https://photographylife.com/camera-companies-smartphone-survival
For the past few years, the camera market has been contracting at an unusually fast pace, resulting in decreased sales of DSLR and mirrorless cameras. The point-and-shoot market is already dead, and entry-level camera sales have also seen huge declines worldwide. This is mostly attributed to the rise of the smartphone, and the fact that smartphone manufacturers have been moving into the camera industry, focusing heavily on camera features. The outlook of the smartphone invasion is pretty grim, and it seems like some companies might not be able to survive as a result. So the big question is, is there anything camera manufacturers can do to stay afloat? I have been wondering about this for a while now, so I have decided to put together some of my thoughts in this article.
The story is a long read, but raises many excellent points. One of the first takeaways was that good cellphone cameras are: compact, quick and easy to use. Professional and prosumer They are carrying around heavy, bulky items that are to time-consuming to get set up.
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How Camera Companies can Survive the Smartphone
(Score: 2) by Valkor on Friday February 07 2020, @06:39AM (1 child)
if i could afford one of their nice cameras i'd be inclined to spend the cash on one plus its toys and software. if i paid for what i'm wiling to part with on their stuff i'd get something as good as my flagship phone's camera, but at least it would mount cleanly on my tripod and probably have a decent integrated flash. i think analog photography is worth lugging the gear around for, but i'm lucky enough to still have access to local professional developing services (no shipping it off to texas).
(Score: 4, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 07 2020, @07:23PM
Price, and to a lesser degree: convenience, be damned. 30 years ago photography cost $1 per shot, that's pretty close to $5 per shot in todays' money, and people took hundreds of photos a year. It was inconvenient as hell, the cameras were expensive, bulky, delicate and fragile.
Today, the difference I appreciate between an "always with me" cellphone camera and a couple of hundred dollar dedicated camera is in the telephoto/zoom. The "real camera" has a "real lens" that can be held more stable, collect more light, and get telephoto shots that the cellphones just aren't capable of. The more expensive dedicated cameras take this to varying increasing degrees of capability, but, in a nutshell, that's it.
Back in 1989, I traveled all over Europe with a 35mm camera with just the standard 50mm lens - though I had a couple of longer lenses I didn't think they were worth the hassle. I shot ~30 rolls of 36 photos and made a nice, one off, album of the trip. All told, that album cost me about $1000, when the airfare, food, lodging, trains, and misc. of the 12 week trip only cost ~$3000. The camera and lens were close to another $1000. I went back in 1990 with a $40 point-and-shoot, only took 2 rolls of pictures, and generally enjoyed not having the camera gear to lug around a whole lot more than I ever enjoyed sharing the album.
Since almost everybody carries these phones today that are FAR better than the old point and shoots, the photos themselves cost nothing other than the time to compose the shot, and sharing is nearly free instant and global, it's not surprising that the bulky, costly cameras are losing marketshare. But, they'll never go away entirely, because yes indeed, if you go to the extra hassle and expense, there are some very nice photos (mostly telephoto zoom) that you can take better with the fancy gear.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Disagree) by driverless on Friday February 07 2020, @09:13AM (10 children)
They can sit back and do nothing and things will be fine. Unless smart phone vendors figure out how to violate the laws of physics and put full-size sensors and 3kg of glass into a cellphone, they have nothing to worry about.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday February 07 2020, @09:34AM (5 children)
This was also the case in the day of film. What HAS changed is that my prosumer DSLR can be used as a point and shoot camera (if you don't mind the size).
They certainly don't need to worry when it comes to good quality gear because that's not the phone camera market. There are 10 types of people: those who care about image quality and those who don't; it's the entry level point and shoot that will probably disappear (because the latter group won't be buying) and be replaced by entry level "advanced amateur" (to cater for the former).
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by driverless on Friday February 07 2020, @10:27AM (2 children)
Yup, exactly. So it's the point-and-shoot segment that has to worry, not the prosumer-grade gear.
Having said that, I've seen far too many people use DSLRs as point-and-shoots, so at least that part of the DSLR market will fade. As a camera snob I don't see that as a bad thing, we're only a few steps away from seeing good-quality DSLRs add junk like selfie modes rather than going for better low-light performance or similar.
(Score: 3, Touché) by fyngyrz on Friday February 07 2020, @02:56PM
...Canon's last iteration of their 6D full-frame DSLR did exactly that — added bells and whistles, but didn't improve the camera's ability to acquire lower noise or higher dynamic range image data.
Which is precisely why I didn't upgrade my 6D to a 6DmkII.
