Traditional lens manufacturing is likely in its last days (which can easily take a decade or two, but ... the end is visible).
Modern lens are made with techniques perfected in semiconductor manufacturing, and use advances in material science (meta materials in particular). I don't know how close this is to mass market, but I've seen superthin flat lens, with a marginal cost of production around ~$2 in a university facility, that work better than some $500 lens -- and the latter are expensive because they are hard to make the traditional way.
I think we'll see a big pivot in the market (we're already seeing it, really) with the switch to mirrorless. What I'm hoping we'll see is a total rethink of what's possible in a lens; adapting this new technology to make new designs that exceed what was possible before, rather than just matching it. If they can bring costs down by making use of this new tech then I think it will re-open the market for "I want something that does more than a phone camera". At the moment lens prices are pretty bonkers but I think that Canon f/11 lens is a great indicator; it's basically less than 1/10th of the cost of a traditional 800mm lens and does more than enough for most people.
I think you’re about 2 or 3 years too late with this comment. The switch to mirrorless is already here, Nikon and Canon have the majority of their core lens lineups out already for these platforms so it’s unlikely they’d replace them again for the next decade or longer.
And yes, they are mostly better than previous generations across the board. Which is pretty cool, that something based on such a simple idea that’s been around hundreds of years still has room for major improvements.
I think a lot of the replies you’ve gotten focus on the wrong thing.
Mirrorless in practice really just means the camera works more like your phone camera. You view the image on a screen instead of through an optical viewfinder. That brings some nice benefits, none of them are necessarily a game changer on their own but together it makes for a major step forward in the experience. Now the viewfinder shows you the picture more like it will actually look, the processor can see the image as you’re composing it before you take the shot and provide hints and show you that information overlayed on the image, the processor is involved in auto focusing and can do things like use ai models to focus on eyes, plus the physical benefits like there’s a big complex moving piece the camera no longer needs.
Camera makers then used this change to make a bigger platform shift at the same time. Just like a major version bump in software, if you have breaking changes you’ve been waiting to make you might want to make them all at once. They widened the mount diameter of lenses, which combined with the shorter distance to sensor because of the lack of a mirror gives more flexibility in letting in more light to the sensor. And they built a new set of lenses around it, whereas a lot of the lenses in their old lineups were sometimes decades old and not designed for the crazy high megapixel sensors we have now and in the near future. Most of these new lenses released in the past few years have been very high quality, so to answer your question that’s really where the improved image quality comes from, this new generation of lenses.
Every element the light interacts before hitting the sensor degrades the quality in some small way. But losing the mirror doesn't really improve optics significantly. It's more about reducing cost and complexity in manufacturing, moving things like autofocus into software. The benefits to the consumer are quieter shooting and a lighter body.
Yes, losing the mirror doesn’t really improve optics, however removing the mirror and related mechanism does allow one to bring the lens closer to the focal plane, which in turn affects the size of the rest of the lens elements. And makes everything smaller and lighter as you allude to.
which in turn affects the size of the rest of the lens elements.
Sort of. The diameter of the front element is predetermined, a function of the sensor size, focal length, and aperture. Mirrorless cannot escape this.
But, the shorter distance from sensor to lens does simplify the design of a good wide angle. Sadly, wide angles were never the big heavy lenses in the first place.
The whole smaller & lighter thing is not a lie but pretty oversold. Some of the RF glass is actually bigger and heavier than the equivalent EF glass.
You are correct. That motion of the mirror itself is responsible for most of the noise, and some wobble of the camera as well.
It's a trade-off, though. Seeing the actual image through the lens, and not a digital representation, which is what you get with a mirrorless system, has its benefits.
> which is what you get with a mirrorless system, has its benefits
I never found those benefits. What would you say they are?
Early on, the problem was mirrorless were slow in autofocus, and they had relatively terrible EV quality. Now they have better autofocus than mirrorless, and more importantly, with the very high resolution EV displays they have now [1], what you see is exactly what you end up getting. You don't have to guess about anything anymore, like what's going to blow out, which is fantastic. What you see in an optical viewfinder with your eye is not what your sensor sees is going to portray. I don't see any benefit to optical viewfinders at this point.
