Smartphone sensor size on a rampage

[webrunner5]

Yeah, they haven't got it figured out yet, but no doubt they will fix in the long run. Just a matter of time.

[zerocool22]

Its gonna be good and bad news when they do. I would love such a tool, as I have it on me 24/7. Problem is that everyone else also does. 

Which will saturate the markets even more, it will get harder to make a living. Sure you could move up a level, but guess what, every creator will try to do so.

 

[MrSMW]

I think we are a million miles from the pro market using a phone as their pro tool. If ever. 

Just because it can do some things, seemingly on a similar level, these things do not.

And whilst camera development may be slowing (is it?), it's still going to be ahead of phones.

Phones are gaining more camera tech than cameras are gaining phone tech but I don't see a point where they become one and the same thing.

Sometimes, you just need a specific tool to do a job.

[RawZion]

Kye was right.  The first two photos (horse, and girl tying ice skates) were shot with my Nikon Z6, the first with a Rokinon 85mm T1.5 Cine lens, the second with the Nikon Z 40mm (at f2.2).  The other two (car outside restaurant, girl at festival wearing hat) were the Huawei P30.  I like that you guys noticed different things about it.  For me, the giveaway in the car shot is the clouds, but I think it got the DoF faked perfectly in that shot.  Close, but as Kye said, no cigar on the girl with the hat at the festival.

With a larger sensor and continuing neural networks this could tilt the other way soon though

[independent]

Sensor size will increase, but it will be subject to limiting factors. One, diminishing returns and less demand for what a larger sensor size can get you. Not everybody in the market will need or care. Second, AI will increasingly simulate what larger sensors offer. 

Doesn't mean Apple and Google will dominate the pro industry. The pros will remain; what won't be the large prosumer market that buys pro gear for no good reason. They won't be able to afford the pro gear nor will they need it.

 

[kye]

9 hours ago, RawZion said:

Kye was right.  The first two photos (horse, and girl tying ice skates) were shot with my Nikon Z6, the first with a Rokinon 85mm T1.5 Cine lens, the second with the Nikon Z 40mm (at f2.2).  The other two (car outside restaurant, girl at festival wearing hat) were the Huawei P30.  I like that you guys noticed different things about it.  For me, the giveaway in the car shot is the clouds, but I think it got the DoF faked perfectly in that shot.  Close, but as Kye said, no cigar on the girl with the hat at the festival.

With a larger sensor and continuing neural networks this could tilt the other way soon though

Yeah, they seem to over-blur the things close behind the subject and under-blur the things a long way behind the subject. I would have thought that they'd apply a progressive blur?  The depth-camera is surely able to give zones where things are further away, although the more zones you have the more edges you have to navigate so I guess that's a potential issue.

For me it's the lack of progression to being blurred that makes them look odd.  I saw a video the other day where the subject filmed at a wide aperture in front of a landscape with everything a long way from the subject and it created this two-levels kind of look which immediately looked fake, but I think it was real and just how the scene was.

It's kind of like when 3D graphics first got good and you'd get used to the tell-tale signs of how they looked fake, but every now and then you'd see one of those signs in real-life and do a double-take.  

[osmanovic]

On 8/3/2022 at 5:59 AM, webrunner5 said:

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.

We used the small pocket on the gimbal two weeks ago during film production in Bulgaria and Greece, the road was very narrow and there was only one solution, the small pocket on the gimbal. We use the camera for certain scenes and whenever the Arri Alexa is used as an A-Cam. Do you know why? There is no modern camera that combines better with Arri Alexa except the older Blackmagic cameras.
Smartphones will never replace it, because it's not the sensor size, but the sensor specifications, the color science, dynamic range and the possibilities in color grading. Some think that the sensor doesn't matter and that RAW or a good codec is all that matters. I can tell you from my experience with colorists that this is not true.

[webrunner5]

Glad to see the OG is working out for you. No real surprise it can look great with skill. They are a great learning tool also.

But the "Smartphones will never replace it" statement while true today you can't say that it won't Never happen, who thought they can do what they do now in such a short amount of time. The tech on them is Miles ahead of regular cameras and will continue to stay way ahead. It won't happen tomorrow, but they will replace probably every camera other than super top end stuff for the movie industry down the road. I give them like 4 to 5 years to almost make that happen. They are not a lot off now. I think most camera manufactures are going to be out of business down the road. There are not enough Pro users to keep it going. For 99.5% of the people they are good enough right now. If they had one with a great zoom lens on it I would never buy a real camera again.

[kye]

On 8/5/2022 at 10:26 AM, webrunner5 said:

Glad to see the OG is working out for you. No real surprise it can look great with skill. They are a great learning tool also.

But the "Smartphones will never replace it" statement while true today you can't say that it won't Never happen, who thought they can do what they do now in such a short amount of time. The tech on them is Miles ahead of regular cameras and will continue to stay way ahead. It won't happen tomorrow, but they will replace probably every camera other than super top end stuff for the movie industry down the road. I give them like 4 to 5 years to almost make that happen. They are not a lot off now. I think most camera manufactures are going to be out of business down the road. There are not enough Pro users to keep it going. For 99.5% of the people they are good enough right now. If they had one with a great zoom lens on it I would never buy a real camera again.

