Why the iPhone 5S Will Kill Your Point-and-Shoot Camera

[Guest]

Point-and-shoot cameras can go home now. The new upgrades in the iPhone 5S camera make it clear that smartphones will be taking the place of traditional cameras.

Why the iPhone 5S Will Kill Your Point-and-Shoot Camera : Read more

 

[house70]

"It's curious that Apple started down in the weeds by talking about the phone's new image sensor and larger pixels. But the sensor is where the iPhone's transformation into camera killer began."
Obviously the 'Captain' here never heard of HTC One.
Only thing missing here is the signature "typed from my precious iDevice". Really uninformed fanboi article.

 

[ssdpro]

Can't wait to see all those software enhanced selfies of grandmas and 5 year olds!

 

[kyzarvs]

Have they managed to fit a good optical zoom lens into an iPhone?

No? Not sure how it's going to make a real camera redundant then...

 

[Onus]

Absurd on its face, when you consider the price, AND that further expenses will be ongoing, due to data plan rates.

 

[jasonpwns]

Did the Lumia series not try to make this clear? Wow such apple bias.

 

[glasssplinter]

Like kyzarvs said, is there an optical zoom? Then they will never replace a REAL camera. Don't get me wrong, the ability to quickly snap a picture and email it is very convenient but anything that I actually care about quality I'm using a REAL camera. Oh and I can change the batteries in my REAL camera if they run out. Can the icrap do that? Phone camera does not equal REAL camera quality.

 

[wopr11]

"Did the Lumia series not try to make this clear? Wow such apple bias. "

Easy to tell when a "journalist" writes something that apple tells them to write - and how to write it.

 

[gagaga]

90% of what is on Tom's appears 2 days after other sites, and now they are printing apple-supplied advertorials as articles.

 

[jldevoy]

Most reviewers seem to fawn over anything Apple does, the Lumia line have been pushing better cameras for a year and all reviewers could say was there's no instagram etc...i'm not sure I would buy the best camera phone on the market then turn all my photos into grainy shitty instagram snaps that all look the same.

 

[razor512]

A good lens is one of the most important important parts of a camera as it works with the larger pixels to provide them with enough light. A tiny lens significantly lowers your low light performance. A canon 5D with a high end L lens offers better image quality than a canon 1dx with a cheap lens. The iphone 5 camera heavily relies on software lens correction to deal with the extreme barrel distortion in addition to distortion around the center of the image due to the shape and flawed design of the lens. You can see this for your self by taking a picture of some sand or anything finely textured then look at the changes in sharpness and how certain non sharp details are actually stretched due to the lens correction. From the looks of it, the 5s may still have that issue.

 

[sumludus]

Hold on one minute. You're telling me that a device that can take pictures and retails for $649 dollars is going to take better pictures than a device which costs $199? But it doesn't take pictures as good as another device which costs $900?

Color me shocked!

Even if the pictures are of substantially better quality (which I highly doubt they will be), my dedicated camera isn't going to be eclipsed by another device which costs 3-4 times as much. I'd imagine anyone who buys a flagship phone will want to use it for everything to make their investment seem sensible. But for those of us who don't live on our phones because they didn't cost us an absurd amount of money to buy, the point and shoot will never die off.

 

[ddpruitt]

This is the same headline that came out with the iPhone 5, and 4, and 3, and...

 

[Au_equus]

Since the iPhone 4, several professionals/amateurs, aside from their DSLR, use an iPhone 4 as their point-and-shoot camera. IMO I'd rather carry a real PnS camera like a canon s110 or a sony DSC rx100 as most PnS and phone cameras aren't so great in low light, with the exception of the camera phone that is the nokia lumia 920.

 

[ohim]

People who has an iPhone long ditched a point and shoot camera, and people who still use a point and shoot camera can`t afford an iphone..... this article is written for the love of the Apple iPhone hysteria.

 

[razor512]

Wanted top also add, I am not knocking apple too much for heavy use of lens correction. All of the new point and shoot cameras do it.

After you get out of the realm of plastic lenses, the lens easily cost more than the image sensor so companies will try to use as little lens glass as possible and use heavy software lens correction so they can use the same lens elements on as many cameras as possible.

for example

here is a canon powershot sx 230 hs's jpeg output http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamster768/9727068436/sizes/o/in/photostream/

now here is the raw file output (camera raw was enabled through a firmware hack)

Now here is the raw frame buffer (converted to jpeg)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamster768/9723838921/sizes/o/in/photostream/


and here is the image that was displayed on the screen that I took a picture of using the camera http://www.psdgraphics.com/file/metal-grid.jpg
If you look at the distorted areas in the raw image and compare them to the corrected jpeg that the camera makes, you will see blurring in those areas where the grain at the pixel level looks stretched.

the canon point and shoot mainly has it at the edges, but for the iphone, it has it at the edges and a ring of the ditortion around the center (2 large rings of distortion)

To get an image that is sharp edge to edge, you need a quality lens where the glass is very large and thus you are using only the best part of the glass and not the sloped edges where barren distortion takes place.

Though at that level you will notice the lens costing more than the camera.

The main thing holding apple back is their lens. even on the iphone 5, it is the main thing holding the camera back in terms of sharpness and detail due to the software corrections the camera has to make.

(PS even the highest end compact point and shoot that canon makes does this same behavior, they use the smallest lens possible for the sensor size, then use lens correction in the cameras built in jpeg processing)

 

[rld082982]

What a joke of an article this is. It starts out as a joke almost immediately "Not only iPhones, but also many Android and even Windows models have pushed the limits of what a smartphone camera can do"
EVEN Windows models? Nokia has been releasing the best camera phones for over a year now. Stop pretending WP8 and the Lumia line are inferior. the 1020 produces the best pictures of any smartphone, including the 5S.
"more light = better photos, especially in dark places" you want the best low light pictures on a smartphone? Look to the Lumia line, I even bet my 1 year old 920 beats the 5S in this aspect as well.
Fire this writer

 

[rld082982]

http/www.zdnet.com/nokia-lumia-1020-retains-camera-phone-crown-after-iphone-5s-launch-7000020561/

 

[cknobman]

Sean your an Apple douche. Where were you with this article when HTC introduced their ultrapixel technology months ago?

 

[rld082982]

http/www.zdnet.com/nokia-lumia-1020-retains-camera-phone-crown-after-iphone-5s-launch-7000020561/