Apple Acquisition Could Give Next iPhone DSLR-Like Camera

[Mike Andronico]

The acquisition of LinX by Apple could lead to DSLR-like camera quality for the next iPhone.

Apple Acquisition Could Give Next iPhone DSLR-Like Camera : Read more

 

[CrimsonLuke]

Is that the mutiple aperture thing?

 

[luissantos]

I thought both Apple and payed article writers had been claiming that the iPhone camera was DSLR-like for years.

 

[Punkpablo]

DSLR-like in a phone? Ok. you wish

 

[glasssplinter]

Here we go again with tom's and their claims of DSLR like performance...

 

[Larry Litmanen]

DSLR-like in a phone? Ok. you wish

The issue is DSLRs are a relatively niche product so competition and research is limited. For Apple camera is a very important selling point, they have more money and they sell so many more phones than Canon or Nikkon can move their DSLRs.

By the way i have the cheapest DSLR you can buy and images are AMAZING, i love them. But over the long term companies like Apple and Samsung and others just have so much money and field is so much more lucrative that over the long term they will probably develop a product that is close to DSLR, if not with existing technology they will simply develop new technology.


Look how many people said phones will never take better pics than cameras, how many people now use phones as a replacement for point and shoots.

 

[wiyosaya]

The thing that will give this DSLR performance is optics that are equal or superior in quality to the "big glass" that DSLRs use. So far, no consumer grade company has yet figured out how to take advantage of the laws of physics to make a small lens that is anywhere near as good as the "big glass" of the DSLRs.

Furthermore, even though use of i-whatever cameras is greater than that of DSLRs, I highly doubt that you will find a pro photographer shooting their pro work with an i-whatever due to the fact that the "big glass" simply outperforms an i-whatever's small glass limitations.

 

[dstarr3]

The issue is DSLRs are a relatively niche product so competition and research is limited.

I spent four years of my life as a camera salesman, and I can tell you that DSLRs are not even slightly niche.

And Samsung does make DSLRs.

And really, your entire comment is just one big mess.

 

[house70]

DSLR-like in a phone? Ok. you wish

The issue is DSLRs are a relatively niche product so competition and research is limited. For Apple camera is a very important selling point, they have more money and they sell so many more phones than Canon or Nikkon can move their DSLRs.
...

DSLR a niche product? OK, if you consider that all the professional photographers out there are using them, all the newspapers, sports article writers, advertising firms, multimedia companies, basically any and all visual material that reaches your eyes (excluding family/friends' photos, most of them) on a daily basis is created using DSLRs, that would be a niche the size of Grand Canyon.
Or maybe you need to look up the meaning of 'niche'. If anything, amateur image capture is a niche endeavor, also known as a hobby.
Don't believe me, just go out and look around. All the still images you can see (ads, posters, logos, photos, etc.) were created using a DSLR in the process.
Phone camera sensors are barely reaching the level of a point-and-click camera, but they're not even there yet (the only phone that had that was that Samsung device that looked like a camera with phone capabilities, not viceversa).

 

[gggplaya]

The two largest challenges for smartphones is high ISO performance and depth of field. Now, you can simulate narrow DOF in software, but you can fake high ISO low light performance. DSLR's still rule when taking serious pictures with high MP and lens clarity, and for action, and low light.

Others like dynamic range and color depth and range still leave a bit to be desired from such a small sensor.

RAW is coming, but i exclusively only shoot in RAW with my canon 6D. Most smartphones still need that.

 

[dstarr3]

Anyway, one of the greatest limiting factors in photo quality is light transmission. You simply need larger apertures to allow in more light. And with larger apertures come larger lenses and larger sensors. This is why DSLRs make such vastly better photos than point-and-shoots or cell phones. Unfortunately for those that want professional quality in their pocket, it's just not possible. Size is absolutely necessary. It was true in the film days, and it's true in the digital days.

I saw the recent article about the LG phone with an f/1.8 maximum aperture. Awesome, that's a step in the right direction, but "f/1.8" on a cell phone is not the same as f/1.8 on an SLR lens. That aperture measurement is a ratio calculated against the size of the rear element of the lens. So, f/1.8 sounds great, but because the lens is so tiny, so is the aperture, and that still means terrible light transmission.

It's like fighting fires with a garden hose vs. a fire hose. The sheer size of the hose allows more water flow, and gets you better results. Light works the same way. You simply need more light to make better photographs. And more light is something only size can provide.

 

[hackholm]

It's like the whole tech community wants to pretend the 1020 doesn't exist.

There were many articles showing and in some cases, proving, that the 1020 outperformed DSLR cameras already on the market (at the time it was released).

Look, I know it's Windows Phone, but the videos and photos I take of my kids are all absolutely stunning and I am forever grateful I have those as memories instead of the crap the current smartphone market calls "cameras".

 

[wiyosaya]

It's like the whole tech community wants to pretend the 1020 doesn't exist.

There were many articles showing and in some cases, proving, that the 1020 outperformed DSLR cameras already on the market (at the time it was released).

Look, I know it's Windows Phone, but the videos and photos I take of my kids are all absolutely stunning and I am forever grateful I have those as memories instead of the crap the current smartphone market calls "cameras".