The true colors of what you're shooting, the true dynamic range, and the ability to see to edges of the focal plane with greater clarity. What you see in a mirrorless camera has already gone through a great deal of processing to approximate what you'd see naturally with an SLR system.
Which is fine for what it is! If you aren't shooting in a studio, the reduced mass of equivalent lenses with mirrorless systems is a big quality of life upgrade all on its own, for example. But the color representation just isn't there, and it isn't going to be until we get better color in our display systems. It's being worked on, of course, but there's a long way to go.
I don't understand this. The EV displays are calibrated. It's what you're going to get on your high end monitor when you get home. Eyes do not work like camera sensors, so I don't see how this is a plus. White balance being a great example.
> the true dynamic range,
How can your eye tell you this though? Unless your'e doing HDR/exposure stacking, dynamic range from the perspective of the sensor is all you're going to get. With the EV, you get clipping/black indicators, and even a histogram. I'm never wondering if I'm going to blow out the sky or crush some details in shadows anymore. I can see if I am, without having to snap then preview.
> the ability to see to edges of the focal plane with greater clarity.
I don't understand this at all. The new EVs give you 100% crop (with some slightly reduced zoom so it fits), with complete clarity edge to edge.
I would suggest giving a new high end EV another try.
Perhaps I'm not doing a good job of explaining. Let me try again.
1. The color space of the EV's display (and even the wide-gamut monitors available for desktop use) do no fully encompass the colors we can see. https://i2.wp.com/digital-photography-school.com/wp-content/... for a diagrammatic example of common colorspaces vs. what our eyes are capable of perceiving. In particular, the greens and purples are abbreviated, and I prefer composing with the true colors in my eyepiece.
2. Knowing the condition of the light before it hits the sensor lets me compose more accurately. If I'm looking at the true light, I can tell at a glance if there is detail worth working to preserve in the highlights or shadows (by using a split neutral density filter, for example, to bring the sky brightness down some) or not.
3. I'm not talking about edge-to-edge clarity. I'm referring to the depth of the focal plane, and the rate of falloff. If you're shooting with a very wide aperture before infinity-focus distance, the plane is going to be very narrow, and seeing the rate of the falloff is easier when it isn't pixelated.
Yes. With mirrorless, you have the advantage of the image continuously hitting the sensor. So you see in your viewfinder more or less what the sensor is seeing. On a dslr, you are seeing a facsimile of the end result.
As well as the comments already made, there's another thing to consider: in a SLR or DSLR, the path used to determine whether or not you're in focus is different from the path light follows to the medium: the autofocus system has a screen that takes light from a mirror, and then adjusts the lens based off that measurement. In manual focus, you're basic it off the path the light takes to the focusing screen, via a mirror.
In either case, when the photo is taken, the mirror whips out of the road (which generates mirror slap, another problem), and the light travels to the film or sensor. Since this path is a different distance to the one used for focusing, it requires only a small calibration error between the body and lens to end up with out-of-focus images. It is very normal to have to tweak the focus (higher end bodies will let you do this), or to have to have a body or lens physically corrected. No matter how exquisite your optics - in fact paradoxically, this effect is worst with high-end optics - the way the light path works here can be a real pain for getting good focus.
Because mirrorless systems focus and capture from the same medium, this literally can't happen with your mirrorless camera.
Does it help with using cameras for video footage, or would it be no problem to hold the mirror out of the way for a long time? (I imagine it being held in some kind of tension that wouldn't like long term force on it).
That probably was a tax/duty thing, the EU treats (treated? not sure) cameras that can record over 30 mins or so as video cameras which have higher fees.
If it's a Canon DSLR and is supported by the Magic Lantern firmware modification, it will allow you to circumvent this limit that way. It's possible that you may then need to use an external recorder via HDMI to avoid overheating depending on the model etc.
With mirrorless, you can put the back of the lens closer to the sensor (don't need to flip a mirror out of the way at high speed) which reduces the glass needed for the same effective focal length. Less length = less glass. Less glass = less mass, which means less force required for an electric autofocus motor to push around all that glass.