If they want my money, they have to advance these things.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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You can't fix stupid. But you can elect it.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday February 07 2020, @04:45PM
The point-and-shoot segment of the camera market has long disappeared; that is the camera phone segment now.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 07 2020, @07:34PM
We bought our last point and shoot about 15 years ago, and only got it because it was waterproof when the cameras weren't. If it had lasted more than 2 years, we might still be loyal point and shoot users, but that was our 3rd point and shoot in less than 10 years, and we were sold on the idea of just using the phone instead of dealing with another bit of needlessly temperamental gear.
For the shots they're good at (not telephoto), cellphone camera quality can be better than fine, even better than "professional" 35mm film and lenses were in the 1970s. Still depends a bit on your particular choice of phone, but 10 years ago there were good cameras on some phones, and today there are good cameras on most phones.
Then there are specialty form factors like the GoPro, which have their niche, but are mostly not as good as a cellphone for most photos you would want to take.
However, if you're trying to get 10 clear megapixels of a single face from 100 yards, at least for the moment you're still going to need that bigger lens.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday February 08 2020, @03:16AM
This is a classic example of "disruptive technology". To disrupt a market, a technology doesn't necessarily have to be better, and indeed can be worse. But if it's dramatically cheaper or dramatically more convenient then it changes who the customers are. Companies can retool or rebuild factories but it's really hard to rebuild a customer list.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by zocalo on Friday February 07 2020, @03:15PM
Tech wise this probably couldn't have come at a worse time as the camera market is also having to deal with the transition from DSLRs to mirrorless, which is also pushing up the number of camera models required when the market ideal is to reduce them - unless they have gone all-in on mirrorless already. Just as phone's can't perform as well as a proper camera can do because physics, so to there are things that a DSLR will always do better than mirrorless because physics, and that's going to mean a diminishing subset of users that insist on a proper camera, and a subset of those for which only a DSLR (or MF, or whatever) will do. That's not something that I see as remotely sustainable given the current trends, which means cameras need to find a unique selling point that phones cannot possibly do that also appeals to the masses enough to make then buy one - sitting back and doing nothing is just going to mean continuing the current trend of fighting for larger slices of a pie that gets smaller every year. They may be some winners in that model, but equally there will absolutely be some losers - and that's almost certainly going to mean some more big photographic names falling by the wayside.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 07 2020, @07:27PM (1 child)
From the perspective of 30 years ago, the cellphone vendors have already violated the laws of physics for both optics and sound reproduction.
However, the telephoto zoom shot is still better captured with big apertures, and if nothing else, the ergonomics of traditional cameras makes them easier to steady for those kinds of shots whether handheld or tripod mounted.
I wonder if the R&D that has been put into cellphone lenses had been earnestly applied to big telephoto lenses what they could accomplish? Mirror lenses have been around forever and they are pretty tricky/cool already, but I'm sure they could do much more if they really tried.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @06:22AM
Not likely, prime lenses have made very little improvement in quality in decades because they were that good. Zoom lenses have made some improvements over the last couple decades due to improved coatings, optical image stabilization and defractive optics, but large, long lenses are always going to be tricky. It's one of the reasons why the camera companies are trying to kill off dSLRs and replace them with mirror-less models. It makes the lens design a lot easier.
There's still a significant market for those lenses, if for no other purpose than sports and news photography. These lenses don't have to sell in the kinds of quantities that shorter ones due as they're able to sell for a substantial markup.
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday February 08 2020, @03:22AM
The quality can fundamentally never be the same. Yes, absolutely.
Almost all the images are going to wind up displayed on phone screens or maybe laptop browsers. The extra image quality of a large sensor and better optics would go to waste in that use case.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Bot on Friday February 07 2020, @09:26AM (3 children)
The camera will always be different from the smartphone in terms of capability because a larger surface gets more photons and at a different angle no matter the tech behind it all.
How the larger sensor will be integrated is another matter. Pro cams will always be on their own, because you shoot weddings and you need two separate memory slots and ideally a friend with a different cam. The low range is sadly eaten up by smartphones, due to ignorance (you can spend peanuts for an used m43 and vintage lens and have results that top smartphones struggle to unsuccesfully simulate in software, but people don't know or prefer to show off a flagship phone than a battered camera).
They tried to develop larger sensor modules for smartphones, integrated or separated. I think they did not succeed because of ergonomics and unreliability of the smartphone itself, even a hobbyist will ask for a cam things that a smartphone struggles to deliver, operation in any temperature, fast UI and familiarity with previous models, battery replacement in 5 seconds... But a camera module which relies on dedicated smartphone is going to succeed, once ergonomics on the module and reliability on the phone are achieved.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 07 2020, @07:40PM (2 children)
The tech behind it all actually matters quite a bit. In the years just before chemical film died, the "fast films" were getting less and less grainy - you might shoot a 400 film from the late 1990s and get an image quality comparable to a 100 speed film from the early 1970s - that has direct bearing on the Fstop required for a given shot at a given shuterspeed, and thereby the size/weight of the lens required, etc.
