no!

I suspect if I didn’t make a living out of photography, I’d be more likely to use a camera outside of work, but for personal stuff, I can no longer be bothered.

Unless someone wishes to gift me an X100V and then I’ll make an effort. But anything less such as an F or a T, go away.

[Kisaha]

ΝΧ500 with the pancakes is miniscule. 28mgpxls. I have the 45mm for portraits and the 30mm pancake as a starting point. Sometimes I bring the 16-50PZ with me as an all arounder (tiny..).the camera is inside a faux-leather case, and the one extra lens and battery just fit on my general use bag(no extra camera bag. I just throw the camera in, and the lens/battery on a small pocket). 

I am getting both the R7 and the NX500 next week with me!

[RawZion]

I would love to try out those large sensor phones.  It's pretty incredible already what my Huawei P30 (which I bought for $250 CAD) can do by guessing at focal distance and combining images from it's three lenses. 

What I'll often do on a recreational excursion is bring a longer prime for my Nikon Z6 (either an 85 or 50 usually) and use the smartphone for wide shots, where depth of focus can be deeper.  I absolutely adore the in-body raw photo editing in the Nikon, and Adobe Photoshop Raw on the phone is a pretty annoying and terrible program, but I would imagine that software will advance quickly and that'll help further blur the difference between the two devices.

We can't really fight change, I'm learning to use both.  Here are some shots from each, I'm sure you'll be able to tell which are which, but I think you'll be surprised how similar they are.

[kye]

25 minutes ago, RawZion said:

I would love to try out those large sensor phones.  It's pretty incredible already what my Huawei P30 (which I bought for $250 CAD) can do by guessing at focal distance and combining images from it's three lenses. 

What I'll often do on a recreational excursion is bring a longer prime for my Nikon Z6 (either an 85 or 50 usually) and use the smartphone for wide shots, where depth of focus can be deeper.  I absolutely adore the in-body raw photo editing in the Nikon, and Adobe Photoshop Raw on the phone is a pretty annoying and terrible program, but I would imagine that software will advance quickly and that'll help further blur the difference between the two devices.

We can't really fight change, I'm learning to use both.  Here are some shots from each, I'm sure you'll be able to tell which are which, but I think you'll be surprised how similar they are.

I love the touch of fake-DoF blur on the brim of the woman's hat!

[webrunner5]

That was probably shot with his Nikon. 😜

[kye]

57 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

That was probably shot with his Nikon. 😜

Hahaha...  the flat background is unmistakable.  

I like it how in an attempt to make the photo have more depth, it just makes the background look like a green-screen or a poster mounted a few feet behind the subject of the photo.