Modern zoom lenses have anywhere from 11 to 30 elements, in 3-11 groups, that move at different speeds relative to each other. Doing that with a tiny electric motor, precisely, for a decade is a tough task, especially when the mass of the glass starts to exceed 1kg.
With a mirrorless camera, you can reduce the mass of the lens by ~10% for a full frame camera. With an APS-C sensor, mirrorless, you can reduce the mass by 33%. With a "micro four-thirds" sensor, the mass of the lens is less than 50% of a full frame. Rough numbers. As with everything, there are pros and cons to going with smaller sensors than full frame.
Most mirrorless mounts are significantly wider (diameter wise) and closer to the sensors so they are able to develop new lenses that can take advantage of that.
And smaller. I think the days of a big ‘hero camera’ are behind us. People just don’t want to lug around the weight if they don’t have to, and it’s no longer such a status symbol.
We went through this period where people bought an APS-C DSLR with a relatively cheap kit zoom lens which never came off the camera shooting on (A)utomatic. They weren't "wrong" but a lot of those folks would have been just as happy with a higher end P&S like Canon's G series. And, today, they're just fine with a smartphone.
The mirror being between the sensor and lens means that there is a dead zone where there can be no lens, which severely restricts lens designs.
For example, for many years fast normal lenses on SLRs were 58mm “Biotar” not 50mm because a a new kind of focusing (retro focus) had to be adapted to work with a mirror in the way.
Oh yes in many respects the mirrorless switch is already done. I don't tend to buy new camera bodies though; my most recent purchase was a 1Ds MKIII from ~10 years ago, as I want the build quality/weather-resistance you get from those pro models. I'm really excited to see what a pro mirrorless camera might look like in a few years (Canon only just released the 1Dx MkIII so it's not arriving just yet).
The switch is quite obvious from the Canon release schedule - I don't think they have a single non-RF (mirrorless mount) lens being released this year.
Wow that lens is bonkers. What a reasonable price. I love it.
Aside, I enjoy that Ken also loves this lens, despite it being mostly plastic, which he usually shits all over. It actually seems like a feature here, for weight purposes.
I have the 400 DO. It's not really "light" but it's much much less of a beast than the 400/2.8. I really like it - it feels like it hits a sweet spot for me in the weight/light gathering ability/quality trade off and the quality is indeed excellent. But there's an argument that a 70-200/2.8 plus a 2x TC is very close in quality these days, gets you more flexibility and is a bit less unwieldy for a loss of only half a stop in light gathering ability at 400mm.
Ooh. I'd love to try that lens. I have both the 70-200 2.8L II and the 100-400 II and I love them both. That 70-200 is one of my all time zoom faves but the 100-400 is not too far behind it.
Yes. I have the 70-200/2.8 as well and had the 100-400 mk 1 years ago. The 100-400 mk I isn't a patch on either quality-wise but I gather the mk 2 is significantly better so not sure how it compares.
Where the 400DO perhaps really shines is paired with a 1.4x TC - it's much more handleable than a 600/4 and paired with a decent body gets results as good as bodies 10 years ago would have got with the 600/4.
I have both a ~1999 Mk 1 and 2018 Mk 2 100-400. The Mk 2 is waaay better in almost every way: focus accuracy, no push-pull, better bokeh (marginally) better contrast… just better results with less effort. Also a lot more expensive.
I have three different TCs which I got from a friend who switched to Sony. I haven't really used them much because they seem to drastically change the optic behavior in ways I don't like. Maybe I should give them another chance as they never come out of their cases.
> At the moment lens prices are pretty bonkers but I think that Canon f/11 lens is a great indicator; it's basically less than 1/10th of the cost of a traditional 800mm lens and does more than enough for most people.
But that tradeoff seems hardly new to me. Consumer 70-300 for ~300 $ vs. Pro 70-200 for 2000+ $. The "only" difference is build quality and the pro lens being 2-3 stops brighter. Price difference: ~10x.
As far as optical quality goes, focusing only on f-stops is like focusing on horsepower for cars. Even in f-stops, not all f-stops are equal since some lens transmit more light than others at the same f-stop. This is called t-stops and is used a lot of in pro video lenses.
