
2017 Camera News - Tomte
https://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/201x/2017/04/15/Camera-News
======
flyinglizard
No word on low light performance? That's for me is one of the two primary
reasons to have a dedicated camera (Olympus PEN-F) and not just use my iPhone
7+ camera whenever I go (the other is the degree of control over the creative
process that you can only achieve with buttons and dials). If you do lots of
indoor shooting (which I do), low light becomes a primary limiting factor in
taking good photos.

Another factor is focal range. With a bigger sensor it's easier to have a wide
field of view, again an advantage dedicated cameras have.

I disagree about APS-C and FF being the winners. I think FF has peaked, the
traditional advantages of FF are compensated for in smaller formats by better
sensor silicon (getting to better low light sensitivity for a given pixel
size) and optics (F1.8, F1.4 and even F1.2 lenses). FF still has its place
with pro photographers but for amateurs the cost, size and weight (not just
the camera - that primary factor here are the lenses, which become very big
and very expensive as you climb up the sensor size) make it impractical.

I think FF will rule for pro photographers and MFT, which is smaller than
APS-C, will rule the amateur market. MFT cameras are pushing the definition of
pocketable already, but they can be carried along with a small lens and be
with you everywhere. I can probably fit my PEN-F with a 14mm Lumix pancake
lens in my jacket pocket without too much hassle - and as the old saying goes,
"the best camera is the one you have with you".

~~~
shouldbworking
I'm a subscriber to things being eventually optimized to their limit. Screen
are still getting slightly bigger, but there's plenty of theoretical space for
cameras to grow.

As long as bigger cameras perform better (and there's a demand for better
performance) they will keep growing until they take up the entire back of the
phone.

My bet is on micro lenses so small that the camera becomes a flat rectangle
taking up most of one side of the phone, along with some crazy insane software
processing.

~~~
Xcelerate
> My bet is on micro lenses so small that the camera becomes a flat rectangle
> taking up most of one side of the phone, along with some crazy insane
> software processing.

As someone who does research on inverse signal recovery, what can be recovered
nowadays is absolutely mindblowing. I work on the group synchronization
problem, which aims to extract an underlying ground truth signal from noisy,
shifted copies of that signal. In my case, I am extracting atomic environments
from noisy rotated and permuted copies of an "archetypal" atomic environment,
but I imagine the same technique applied to photography would produce stunning
results. You would be surprised with the amount of noise for which you can
still recover the true signal.

See [https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03464](https://arxiv.org/abs/1607.03464) for
an idea of what's become possible recently.

~~~
shouldbworking
I have been peeking at the code behind SETI's detection of repeating signals,
you might find it interesting.

------
ot
The rise of computational photography is going to considerably change the
camera landscape. This is already getting mainstream with the "depth effect"
in the iPhone 7+ and I believe that Google phones are doing something like
that as well.

Eventually the only thing we'll care about in a sensor/lens system (with
possibly more than one of each) is the amount of information they can capture,
and how fast. All the other parameters (sensor size, optical design) that
currently influence the final photographic features will be simulated in
postproduction, similarly to how today we can accurately simulate digitally
the classical chemical films (Velvia, Tri-X, ...), enabling a great deal of
artistic freedom.

EDIT: I recommend watching this excellent presentation from the CTO of Light,
a camera based on a sensor array, it goes into a lot of technical detail:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmC9xWHhM4](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKmC9xWHhM4)

~~~
mtw
yes - but the same computational photography done on a Google Pixel can also
be done on larger cameras. The Pentax K-1 for example can shift its sensor in
4 different directions for one single picture for increased dynamic range and
color. So if one day you are able to simulate an amazing picture on a
smartphone camera, with great deep learning filters, you could also create
even more amazing pictures on a dedicated camera with a larger sensor. You'll
just have to adapt the algorithms

~~~
ot
That was my point: I'm not saying that phones will replace cameras for all
uses (there are inevitable physical limits), just that cameras will look very
different from what they look now.

------
jwarren
There's some truth in here, but I wanted to highlight this section as one
which needs correction:

> He’s still us­ing 4×5" and 8×10" film cam­eras, but I bet those medium-
> format pup­pies at #1 above could do the trick.

Perhaps that comment comes from not working with a large format camera, so
there's plenty to forgive the author. A 55mm sensor, no matter how subtly it
captures the light, can never produce a comparable picture.

There's a particular quality that enthusiastic photographers may have noticed
when moving up sensor sizes. Despite the very similar field of view, there's a
different _look_ to a 35mm lens on an APS-C camera vs a 50mm lens on a full-
frame camera. It's a factor of the character of the lens design in combination
with the resulting field of view.

The images produced from a well-handled large format camera can be truly
spectacular. Looking at a good, large print from an 8x10, you'll notice a much
greater dimensionality in the image. The shadows may have subtleties and a
level of smoothness that are unrecognised.

This isn't a digital/analogue snobbery thing - I love digital photography, and
haven't shot film in quite some time. It's purely a physical size thing. I
just doubt we're going to get an 8x10 sensor in a camera any time soon, so for
now film still has a unique advantage, at least for those people willing to go
through the hassle.