The same has happened in electronic imaging sensors. My first digital camera (1996, I think) took 320x240 images and basically needed full daylight to avoid the "grainy look" - but, be careful not to get a sun reflection on it or you'd get a green stripe burned across the image.
As important as the number of megapixels in the image sensors is their sensitivity to incoming photons. I doubt we're down to single photon sensitivity yet, but as we progress in that direction, smaller sensors (and lenses) will become capable of the same image quality as today's larger sensors.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday February 09 2020, @11:22AM (1 child)
Yrs, what I meant though is that the tech breakthrough is going to improve both big and small sensors, engineering issues notwithstanding.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday February 09 2020, @03:03PM
I suppose there will always be people who "need the best" - but, if a "professional photographer" from the 1960s got by with equipment that produced quality X - doesn't it stand to reason that a "professional photographer" from the 2060s might produce product with quality better than X even if their equipment uses flat lenses the size of a thumbnail?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Booga1 on Friday February 07 2020, @09:32AM (12 children)
The best camera is the one you have with you and ready to take a shot. I suspect the majority of adults in developed countries have a cellphone and almost every cellphone is now a camera phone.
I have two DSLRs and a range of lenses. When I picked up the first one it had 8 megapixels at a time when camera phones were not only uncommon, but the resolutions were as low as 0.33MP all the way up to 2MP and had no flash. Plus, image quality was lousy unless you were in outdoor lighting. The DSLR could do photos by candle light. Now the phone sensors have improved in quality and resolution. Plus they are "smart" enough to capture multiple images and stack them to get decent low light performance. So, there goes several big advantages the DSLR had.
Another issue is the camera companies trickling out features to lure people into the upgrade treadmill. For example, Canon put eye controlled autofocus in a film SLR in 1992 [global.canon] ...yet Canon still hasn't put it on any DSLRs. Phone manufacturers seem to be innovating at a far faster pace because there's more competition.
When the phone is good enough 9 times out of 10, the cameras now only come out when I know they'll get me shots that a phone can't. That's what's killing the cameras for me. I see no need to upgrade to a new DSLR any time soon, possibly another ten years.
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday February 07 2020, @10:29AM (1 child)
The best camera depends on circumstances. Recently I have been copying dozens of old family photos with a macro lens on a DSLR on a tripod and carefully arranged lighting. That was the best camera for that job. If you are into wildlife photography, a DSLR with a powerful telephoto would be the best for the job. What you describe sounds more like street and candid photography and I'm sure a phone camera is best for that, but it's not my thing.
Phone makers don't do that of course.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Booga1 on Friday February 07 2020, @01:50PM
What I mean regarding "the one you have on you" is as much about picking the right tool for the job as it is about personal preferences and conveniences. I've had friends spend a couple grand on DSLR gear and then not even take it to the zoo because it's too much hassle for them. The best camera in the world does no good if you won't take it with you.
What I mean by "ready to take a shot" is about being prepared. When I go mountain hiking I have to decide if I really want to haul the 400mm zoom or the 150mm macro lenses with me on the chance I'll see an eagle/spider/elk/whatever to photograph. Should take the tripod instead so I can get some nice long exposures at the waterfall? Do I have the right lens on the camera when the random herd of elk walk past my camp? A cellphone or compact camera has much less to think about since there are no lenses to swap.
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P.S. Your comment made me think about what photos I take the most of so I decided to look through my public photos. [flickr.com] It's about 75% wildlife and landscapes, 5% candids, 10% architecture, 10% sports.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Friday February 07 2020, @03:24PM (9 children)
Yeah... no.
You can stack or incorporate AI methodologies with a DSLR as well, and you'll get even better results because you start with better data. No matter what software levers are applied to tiny smartphone sensors, there's nothing at all that says they can't also be applied to higher quality sensors, either in-camera or during post. And physics dictates that the larger sensor will always, always acquire higher quality data in the first place.
Further, WRT stacking and low-light; because the DSLR has a better sensor, it can get higher quality in low light, faster; where the tiny sensor requires several frames during which subject matter can move in uncorrelatable ways, the DSLR will be able to get the image in a single, much-shorter exposure, or in the case of very low light, fewer exposures.
Any advantage or simply parity smartphones manage to achieve WRT DSLRs using software will be wiped out by the DSLRs and/or their support software doing the same thing. Or better, considering they have better image data available to start with. Not to mention the awesome range of lenses available that simply have nothing even slightly resembling peers in the smartphone arena.