Another example is if I focus on something and then zoom in and out some lenses have to refocus and others maintain focus. This is an important feature for video and any kind of fast shooting. Many lenses have much more "focus breathing" than others. That is, the change of the effective focal lens as the lens focuses closer and closer. I had a lens that was 200mm but it was really only at infinity. At close focus is was closer to 135mm since the focus breathing was so pronounced.
Bokeh, chromatic/comatic abberations, geometric distortion are other things I can go on and on about.
2-3 stops is enormous. Speed of the lens is partially where the additional cost comes from, and professionals are willing to pay for that extra performance - especially sports photographers.
It's been a long time since I paid any attention to pro photographic equipment so I don't know if fast lenses are important with modern sensors performing so well in low light. But back in the analog/early digital days 2-3 stops was a huge advantage.
Also something to consider, the pro lenses also focus faster and more accurately. I was never sure if this was down to the software in the lens, which is proprietary and why 3rd party lenses are never as good as manufacturer. I could easily see Canon or Nikon tweaking the firmware on prosumer lenses to focus a fraction slower.
Used to shoot sports back in uni, circa 2008 (Just amazing how much things have changed since then).
IIRC, the pro lenses (white Canons) focused faster as a result of them letting more light in, as well as having
faster motors (USM), though mid-range lenses had these as well.
Around that time, the body also made a big difference since the 1D-series had ~45 AF points, and the lower and mid-range bodes had 9-20 AF points. Not sure if this is still relevant but I think even low end bodies have a ton of AF points these days.
The focus motors are just flat out better in expensive lenses. By contrast, I have a $200 Panasonic pancake lens with a terrible focus motor in it. It's slow, noisy, and hunty.
I was very disappointed when they bumped it to a version 2 and don't appear to have touched the motors or electronics. I'm very fond of the FOV from this focal length, but I have a hard time springing for a lens that will make... me... wait... so... long... for... focus... lock...
Especially when it doesn't have a nice manual focus ring à la the Olympus m43 lenses.
Yup that's the one. It's fine for streetscape snapshots and taking photos of people who will stay still, but the slow AF makes it hard to use for anything fast-moving or unpredictable.
For fine art photography a fast lens is still desirable, but for almost anything else it matters less than it used to. The sensor itself is worth about 2 stops.
I recently switched from the mid-range Nikon 24-120 f/4 to the high-end 24-70 f/2.8. Yes the high-end lens is also a stop brighter, but you're missing the point that almost everything about the optics is dramatically improved. The 24-70 is noticeably sharper, even in the corners, has superior bokeh, has much better and more-easily correctable color fringing, super accurate AF (due to the wider aperture), nearly no vignetting, much better blowout characteristics, and much better distortion at wide angles.
More importantly, those things combine to make a certain je nais sai quoi that makes photos taken with it seem to have much higher quality. I took a quick test shot of my dog when I got it and my sister remarked that she could practically feel the dog with her eyes, just looking at the photo. Nobody has ever said that about pictures of the dog that I took with the old lens, even if I spent considerable time trying to get lighting right and the dog to hold still.
My old lens ruined a bunch of shots I took in a forest that required running at the extreme edge of its settings. This new lens doesn't look like it will do that.
I think you're in agreement with me, but the difference for the pro versions are usually substantial, such as weather proofing and more rugged materials (metal vs plastic) and usually more glass (less distortion at extremes, etc.). The market kinda makes sense: if you care about a few extra stops, and distortion at the extremes, then you are probably an enthusiast or professional who is willing to shell out. Otherwise, you'll have a great deal of fun with the cheap lenses.
build quality and f-stops isn't close to all that is different.
Actual light transfer (e.g. t-stops in cine, but less quantitatively in SLRs, say - some lenses are brighter than others), sharpness, chromatic aberration, spatial aberration, focal speed and accuracy (assuming autofocus), consistency across the telephoto range (not for primes, obviously) - some lenses will have not just differet f-stops at different lengths, but really different characteristics. This doesn't even get into the subjective aspects (e.g. "bokeh") that some people care a lot about.