The thing is that if it had "big glass" in front of the lens, the results would be significantly better. I am willing to bet that the image quality would not compare with a DSLR possessing a similarly endowed sensor such as the Canon 5 DS http/usa.canon.com/cusa/consumer/products/cameras/slr_cameras/eos_5ds or 5DS R. The tech in both realms will continue to progress, but the "big glass" aspect of DSLR tech will not be easily surpassed by a phone camera.

 

[Impulseman45]

Yeah right, like buying up a company that makes crap photo capture elements is going to make it DSLR quality. Give me a break. They are trading one piece of garbage for another. If Apple truly wanted DSLR quality in the iPhone they would be getting there parts from the same makers that Nikon, Canon, Minolta, etc... get theirs from. Getting the parts from tiny little upstart is not going to do anything but give them the ability to save money by moving the parts in-house versus outsourcing them as they have from the beginning.

 

[Innocent_Bystander]

But over the long term companies like Apple and Samsung and others just have so much money and field is so much more lucrative that over the long term they will probably develop a product that is close to DSLR

Unless Apple and Samsung have figured out a way to get past the limitations imposed by physics (There are a lot of them but the killers are low signal to noise, tiny pixels and the associated problem of low well depth, low fill factor of CMOS sensors, and low nyquist frequency of cell phone camera lenses), DSLR's have nothing to sweat about, no matter how much money cell phone manufacturers throw at the problem.

There is just no replacement for physically large sensors and good quality glass. Phone cameras have already been relying mostly on software tricks for years, there is just not that much room for improvement on the physical side.

 

[rcmaniac25]

Why do I think this has more to do with the cameras supporting depth then for DSLR support?

Apple owns PrimeSense (designer of the tech that became the Kinect), and Intel, Google, and others are playing integrating what is essentially a Kinect into a phone/tablet.

Apple tends to take technology that met maturity, and then was overlooked as something that didn't need more work, and then repackage it as a Revolutionary "One More Thing" for a phone or computer, and suddenly every company wants it and everyone starts talking about how it will Change Everything.

So much work has been done on Kinect-like devices that Apple buying a company that can do "post-shot refocusing" while throwing in a nitch feature like depth support would probably kill 2 birds with one stone (improve a camera element that's hard to improve without increasing the size of the sensor, while adding 3D depth support when everyone is talking VR/AR and big names are looking into the tech for their own devices).

Just my take on it.

 

[vaughn2k]

I have RAW in my Lumia 1020... still a good piece of phone with 41Mpixel. But DSLR's capability is still way beyond my phone. I don't believe this article.

 

[gggplaya]

Anyway, one of the greatest limiting factors in photo quality is light transmission. You simply need larger apertures to allow in more light. And with larger apertures come larger lenses and larger sensors. This is why DSLRs make such vastly better photos than point-and-shoots or cell phones. Unfortunately for those that want professional quality in their pocket, it's just not possible. Size is absolutely necessary. It was true in the film days, and it's true in the digital days.

I saw the recent article about the LG phone with an f/1.8 maximum aperture. Awesome, that's a step in the right direction, but "f/1.8" on a cell phone is not the same as f/1.8 on an SLR lens. That aperture measurement is a ratio calculated against the size of the rear element of the lens. So, f/1.8 sounds great, but because the lens is so tiny, so is the aperture, and that still means terrible light transmission.

It's like fighting fires with a garden hose vs. a fire hose. The sheer size of the hose allows more water flow, and gets you better results. Light works the same way. You simply need more light to make better photographs. And more light is something only size can provide.

At the end of the day aperture dictates how much light is shining on the pixels. It's all relatively the same, F1.8 on a full frame is about the same as f1.8 on a cell phone. Lenses have slightly different light transmission due to more glass elements, coatings and such. So hollywood goes off of t-stops instead of F-stops, but overall the f-stop's between camera lenses is about the same for this discussion.

What you're talking about is more correlated to ISO range. Larger pixels are more sensitive to light. A full frame can go 6400 iso no problem, cell phones are usually limited to about iso 400. That's a drastic difference.

 

[caiokn]

Aside from the optics, there's also the sensor size matter. I highly doubt a tiny sensor like those found on smartphones could achieve the same amount of detail and color accuracy as an MFT/APS/FF sensor. Even premium compact cameras like the Sony RX100 Mk III with its 1" sensor and high quality glass (for a compact camera) can't compare to a DSLR. I can't help but wonder what kind of sorcery will be used to make i-things' cameras as good as a real, full sized camera.

 

[wiyosaya]

Aside from the optics, there's also the sensor size matter. I highly doubt a tiny sensor like those found on smartphones could achieve the same amount of detail and color accuracy as an MFT/APS/FF sensor. Even premium compact cameras like the Sony RX100 Mk III with its 1" sensor and high quality glass (for a compact camera) can't compare to a DSLR. I can't help but wonder what kind of sorcery will be used to make i-things' cameras as good as a real, full sized camera.

Maybe crApple's next feat will be to figure out how to warp the space in front of the camera to form a gravitational lens while holding the sensor at a sufficient distance to make it perform as if it were a bigger sensor. After all, crApple is great at innovation. LOL