~~~
david-gpu
Can you back any of that with objective metrics? Right now it sounds a lot
like what I hear from amateur audiophiles.

~~~
chongli
It's all about depth of field. With a given focal length, a smaller
sensor/film camera forces you to stand further away from your subject than a
larger one. The further you stand from your subject, the closer you get to
focusing at infinity. When you focus at infinity, your depth of field
comprises a huge range!

Large format cameras allow you to get closer to your subject (while achieving
the same framing) and obtain an extremely shallow depth of field. Here's an
example taken with a 4x5 camera [0]. Notice how her eyes are in perfect focus
but the rest of the scene melts away into softness. A phone camera would put
almost everything in this scene into sharp focus, making the foreground and
background elements a lot more distracting.

Combine that with camera movements [1] and you can achieve many effects that
are simply impossible with an SLR, let alone a P&S or phone camera.

[0]
[http://www.kendallpavanphotography.com/archives/6890](http://www.kendallpavanphotography.com/archives/6890)

[1] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JU-
eHpk97Y](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JU-eHpk97Y)

------
lobster_johnson
For me, as a hobbyist, camera size is pretty important. I bought a Sony RX100
recently, which is the currently the leader, bar none, in small-sensor
compacts. It's tiny, but I found that it's still large and heavy enough that
if I'm not wearing a winter parka with big pockets, I'm unlikely to bring it
with me. The iPhone is what's with me at all times. (I also have an Olympus
OM-D mirrorless, which is very good, but that one only goes with me on
holidays and special occasions.)

One major thing I discovered recently is that iPhone 7 (and maybe earlier
models?) supports shooting RAW. With an app such as Lightroom or VSCO, you can
shoot DNG images, and you get _much_ better effective dynamic range. Blown-out
bright spots or murky dark areas can be pulled down or up to bring out detail
that would otherwise be lost with plain JPEG images.

That's been a game-changer. It almost makes the RX (which also does RAW)
unnecessary. I use Lightroom because it syncs to the desktop version, so you
can continue editing there, although the iPhone app is surprisingly good, too.

~~~
zippergz
Another nice thing about RAW on the iPhone is that I've found the iPhone's
built-in noise reduction to often be significantly too aggressive. I can get a
lot more detail out, without objectionable noise, by carefully tweaking the
noise reduction in Adobe Camera Raw. Now, I only would bother to do that with
fewer than 1% of my photos, but it's sure nice to have the option.

------
sigi45
DSLRs are quicker, sharper and have much better low light performance.

Smartphones make great pictures for normal people and its great but they don't
have anything to do with a DSLR.

Consumer are using Smartphones. Consumers like my mother, who do not use
smartphones daily and prefer pictures over smart, use compacts when taking
pictures in there holidays.

Hobbieists might use a Mirror Less instead of a DSLR.

Pros will still use DSLRs.

I still use my Canon 60D and prefer it that way. Having a mirror instead of a
display makes it faster and it uses less energy.

Leica, just forget it. Its price is for the craftmanship not for the image
quality. Ifyou have nothing better to buy, of course but don't do it for the
image quality. it is very good but not worth the price.

~~~
Analemma_
> Hobbieists might use a Mirror Less instead of a DSLR.

> Pros will still use DSLRs.

I imagine Kodak said something like this in the 90's: "Hobbyists might use
digital cameras, but pros will still use film."

Your view is shortsighted. Mirrorless cameras don't beat DSLRs yet, but
they're improving fast. Eventually they will be better, and DSLRs will go the
way of film: a niche for a few devotees, but not used even by most
professionals. The greater reliability afforded by having no moving parts
guarantees it.

~~~
rangibaby
DSLR has much, much better battery life. The mirror also offers a degree of
protection from dust for your shutter and sensor. There are less electronics
that can break. These factors will guarantee DSLR usage by pros for the next
5-10 years at least.