Then there are the advantages of immediate battery replacement and re-entry into the photography task, whereas the smartphone will have to go sit on a charger for a while; this gives rise to the related ability to apply more CPU power because if there isn't enough battery, you can address that whereas you can't with any of the high-end smartphones (although any smartphone manufacturer could fix that in an engineering heartbeat, they seem to have all decided not to, because they want to force the consumer to keep buying new smartphones, and that has been a successful strategy.) The power budget in a DSLR is only limited based on total battery capacity, rather than capacity and recharge time as in a smartphone. You can even get multiple-battery add-ons for DSLRs.
The casual photographer who really wasn't a very good market opportunity for DSLR manufacturers anyway will be pretty happy with their smartphone and its minimal lens options. DSLRs will continue to dominate any serious photography users considerations and choices. This will (has) shrunk the size of the DSLR market noticeably, but it'll never even touch the segment that is made up of people who want the best possible results for their money. There really doesn't seem to be any way for smartphones to make significant inroads into those users for whom ultimate image quality and flexibility is the goal.
Physics: there are some laws you can't break.
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To quote Hamlet, act III, scene III, line 92: "No."
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Friday February 07 2020, @04:03PM (3 children)
All very true, but that still doesn't address the fact that smartphones are now "good enough" for casual use to replace the a fair portion of cameras. Others have mentioned that it is really the compact camera market that's being eaten alive by smartphones.
Also, if you check the article, their idea of saving the camera market is to give in and turn them into bulky smartphones, complete with social media upload capabilities and quarterly firmware updates... yikes!
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday February 07 2020, @04:54PM (2 children)
And there are things that phone cameras can do better than DSLRs. First and foremost, it's a lot easier to send your pictures from the camera to somewhere else.
Taking a picture on your phone? You can have it automatically uploaded to cloud storage, or attach it to a forum post, stick it on Facebook, send it via bluetooth/nfc/mms/email, etc.
On a DSLR, you're looking at plugging in a USB (2.0?) cable to copy files to a computer, or physically removing the memory card. There are some OEM wi-fi/bluetooth attachments, but they are all hampered by requiring you to use a proprietary app or similar nonsense (at least that's the case with Nikon).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @11:44AM
They are NOT all proprietary. There's CF cards with wifi-to-storage built in. Eye-Fi is one brand. There are other solutions too.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Bot on Sunday February 09 2020, @11:41AM
I have wifi equipped cam and GoPro clone.
The apps are good for remote control but I wish full read only access to the files and video streams were provided. Had to sniff out a video stream from the sports cam myself.
Once vendors provide a WiFi button and mere file access, sharing stuff with the phone is effortless. If they insist in tightly integrate to tie users to the platform, they risk to clutter up the UI of the cam.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @11:41AM (4 children)
At least one error in your thought: you can't take stacked images with a dslr quite as you can with a cellphonecamera, because the mirror flips. This means at least a few ms between shots (and maybe adds vibration blur? rapidshot is "noisier" to my hands than ultrasonic focus, and if I can feel it then it's impacting the stability of my grip, even if minutely). Maybe newer models have movie modes that can do this? But then you're left using HDR software or whatever, in post, on big files - a process which has always in my experience required hand-tuning.
(Score: 2) by Booga1 on Saturday February 08 2020, @01:08PM (1 child)
Almost...it's not the mirror, that locks in the up position when doing continuous shooting on the DSLR. It's the shutter you can hear/feel. However, while that is a limitation of current designs, they're just one more software update away from a design that will lock the mirror and shutter open and do continuous readout from the sensor and just use software binning the way video works. My second DSLR already has the video mode, but not shutter-less continuous shooting. The latest version of my "tier" of DSLR added electronic shuttering at 1/16000 of a second(0.0625 milliseconds) but can only do 11 fps at full resolution.
So, perhaps that software update that will do lower resolutions with automatic image stacking is right around the corner.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday February 11 2020, @02:53PM
And DSLR manufacturers are drifting towards mirrorless models, so the mirror flip issue would disappear in that case anyway.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday February 08 2020, @08:36PM (1 child)
No. Ask yourself how a DSLR captures video? It simply leaves the mirror up and cycles the sensor as needed. It can leave the shutter open, too — it already does that for long exposures, which can run very long indeed.
These are just software issues, as Booga1 [soylentnews.org] noted.
There is literally nothing a phone's camera hardware and software can do that a DSLR's hardware and software wouldn't be able to do better.
Now, getting crusty old camera manufacturers like Canon to get off the dime and actually implement such things... well, that's another matter. But we do have post-processing, so we can still get the job done anyway.