No, it just has more available aperture. It's common to see a consumer telephoto with a max of 5.6, and a similar length pro version with 2.8, for example.
Which makes it bigger and heavier, harder to manufacture, and smaller market - all of this pushes prices up (an order of magnitude is common)
Certainly not, unless the consumer lens is covered in mud or made from tinted glass!
As for relative aperture adjusted for actual, measured light transmission, that's a T-stop, but these are typically only marked and specified for cine lenses, e.g.,
In the above example (consumer 70-300 [often f4.0-5.6], vs pro 70-200 [usually f2.8]), when these lenses are placed on the same cameras, the pro 70-200 will give 4x the light compared to f5.6, or 2x the light compared with f4.0 (consumer zooms are often variable aperture, while pro lenses are more frequently constant aperture). If you were to compare the pro lens on some camera, and the consumer lens on some different sized sensor, the math can get more complicated. Below is an explanation of what f-stops mean, if you're interested.
the maximum f-stop of the lens describes the ratio of sensor length (1D, diagonally is best comparison probably), to the diameter of lens aperture. because the opening and sensor are two dimensional, every sqrt(2) increase in f-stop describes halving the light. for example, a f 1.4 lens can allow ~twice as much light as an f 2.0 lens. Every doubling of light is considered a "stop", like {1.4, 2.0, 2.8, 4.0, 5.6, 8.0}. An important consideration is that this number describes a ratio, not the absolute opening in the lens without respect to sensor size.
One possible conversion method is to consider the sensor size of the system against some popular standard. For example, "aps-c" sized sensors are about 1 stop "slower" than full frame sensors, due to being 1/(2.25) the size of full frame sensors in area, or 1/(1.5) linearly. This means that many lenses can be converted not only on focal length, but also for f-stop, to estimate the total light gathering power of the system, and the output "look" of the image. Full frame sensors (~36mm x 24mm) are most frequently used in the photography world as a standard comparison point. For example, a 50mm 1.4 lens gives 50mm 1.4 on full frame, but that same lens on an aps-c sensor (like a fuji X, sony 6xxx, canon 7d, etc.) would not only give a cropped 75mm [full frame] focal length equivalence, it would also give the depth of field of a 75mm _2.0_ lens [on full frame], not 75mm 1.4. At the same time, the exposure would still benefit from the light gathered at f1.4. This is why many say that smaller sensors give a larger depth of field (more in focus, less out of focus background). In reality, this is due to the lens aperture being measured only as a ratio to the sensor size. Finally, the smaller aps-c sensor will give a larger depth of field at the same f stop, but may also give higher noise at the same ISO (to a similarly advanced full frame sensor). This means that an aps-c camera takes the exact same image when it has ~1 more f stop, ~33% less focal length, ~1 stop lower ISO to the full frame system. A big confusion around any of this "equivalence" discussion is that sometimes people mean equivalence for lens "look", and other times, they mean equivalence for exposure, while others may be talking about absolute image quality and noise. They're actually all related, though much of this discussion isn't important to real world photography.
Although a friend of mine tried it out as a rental along with an R5. He was really wowed at first but after using it for a bit he wasn't as impressed with the results. Still, for a birder, at $1K coupled with the R5's eye autofocus it doesn't have any real competitors. Not everyone needs or can pay for the higher end and very heavy lenses. (And, with modern full frame digital cameras, the smaller fixed aperature doesn't matter nearly as much.)
Nikon has been making PF, or Phased Fresnel, lenses for a number of years too. The 300mm f4 is a head-turner due to its tiny size and diminutive weight, while still being as good as the old 300mm in almost every way.
They also have a 500mm 5.6 that's similarly tiny (compared to a non-PF version) and hard to get.
I've had the 300PF for several years and it's my most-used lens. I photograph birds and wildlife and being able to fit an extremely-good setup (a D500 with 300PF) into my smallest camera bag (Lowepro hatchback 16l) encourages me to take it on almost every outing.
That's one reason I do tend to grab my Sony E mount fairly often these days... I just wish there were a lens close to the quality and weight of the PF 300 for the Sony system.