Mirrors rarely (read: never) break through normal usage; the main advantage of
mirrorless is not having to accommodate the mirror box which means cameras can
be smaller.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
None of that has anything to do with being a DSLR though.

Want to increase battery life? Build a bigger battery. Want to protect the
sensor? Build a mechanism to cover it when changing lenses.

Is there actually a technical reason you can't make a mirrorless as good as a
DSLR?

~~~
brudgers
'Good' is subjective as in 'Good for what?'

There are tradeoffs that a DSLR makes to provide a through the lens optical
viewfinder and phase detection autofocus. Mechanical complexity of a moving
mirror and the bulk of a pentaprism in addition to the mirror bulk are among
them. For some applications and some people the tradeoff is worth it for
others it isn't.

If smaller size and lighter weight are more important then a mirrorless is
more likely to be better.

~~~
ghaff
Yep. I have both a FF DSLR and a APS-C mirrorless. I use both. I like both.
Which I use for a given application depends on what my priorities are.

------
yariv
Having more megapixels allows you to crop more without losing detail and
effectively zoom in on different areas on the photo in post processing. It
frees you from needing to perfectly compose your photo when you take it and it
makes prime lenses almost as versatile as zooms for getting closer to your
subject. It has an important effect on ergonomics because it lets you carry
around a lightweight prime lens instead of a big heavy zoom and still be able
to achieve similar results, or even better ones if you can take advantage of
the prime's higher max aperture.

~~~
ekianjo
more megapixels is only useful if you have very good opticsa though. otherwise
you just get more noise out of your pixels.

------
abecedarius
The article mentions tapping on screen to snap a photo. In my hands this tends
to cause motion blur; are there apps where you slide your thumb side to side
instead?

~~~
fdim
I am glad that Sony Z5 has a camera button, it is much nicer and more natural
to use than trying to touch the screen

~~~
aggie
You can use the volume (-) button on iPhone.

~~~
copperx
It's still in the wrong place, balance-wise. The camera button should be as
close to the edge as possible so that the thumb can counteract the depression
force; otherwise, the picture may come out blurred.

------
keehun
Semi-Off Topic: Do DSLR cameras now support large/long video files? It seems
that reviews don't seem to outright state whether or not there are limits to
the length of capture.[0] Maybe I am just super behind the times?

My Canon T2i only supports video recording up to a certain amount (the size-
limit of a single file in a FAT file system) or duration which I believe is 12
minutes—whichever comes first. Apparently this is based on European Union
import laws about what constitutes photography equipment and what is a video
capturing equipment and different tariffs.

Whether or not it's AVCHD or a single large-file does not matter to me. It
seems like video is rarely reviewed in depth.

[0]: [https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-
eos-m5-review/6](https://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canon-eos-m5-review/6)

~~~
aczerepinski
The 80D is a popular camera with YouTube content creators and it allows 30
minute videos. I don't know why the limit - perhaps to ensure that anyone even
more serious about video than what the 80 can offer needs to buy a dedicated
video camera?

~~~
red2awn
Cameras that can record more than 30 minutes are classified as professional
video cameras and have to paid additional taxes.

~~~
keehun
That is what I've read. I would love if Canon or Nikon could create a setting
that allows auto-restarts of video recording once the 30 minutes are up. And
the next file automatically has the last X seconds of the previous file so
that I can stitch them smoothly in an editor...

I know that Green Lantern can auto-restart video recordings, but I noticed
that it can't really do that smoothly without dropping at least a second of
video—at least on my T2i.

~~~
ghaff
Regulators tend to get unhappy when you do things that directly circumvent the
intent of their regulations. AFAIK, this is primarily an EU thing.

------
Black-Plaid
Someone needs to tell him that his 15" retina mac has 1800 pixels of vertical
resolution. No idea where he got that 1200 number.

~~~
timbray
Hm, the Mac Display settings says “looks like 1920x1200” when I mouse over it.

~~~
srssays
The physical resolution of the screen is 2880x1800.

The scaled resolution modes work by rendering at 2x then downsampling. So in
the mode you quote it is actually rendering at 3840x2400 (!!) then
downsampling, but there's still only 2880x1800 physical pixels.

------
DanielBMarkham
Mirrorless is going to completely kill DSLR? Really?

I need to do some serious soul-searching before I continue buying DSLR
equipment, assuming this is true. More research needed.

~~~
petepete
The three main things holding mirrorless back (slow evf, slower af and battery
life) will all improve drastically over the next few years. DSLRs won't be
overtaken in those areas for a while, but mirrorless​ is the future in my
opinion.