--
They call it a "selfie" because "narcissistie"
is too difficult to spell.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday February 09 2020, @11:43AM
Plus camera companies are churning out mirrorless models too, so if for some reasons you don't want mirrors, to adapt older lenses or because you prefer evf and instant preview, you are set.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Nuke on Friday February 07 2020, @10:16AM (8 children)
Larger cameras will survive if only because they are - larger. Would people be happy if their hired wedding photographer turned up with just his phone? Or a restaurant owner hiring a pro do do the publicity shots of his interior? Back in film days, there were smaller 35mm cameras and larger "medium format" ones. 35mm SLRs were good, but in the 1970s "every" Joe had one, and though his might cost an order of magnitude less than a top-of-the-range one, they all looked similar. So to have credibility as a pro (other than reportage) you needed one of those more expensive medium format cameras, preferably on a tripod.
That is not to mention the versatile range of lenses for interchangeable lens cameras (ILCs), from extreme telephoto to fisheye, done optically and not by stretching pixels in software.
ILC cameras will survive like desktop PCs will survive - in smaller numbers and more expensive, for professionals and serious amateurs. I think the entry-level ones ( $1000 say) will tend to disappear. Regarding the companies, I understand that Canon is the only one not struggling with its camera sales, and it has other product lines to carry it anyway. Sony and Panasonic obviously have other lines, as do Nikon in a smaller way, and Pentax is supported by Ricoh. Leica will always sell to millionaires, and Fuji and Hasselblad have an ongoing specialised professional market (medium format digital, along with Pentax here). I have only mentioned the makers of the larger ("Full Format") digital ILC cameras. I'm not sure about the market for the small ILCs (Olympus for example).
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday February 07 2020, @10:35AM
Responding to myself, my post says :
That was meant to be "entry-level ones (less than $1000 say)". I unthinkingly used a less-than character and it got stripped off. Sorry.
(Score: 2) by ewk on Friday February 07 2020, @11:26AM (1 child)
"So to have credibility as a pro (other than reportage) you needed one of those more expensive medium format cameras, preferably on a tripod."
And yet, here we are... with the pro (wedding, interior..) photographers happily shooting away with 35mm SLR-sized digital cams (and their clients equally happily being pleased with the good enough results).
With 'good enough' being the operative words here.
Not really sure why this trend should not progress... especially since it means no more investment in equipment (you 'need' a smartphone anyway, the camera inside that smartphone that is updated every 2-3 years as well is an added bonus).
I don't always react, but when I do, I do it on SoylentNews
(Score: 2) by Nuke on Friday February 07 2020, @05:43PM
I think you have forgotten how small most 35mm film SLRs were compared with modern APC or Full Frame DSLRs. I have a FF DSLR and up against my old 35mm film SLR it is a monster. It is closer to the size of a medium format film camera - a 645 or even a 6x6. The DSLR body alone is twice the weight of that of the the 35mm film camera, and added to that its mid-range zoom is about the size and weight of a can of baked beans. I don't generally carry it around for chance shots, I use it for specific photo-shoots.
Regarding DSLRs for pro assignments, it is relative. Even a Four Thirds format DSLR (some pros use them, not sure if for weddings much though) looks the business compared with a phone camera, although they look tiny to me.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by theluggage on Friday February 07 2020, @12:13PM (3 children)
You might want to ask a bunch of Gen Z-ers - who have grown up with phone cameras and the world of social media where everything is ephemeral - why they'd want to pay $$$$ for a
weddinggender-neutral non hierarchical limited-commitment assertion ceremony photographer when they could just ask the guests to upload their phone shots to their InstaFace page (if its not being live-streamed on GoogTube)? The restaurant owner could just upload a VR walkthrough shot on their third-time-lucky Google Glasses (or rendered from a 3D model of what they'd like the interior to look like).Seriously folks - 20 years ago we were arguing whether these new digital cameras being knocked out by Olympus, Canon, Nikon et. al. could ever replace a "proper" 35mm compact, let alone a SLR... Little did we know that the whole shebang was about to be wiped off the map by mobile phones.
I think a good lesson is CD vs vinyl - it was obvious in the 80s that CD was going to wipe out vinyl, and it did. Then downloads decimated CDs, now streaming is decimating downloads and guess what's coming back? Yup, vinyl might be technically and practically crap, but it turns out that people love the rituals and experience that go with playing an LP. OK, so today it is only "big" compared to the smoking ruins of the CD market, but I think the smart money is now on vinyl outlasting the CD. Photography might be the same thing - we've already seen "fads" for instant cameras (which are kinda magical) and it's quite feasible that the future of 'ceremonial' photography will be a few shots taken on a vintage plate camera or (since these days its not a proper wedding unless you're still paying off the debt when the divorce comes around) a hand-painted portrait.
NB: However, I was quite impressed with the combined multi-phone/tablet setup being used to stream a concert I saw a couple of years back... Until I actually saw the result of using large, flat plate-shaped devices with slightly shonky tripod adapters to film music with a heavy bassline...