The better I get at grading the more I can see aspects in the OG BMPCC / BMMCC images that aren't there in modern sensors.  I made that thread about every camera looking like a Sony some time ago and it's still the case - almost every camera looks like a Sony sensor in a box.

The theory is that a perfect camera can emulate any other camera, but there are two caveats with this:

1. The perfect camera has to surpass the "target" camera in every way, and there are certain aspects of image quality that the OG BMPCC BMMCC cameras still surpass every modern camera except the Alexa and Red and perhaps the Venice and other random examples.
2. The colourist has to be up to the challenge.  Steve Yedlin famously emulated film with an Alexa, but this was pretty controversial because most colourists are simply not capable of that level of image processing and he had to write his own custom software to do it, let alone taking a Sony image and making it look like an Alexa.

To put it bluntly, even if Sony made a sensor good enough (and you could afford it), you're not good enough to grade it, and neither is almost anyone else, perhaps on the planet.

In the camera sensor landscape there are essentially four players that I know about.  On Semiconductor who make the Alexa sensor, Fairchild who made the OG BMPCC and BMMCC sensors, Canon who make their own sensors, and Sony who make basically everything else.

The development of the Alexa sensor and the Fairchild sensors was done at a time when the noise and colour reproduction of film were the most crucial aspects of image quality for their customers.  The primary driving factors for Sony is resolution and dynamic range.

You're right that smartphones will replace most cameras, but not because they will be better - it's obvious that they aren't - but because people will change their tastes to align with what smartphones can do.  If all you see are "Sony" images then you'll be happy with them because you don't know any different.

Almost everyone on these forums has now adjusted to the look of Sony sensors, which is an increase in technical specification and a huge decrease in emotional performance.  This emotional performance is why companies like Leica stay in business making cameras that are technically worse but still sell for many times the price.  

[MrSMW]

Yay for Leica (and the Panny S1R) not having a Sony sensor 😎

[FHDcrew]

5 hours ago, MrSMW said:

Yay for Leica (and the Panny S1R) not having a Sony sensor 😎

Woot

[webrunner5]

Neither one but a Dentist can afford! 😁

[MrSMW]

S1R’s can be had on the used market for 1500! Even back street dentists can afford them!

[webrunner5]

When you are retired even 150 is a ball buster. I paid 109 dollars for my GH2, I had to eat dog turds and tree bark for 2 weeks to make it up. The yard is clean now, but the trees look like crap 😜

[webrunner5]

Well I bought a used OnePlus Pro 9. Got a really good deal on one from a Pawnshop, like 350 bucks used. And a friend of mine wanted to buy my Xperia Pro-1 for nearly what I paid for it so why not. He has several Sony FF cameras, and they sort of work together well. So, a win for him and well me also.

I have been a fan of the OnePlus cameras, never had one but like an underdog. And this video helped push me over to the Pro 9. I have not got it yet, mid next week they say. So, something else to learn but hey sort of like doing that stuff. They have had some nice updates on the phone as of late. Good looking B&W and the XPan thing is interesting. We shall see soon enough.

Interesting that the picture they use of the camera is not a OnePlus Pro 9 it is the cheaper model OnePlus 9, hmm. But footage is using the Pro 9 in the video, odd. Oh well.

 

[MrSMW]

11 hours ago, webrunner5 said:

When you are retired even 150 is a ball buster. I paid 109 dollars for my GH2, I had to eat dog turds and tree bark for 2 weeks to make it up. The yard is clean now, but the trees look like crap 😜

According to my maths, that would be 20 weeks to afford a used S1R and about 9 years on that diet to get the Leica SL2.

Not worth it for the Leica.

[Emanuel]

On 8/4/2022 at 3:24 AM, webrunner5 said:

That was probably shot with his Nikon. 😜

Who cares with such subject?! LOL ; ) Love the shooter's work BTW :- )

[Django]

I hate the fake camera phone DoF look for stills & "cinematic" video modes. Just like beauty filters etc, it just screams fake and hence cringe. That said, standard photos on my iPhone 13 can look great with a little editing, especially for social media & sharing. I just got back from a big holiday family trip and 90% of my shots were done on the iPhone and only 10% with my Canon R6 (basically only for low light situations). The best camera is the one you have on you and I just didn't feel like lugging the MILC+lenses around, especially since we were on boats, beaches etc every day. I didn't even bring the Leica M as it made me nervous getting lost/stolen.

So yeah, smartphone all day for travel snapshots & camcorder moments. But for serious portraits, night & pro work, you still can't beat a mirrorless with fast glass. The phone lenses are the real IQ bottleneck imo. That Sony Xperia Pro1 caught my attention though, great option if you're in the Sony Alpha & Android ecosystem.

[Emanuel]

15 hours ago, Django said:

The best camera is the one you have on you and I just didn't feel like lugging the MILC+lenses around, especially since we were on boats, beaches etc every day. I didn't even bring the Leica M as it made me nervous getting lost/stolen.

So yeah, smartphone all day for travel snapshots & camcorder moments. But for serious portraits, night & pro work, you still can't beat a mirrorless with fast glass.

It's all about that.

- EAG ;- )

[webrunner5]