I wonder how many photographers were put off by the cost & weight of a 800mm lens, and how many just didn't actually need a 800mm lens? The only time I can remember wanting > 200mm was back when I did sports photography.
Yeah wildlife photography, particularly bird photography, can never have enough focal length. I practice stalking techniques to get closer (which has a much better cost/reward ratio to buying bigger lenses) but if you can fill the frame with a bird you can get awesome shots that just aren't possible otherwise. Currently I'm shooting at 600mm, and I definitely want a teleconverter to get up to ~800mm. After that the prices get truly insane so I think I'll just have to find some bigger birds at that point.
I bought a 70-300 Nikon ED VR specifically to take pictures of the moon, and it does a pretty good job. Turns out it's useful for a lot of situations (birds and other wildlife). My vacation setup is normally iPhone + D7100 with the 70-300 attached. That can easily cover most situations w/o changing lenses around too often.
I'm planning on picking up one of the Nikon mirrorless FFs soon.
The Nikon P1000 has a 539mm zoom lens with extremely small sensor: 1/2.3". And it's probably a contrast based focus system. I would not expect good results from such camera.
>but I've seen superthin flat lens, with a marginal cost of production around ~$2 in a university facility, that work better than some $500 lens -- and the latter are expensive because they are hard to make the traditional way.
I find this very fascinating because while I enjoy my ever-increasing smartphone camera and use it as a daily driver, I have a about 13 year old Canon DSLR (one of the first one they made now) with a few lenses and that 2007 model Canon D-SLR with the 1" large digital sensor can RUN INSANE LAPS AROUND TOP OF THE LINE SMARTPHONES with respect to the ability to take low light photos, get a lot of good light, and of course zoom on the telephoto, macro on the macro, etc. The autofocus is probably five times faster and the ~10 zones are lightyears ahead of the phone.
There's no comparison. Sure, the 7MP megapixels are bad. Sure, the ISO noise is pretty bad compared to modern smartphone postprocessing. But the telephoto isn't some pitiful "optical zoom", it's instead incredible powerful optics. The low aperture prime lenses produce beautiful shots whose distortion is matched to human preference.
The idea that phones can "catch up" to even 10 years ago on DSLR's would be very cool.
Unfortunately, I'm not holding my breath. Phone sensors are what 10X smaller? Doing great things with 10X less light is impressive, but at some point, you need a big sensor and good quality glass.
Would love to see us get DSLR quality pics from a phone tho.
I can't relate to this at all. I have a Canon EOS 450D (Rebel XSi, 2008 model year) with a few lenses that I used to love, but haven't really used for years now. Its low light performance sucks, it's almost impossible to photograph people at night. My phone does a much better job of that. Yes, the DSLR's optics run circles around any phone, but the sensor really does show its age. And since you specifically mention the autofocus, I just want to add that I find it infuriating. It's awful compared to my phone! It reliably focuses on the wrong thing and is really rather slow. At night, it barely works.
To me, the old DSLR is simply not worth the weight of lugging it around any more. It's funny how we have such different perceptions of our old DSLRs.
I kind of straddle both the positives and negatives - recently pulled out my 7D from a while back and the images are fantastic even only JPG.
I don't expect to do low-light without long exposure (ie, no impromptu shots) and I do have an external flash for bounce lighting indoors.
It's still better than my iPhone (which admittedly is a couple of years old), but weight is a huge factor I only use this when intending to get really good shots. Another is the extra time it takes to transfer files, sort through bursts and put into iCloud or smugmug.
I strongly suspect you may be putting everything on auto and hoping the camera will focus on the right thing. It wont, because the camera has a very crappy auto-mode. It will, when you learn how to use manual mode and pick your own focus point. I fully accept that this is not something most people are interested in, but that camera can and does take wonderful images. Here are a few samples (randomly picked by flickr - I hope they're good :P ).
To be fair to other DSLRs, the Rebel XSi's autofocus was considered one of its weakest parts when the camera was new. There are lots of other autofocus systems which are much faster and more accurate.
The bad low-light performance wasn't universal at that time. I made low-light performance a priority, so I got the Konica Minolta Maxxum 5D.
Contributing factors may be that the pixels on the sensor are physically larger, and that the sensor-shift image stabilization helps with longer exposures.