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday February 07 2020, @05:01PM (2 children)
While I don't park myself in Gen-Z territory, I didn't have much cash to splash about at my wedding, and am a reasonable dab hand with a camera myself, so didn't really want to pay somebody else to do it. It was just a shame that I was the one getting married...
In the end, I set my own DSLR in video mode for the ceremony, let a good friend play about with it in point-and-shoot mode after the ceremony, and asked friends to share their photos with us and everybody (but boringly, we did it by email). I did a few remote-control studio pics with my wife a day or two later, before returning the outfits to the hire shop, and that was it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @06:27AM (1 child)
Photos are one of the dumbest places to try and save money on a wedding. It's not just about the actual camera, it's about having somebody that knows how to make sure they get shots of all the guests and that the shots themselves are of acceptable quality.
I'm not suggesting that plunking down thousands for a photographer is wise, but by the same token, those photos will be all that a couple has to show their children about their wedding.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday February 11 2020, @03:05PM
We saved money everywhere, not just the photographer: registry office wedding, buffet reception at a local gallery for the ~30 guests, followed by an evening BBQ at my in-laws' place, and a hire car to take us each to the wedding in turn (taxi back to the BBQ afterward). Dress bought outright for her, suit hired for me. On that basis, paying ₤500 for a wedding photographer would have increased our budget by 25%. It just wasn't happening with the money we had available.
I'm happy with the photos and video that we got. As it happens, the photo I like best is from the self-portrait photoshoot that I did afterwards. The fact that I could go spray-and-pray with my remote control while we played around like fools in front of the camera sort of meant there had to be at least one good one in amongst the hundred or so shots that I took.
(And not a selfie stick in sight!)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday February 07 2020, @07:44PM
I would be happy if my wedding photographer showed up with 100 bits of "smart dust" that he tosses in the air, it migrates to the various surfaces of the venue like "flies on a wall" and records everything, from 100 different angles, for the entire ceremony. The photographers' job transforms from "knowing when to click the shutter" to "knowing how to edit the footage." You can hire a different specialist to goad the lucky couple and their guests into doing cute cliche things to record for posterity so that everyone can relate to everyone else's wedding albums.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Roo_Boy on Friday February 07 2020, @11:07AM (6 children)
I use my phone camera for random crap that I don't care about, but for astrophotography my Pentax DSLR's (K5II and K3) are so much better.
I don't have a telescope so most of my shots are wide angle sky shots and with the built-in Pentax astrotracer I can get close to 2 minutes exposure time without a tracker and my 50mm prime and get no, zero, zip, nada star trails. Without stacking, you just can't do that with a smartphone. 2 minutes exposure in a dark sky area, like where I am (NW Qld Australia) gives stunning results.
--- The S.I. prototype "Average Punter" is kept in a tube of inert gas in Geneva.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by fyngyrz on Friday February 07 2020, @03:36PM (5 children)
I don't have a telescope either, but good lenses and software enable me to do this [flickr.com] and this [flickr.com], and adding tracking to the process lets me do this [flickr.com].
--
Science. It's like magic, except real.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday February 07 2020, @07:17PM (2 children)
I've taken pictures of the moon before from my front porch with a 250mm lens. Not as much detail as yours though. Now I want to make another attempt.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @06:36AM (1 child)
I personally use a 2x teleconverter with a 200mm lens when I take shots of the moon. That's on an APS-C sized sensor, so that's good for about 500mm of lens angle.
The results are usually fairly good, but it would be better with a tighter view angle.
(Score: 3, Informative) by fyngyrz on Saturday February 08 2020, @09:01PM
Here's my "moon" process:
It's worth taking the time to fiddle with your lens(es) so you can learn what is the very sharpest f/stop for each lens you use. Once you know, use that preferentially. If you don't want to experiment, look it up on line; this is a common issue much-discussed about pretty much every lens in existence.
For instance LMGTFY [lmgtfy.com]
😊
Also... your teleconverter is almost certainly reducing your sharpness. For most teleconverters combined with high-pitch sensors, you get closer, but you don't get more detail.
--
Avoid negativity:
f(x) = |x|
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @11:52AM (1 child)
Wow, some fantastic shots.
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Saturday February 08 2020, @08:29PM
Thank you :)
(Score: 3, Funny) by wisnoskij on Friday February 07 2020, @02:48PM
I for one look forward to thinner cameras, with web browsers and texting capabilities.
"Why buy a smartphone when you can watch pewdiepie on your camera?" - Kodak
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 07 2020, @04:25PM (10 children)
Smartphones are increasing powerful, with better and better games coming out all the time. How can Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft survive? Why bother with a Switch when you can have a phone with hundreds of gigabytes of memory that people have all the time, and games which are $10 (or even free)? Why bother with a PS5 you need to set up at home, when you have your phone with you everywhere you go?