~~~
DanielBMarkham
So looking at this over a 5-10 year period and not just about today's specs,
what's to keep a manufacturer like Canon or Nikon from building a mirrorless
body that continues to work with all of their existing gear? If I were them
and that's where I thought the market was going, that's what I'd do.

~~~
slantyyz
>> what's to keep a manufacturer like Canon or Nikon from building a
mirrorless body that continues to work with all of their existing gear?

Old school management thinking. The most common speculation as to why Canon
and Nikon are behind in mirrorless is that they're afraid of cannibalizing
their DSLR product lines.

~~~
ghaff
The bigger thing is that, if taking advantage of a mirrorless format requires
a new lens form factor, that means that Canon and Nikon effectively eliminate
a huge lock-in to their system.

As soon as you've said you have to start over again (Maybe with some kludgy
options for existing high end telephoto glass) you've basically eliminated
whatever advantage you may have as an incumbent.

It's as if Microsoft introduced a great new operating system that couldn't run
any existing applications. (This has been done in various ways like Apple with
Intel but it's hugely painful.)

------
bambax
SLRs' problem is they're big, bulky, annoying.

But... phone cameras' problem is you can't take a picture with just one hand
(or it's really hard, or you'll drop the phone, or you'll miss the shot). I
think that is the main reason while more pro photographers don't use phones
(and not resolution, or zoom, or dials, etc.)

I'm not a pro but a serious enthusiast, and having to use both hands and no
viewfinder to take a picture is a deal breaker for me.

I wonder if there's an opportunity to either make a lighter camera based on
phone tech, but that can be operated with one hand, or to make a (serious, non
gadget) accessory that let you take pictures with one hand, using your phone.

The models that come out of Canon or Nikon are really depressing, nothing is
ever new. Fujis are much more interesting, but still quite ordinary. A lighter
and flatter X100T would have been fantastic, but instead, the X100F is bigger
and heavier. Go figure.

~~~
_ph_
For a compact powerful mirrorless camera, look at the Olympus E-M10 MkII (its
successor might be out later this year) or the Pen-F. They can be used pretty
much one handed, and their body isn't much larger than an mobile phone (though
thicker, and of course much more so with a lens attached).

------
biztos
I just bought a Panasonic Lumix G80 [0], my first new camera (other than
iPhones) in almost ten years.

The first thing that struck me is how much more "technical" it all is nowadays
-- many, many options are available, and it's going to be a learning curve. I
accept this because I want some things you can only get with "real" lenses and
bigger sensors, but as a software guy it makes me think there's still a lot of
room for us to improve the user experience of digital cameras.

Ideally I'd want the various iPhone photo apps (VSCO et al) to live inside my
Lumix. As far as I know, nobody is even remotely close to offering that, and I
wonder why not.

[0]: [http://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-
camcorders/lumi...](http://www.panasonic.com/uk/consumer/cameras-
camcorders/lumix-g-compact-system-cameras/dmc-g80m.html)

~~~
lqdc13
I have a Lumix GH3.

I think at some point it becomes artistic so there are lots of things to
consider when taking a photo.

You can't just let the software do the work because how would you describe
what kind of photo you want? Mine is extremely user-friendly though and there
is a button that makes it Point and Shoot.

Besides, if you want simplicity, you can just buy a Point&Shoot camera and it
will have a nice sensor. Something like Nikon Coolpix.

With a DSLR, you are effectively buying a manual transmission instead of
automatic.

------
BadassFractal
More cameras are great and all, but I'd be even more excited if we had more
options for great, affordable, portable and resilient modifiers to use in the
field.

At the end of the day I want the power to modify the light of any scene the
way I see fit without having to hire a big crew and carry around dozens of
boxes of gear. The shot will pretty much take itself once the right light is
in place.

Super affordable speedlights with already built-in receivers were a great step
in the right direction, we need more of that.

------
faifo
I took a lot of pictures with my iphones (I've switched to a n Android phone
recently). Most pictures are good when being seen on phones (especially on a
Retina Macbook :D), but it's almost impossible to print them on small media
(4R , A4 papers).

I don't have any micro 4/3 camera. The last time I tried a Sony I thought it
was a toy :D

------
Markoff
i would say phone camera would be good enough for everything unless you need
to shoot in low light and more importantly with zoom, digital zoom hit limits
very fast

though personally i just gave up on zoom and shoot everything with mobile
which is always with me instead of carrying heavy camera just to use rarely
zoom and low light photos

------
pasta
A lot can be said about the technical details but in the end a 20mpix
ultrasharp well focused ugly picture is still an ugly picture.