It's the exact same thing. Specialized purpose-built hardware is always better. The main question (and this applies to game console manufacturers as well) is "How much better is the purpose-built hardware than the generic device," and "is there enough of a market at the level which desires that extra performance to support it?"
That being said, I guess there is some value in exploring the features and competitive advantages of a purpose-built camera has over a phone to try to better tune the first question to what the market wants.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday February 07 2020, @05:07PM (9 children)
The puropse-built cameras are better for image quality (for now), but they're already way behind in the usablilty and convenience race.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Friday February 07 2020, @06:53PM (8 children)
Usability? No. Both video games and photography are crippled on a phone by the shitty input device.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Friday February 07 2020, @09:29PM (7 children)
Disregarding video games, selecting a focus location on a live-view image by pressing a touchscreen is simple and intuitive, but few DSLRs allow you to do that: they expect you to navigate the individual focus points with a d-pad, even though there's more than fifty of them to navigate through.
But while physical buttons and switches can be good (says the owner of a phone with a physical keyboard), the usability of DSLRs after you take a photo hasn't really changed much in the past two decades.
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Friday February 07 2020, @10:48PM (3 children)
Or you can just focus and recompose.
For my use case, uploading photos is more fiddly with a phone than a DSLR, and the DSLR makes the bit before the photo gets taken so much easier.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday February 08 2020, @07:49PM (2 children)
Works well for portraits or stills, not always as well with action shots.
Mind you, if you're going to move, focus, and recompose, why did the camera manufacturer bother giving you 50-odd focus points to choose from in the first place?
(Score: 2) by fido_dogstoyevsky on Saturday February 08 2020, @09:17PM (1 child)
I have no idea... keeping up with the Jones for advertising purposes maybe? Use cases other than mine (assuming marketing was told to butt out)? At least people who don't need them aren't locked into using them.
It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Sunday February 09 2020, @12:02PM
Fair enough. If it does what you need of it without hampering you, all the better.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @06:34AM (1 child)
You clearly don't know much about cameras. dSLRs are designed so that you can control most important settings just by touch. You don't need to take your eyes off of the subject in order to change important settings. And good ones will often have the ability to select presets.
dSLRs are always going to take better pictures in challenging situations than a camera phone will, if for no other reason than that it's purpose built for taking photos. Any camera can get great shots when you've got good lighting and a cooperative subject, but only a higher quality camera will still do so when the lighting is iffy and the subject doesn't want to be shot.
After taking a photo is a stupid place to draw the line. At that point, most of the decisions that really matter have been made. Sure, you can use raw files to allow some color correction and you can do a recrop, but that's pretty limited and depending upon what you do, you may lose out on image information when you do the modifications. In some instances, you may not even be allowed to edit the shots.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by kazzie on Sunday February 09 2020, @12:31PM
The last purpose-made digital camera I bought, I specifically chose another SLR over a mirrorless camera as I value the immediate feedback of the optical viewfinder. Perhaps that's a hangover from using rangefinders and film SLRs when I was younger. Similarly, when looking at ergonomics, I chose a Nikon model rather than a Canon, as the mid-range models I can afford come with only one thumbwheel for aperture and focus control, and the placement on the Nikon bodies felt more natural. (Under the thumb rather than the finger, with the Canon bodies my index finger had to roll the wheel and also move over to the shutter button. But that's what suited me. Your mileage may vary. I'm just glad I went to a real camera shop where I could try them out, rather than buy online and hope for the best.) Other options have to be hidden under menus, fair enough, but when successive models by the same manufacturer rearrange these menus on most iterations, or even worse, move the physical buttons, it doesn't play nicely with your muscle memory.
I find that the greatest obstacle to taking good pictures with my DSLR is not having it with me: with two or three lenses it's an appreciable bulk, and unless I anticipate wanting to use it, I tend to leave it at home. If something does come up, my phone's always in my pocket. As some individual once said, the best camera is the one you have in your hand at the time.
When my first child was born, I took my DSLR along, as I knew it would do a much better job in the low-light environment of the delivery room than a phone camera. Sharing the newborn pictures (along with the news of the birth, etc.) with family was more convoluted than it would have been with phone pictures; in this instance I planned ahead and made sure I was using a microSD card (plus adapter) in my camera, which I could transfer to my phone to send snaps to the world.
Years later, when watching said child's first school concert, I didn't bother trying to use my phone's camera over the length of the school hall. I knew that I'd get a much better picture with a telephoto lens on my DSLR, stood at the back leaning against the wall in lieu of a tripod.