Good photographers capture emotion and use good composition. That's why it's
important for them to have a camera that gets out of the way.

So I very much agree with the conclusion. Pick a camera that YOU like.

------
fuzzythinker
How about the 16 lenses L16 camera? It's suppose to be out by summer for pre-
orders according to its recent blog.

[https://spot.light.co/l16-update-
april-2017/](https://spot.light.co/l16-update-april-2017/)

------
Ronsenshi
> ...no­tably the Fu­ji XF-100 or Le­ica Q. Th­ese things are kind of
> ex­pen­sive...

I would have preferred camera examples that cost less than $1,000. At $4,000+
for Leica that's much more than an average photography enthusiast would spend
on camera "just for fun".

~~~
jakobegger
If you want a camera like the Fujifilm X100F under 1000 USD, get a used X100,
X100S, or X100T. They are very good cameras.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
I'll second this, although I'd recommend staying away from the X100. It had
some issues with autofocus that were _mostly_ corrected with firmware updates,
but weren't completely addressed. The X100S and T are both excellent cameras.

Shooting with a prime (fixed focal length) lens will give you significantly
better image quality at a lighter weight than using a zoom lens. I don't think
you need much more than 16MP. That resolution is good enough for publishing in
a top tier national magazine[1], and it'll be good enough for your computer
screen.

[1] To head off the naysayers on this: I had a picture of mine published in
Travel and Leisure magazine in September 2014 that I shot with my X100S.
[http://www.aaronbrethorstphotography.com/2015/10/31/on-
appro...](http://www.aaronbrethorstphotography.com/2015/10/31/on-approach)

~~~
semi-extrinsic
In support of the claim that 16MP is enough, it is also instructive to recall
that a full magazine page at 300 DPI is ~8.4 megapixels. So 16MP is
technically just about good enough for a double-page spread.

~~~
emn13
That's around 300 PPI, which is way more than enough; most photographs don't
consist of super-high-contrast aliased lines, and thus will typically look OK
printed at considerably less than 300PPI; depending on context you could go as
low as 100-200PPI. 300DPI is a bare minimum more because then the printer dots
are bare visible; and of course you need many printer dots per pixel to be
able to create smooth-looking gradients. It doesn't say as much about pixels.

Of course, if you're printing sub-8MP images on a full page, then you can
count on all those pixels being important, so any pixel-level defects that are
usually hidden by their tiny size will become visible (hot pixels, noise, that
kind of thing)

------
anta40
>> I think the SLR is prob­a­bly doomed; mir­ror­less cam­eras have too many
ad­van­tages.

Hmmm... I'd love to see Canon or Nikon re-create their classic rangefinders.
We don't have another option beside Leica :p

------
ekianjo
one thing to mention though is that the dedicated camera is shrinking on the
whole which will limit investment in bigger and better sensors. Therefore
mobile phones get a lot more focus.

------
gcb0
only forgot to mention that pictures are going the way of books and
newspapers.

the web today is video first.

the best selling cameras sold best because of video quality lately.

not mentioning video, focus control, and low ligth clearly shows this is
article is amateur hour. even if the author is a pro photographer.

~~~
kalleboo
> only forgot to mention that pictures are going the way of books and
> newspapers.

> the web today is video first.

[citation needed]

Most of what I see (twitter, facebook, instagram, etc) is still photos,
followed by GIF-style short video loops (at low resolution).

Video is growing but there are a lot of occasions where people are consuming
content and can't watch video (you don't want to blast audio in the queue at
the supermarket)

~~~
gcb0
> twitter, facebook, instagram

great list of dying companies largely ignored by the next generation.

------
platz
I'm not sure I'd be inclined to trust photo gear reviews by a someone who is a
techie/programmer first and a photog second.

Why not just see what dpreview and others recommend, who review gear for a
living?

~~~
timbray
Guilty as charged on being a techie/programmer, and I love DPReview, but I
don't encounter general-overview articles much, and I felt like writing one,
and it's my blog so nobody can stop me, haha.

~~~
tgb
I loved the article! It's a great mix of details and big picture stuff. I'm
sure it's nothing new for enthusiasts, but it's always a delight to get
information in this "goldilocks zone". I encourage anyone to write and post
more articles like this!