But as you say, I clearly don't know much about cameras, so I'll sit hear eagerly waiting more of your sage advice.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Monday February 10 2020, @03:55AM
I can't speak for DSLRs, but my mirrorless camera can do that. If I want to use the camera like it's a phone, holding it out in front of me with one hand and poking the touchscreen with my with fingers on my other hand, I can use the touchscreen to control the focus. Though I tend to prefer using the electronic viewfinder, as it won't wash out in bright light, and I gain some stability with the camera held up against my face. Doing that, I can use the d-pad to move the focus points around, though it's quicker typically to set it focus on whatever is in the center of the image. I can then quickly shift the camera so that whatever I want is in the center of the viewfinder, lock the focus, and shift back to get the composition I want. Or I can quickly flip to manual focus mode, and just control the focus directly, which is super simple as the camera will outline in the electronic viewfinder what the autofocus system thinks is currently in focus.
In terms of usability I'll put a dedicated camera over any smartphone, as a dedicated camera - even a point & shoot has dedicated controls for most of what I would want to commonly change, whereas the smartphone you have to do everything except maybe taking the picture through the touchscreen (most phones let you use a side button for the shutter), and when I'm mucking around in the touchscreen now my finger is in the way of what I'm trying to look at. As I said above, my camera has a touchscreen but it's designed so that you can do everything without ever using the touchscreen. This is more than just appealing to luddites, because you still want to be able to operate the camera looking through the electronic viewfinder where touch isn't an option, and for the most part the screen on the back is just a mirror of the viewfinder.
I'll give phones have it far easier in terms of sharing a photo though. To get a photo off of my camera, I either have turn it off, remove the memory card and use a card reader on my PC, or hook it up the PC with a cable. The camera does have wireless, which is supposed to let me send images to a phone or a computer through bluetooth or wifi - sounds promising, but it's such a pain in the ass to set up and not very reliable so it's just easier to transfer the images the old fashioned way.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Friday February 07 2020, @07:24PM (2 children)
Everyone stop carrying unauditable tracking devices with them?
If camera companies really wanted to get people to stop carrying phones, they would start a data harvesting company and buy up everything they can from the passively collected data, and then dump all that online for free.
If people knew what data about them was stacking up in shadowy windowless offices in budapest, they would drop the phones. They only continue because they do not see their data with their own eyes, it is abtract. And the people collecting like it that way.
This is abuse, and it is happening to a lot of kids under 10.
I wrote this to explain, but no one listens to me.
http://jmichaelhudson.net/smart-phones-and-wild-bears-2/ [jmichaelhudson.net]
https://archive.is/eSLh7 [archive.is]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 07 2020, @09:56PM
Before I read parent, I was going to propose that the camera companies might survive by adding phone functionality to their nice cameras. Perhaps with some fast cloning software so that when you go on a hike, you can take the good camera and still have all your phone data with you (just one device, instead of two). Then clone back to the phone when back to the daily grind.
However, now I think that the camera companies should add phones, but I'll guess there is some overlap between people that appreciate good cameras and secure phones. So make the camera (with built-in phone) respect the owner's privacy, to the extent possible.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 08 2020, @12:03PM
Incorrect. We listen to you. Unfortunately you make extreme claims without correspondingly extremely sound evidence and logic. Persons willing to believe everything you claim would be willing to buy a bridge.
Further, there's how the message is delivered. The homeless guy with "The world is ending!" sign might be correct, and it might even be based on falsifiable premises and sound logic, but his delivery is dubiously couched. Similarly, when you compose inarticulate screeds it makes it harder to see through to the value of your claims.
If you want to have your message heard, read some articulate reporters, and read your own work side by side, and compare style and format and delivery. Why do they start paragraphs with topic sentences? And so on.
I don't mean to offend, but to let you know.
PS - this particular post of yours is one of your better ones. But "shadowy windowless offices in budapest" and "kids under 10" are too-specific, one an imagining of a plausible possibility and one an arbitrary distinction (why do 10 year olds not deserve what those under 10 deserve?), and no reporter would write like that, because those are emotional appeals. They probably have great emotional weight for you. But you cannot expect that of your readers.
(Score: 2) by sonamchauhan on Sunday February 09 2020, @06:55AM
A camera that looks like a small telescope. Uses display overlay, touchpad, vibration elements, bone-conduction speaker, and voice commands for immersed control (i.e., looking into the viewfinder, you use touchpad and other controls to zoom or focus the picture). Supports augmented-reality applications. For exampole, ask it: "Where's the nearest McDonalds?", then raise it to your eye for visual, voice and tactile instruction how to get there. Or ask it to spot family members and pan it across a crowd.
Has microphone array and remote bluetooth microphone support for home-movies or documentaries. Pairs with phone for cloud access. Clip two units for a stereo binocular camera setup, or more for 360-degree photography. Pairs with remote cameras and phones to establish a distributed surveillance system.