Well, the parent was talking about their even older DSLR and their equally modern phone, so I'm not sure what your point is. Nobody is claiming that a 2020 phone is anywhere close to a 2020 (or 2015, for that matter) DSLR or mirrorless camera.
Are there DSLRs with image processing features like Google's "Night Shot"? Where you can take a very long hand-held exposure and it will never be blurry?
I was not referring to phone lens, although those things are being applied there too.
It is now possible to build a telephoto lens for your DSLR, that costs $2 to make, is short and flat, yet has better optics than your current kit. When these become common, it will likely cause another seismic shift in the pure-camera market. Perhaps some of them will actually be bonded with the sensors, unlike what we have today.
Regardless, new lens technology -- while likely to make a greater impact on mobile phones -- is largely orthogonal to them.
I have a Sony RX-100 (Mark-IV specifically). Also with a 1" sensor but in a compact body. Even without flexible lenses, I agree with all your points. I make sure to bring it on trips where I expect to be taking lots of pictures. The cellphone is great in the sense that I always have it on me, and the best camera is always the one you have. But the comparative quality is not even close.
But, I mean, it better not be considering both were about the same price!
>Doing great things with 10X less light is impressive, but at some point, you need a big sensor and good quality glass.
This problem is basically solved already by taking multiple exposures and blending them in software. Once we're at the point where stacking 10 exposures works reliably even in challenging conditions (and we're pretty nearly there with the latest phones) then many of the advantages of a larger sensor are moot.
As far as glass "quality" is concerned, smart phone manufacturers benefit hugely from economy of scale. I wouldn't necessarily assume that smart phone lenses are manufactured to lower quality standards just because you're paying less for them.
There are still a great many. First, much greater resolution. Then, being able to take pictures of things going fast, then also being able to take non-blurry pictures in very low light, then there is the dynamic range, and then there is also constant aperture zoom as well as telephoto focal ranges.
Lenses on phones are limited by diffraction. They can never provide the quality of a larger lens because their aperture is so small that their airy disk is often over the size of a pixel.
Phones are already better at taking non-blurry pictures in very low light. They generally have pretty fast shutter speeds available for moving subjects. Dynamic range is not particularly important now that exposure blending works so well.
Diffraction all comes out in the wash. Smaller sensors allow wider apertures (and phones have some room to grow in terms of sensor size).
The resolution advantage is actually quite moderate (people are often mislead by comparing the number of pixels rather than its square root).
If you use multiple exposures for exposure blending you lose sensitivity, and in the case of fast shutter speeds image quality plummets.
Phones are simply not better at taking non-blury pictures in very lowlight. Cameras evolved since the 90s, we have 5 stops of IS, sharp f/1.4 lenses and exposure stacking.
The resolution advantage is not moderate at all. A 12MP phone is around as sharp as a theoretically perfect 8MP sensor with a perfect lens, while current cameras are as sharp as 40+MP perfect sensor with a theoretically perfect lens.
Diffraction absolutely doesn't come out as a wash. What matters is the actual diameter of the aperture, not the ratio. Phones are a tenth of ILCs in this metric, or even less for non-optimal focal lengths.
>Diffraction absolutely doesn't come out as a wash. What matters is the actual diameter of the aperture, not the ratio
It's actually the f stop that matters for diffraction, not the absolute diameter. Roughly, this is because the light spreads more with a longer focal length because it has a longer distance over which to diverge. If you crunch the numbers this exactly compensates for the larger absolute diameter of the aperture. Here is a post with a reference: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/21428
It's amazing how much enthusiast discussion about cameras is based on basic misconceptions about optics.
I'm not talking about linear resolution. I'm talking about angular resolution.
Here, the airy disk diameter is the image size. At the same magnification, the image height is proportional to the object size.
Since when the f number is smaller, at the same magnification, substituting in the thin lens formula with the magnification, you find that the object size is inversely proportional to the focal length.
From this you come to the conclusion that, at the same focus distance, the smallest object you can image is a function of the absolute diameter of the aperture.
Intuitively, this is because even though the airy disk has the same size, the focal length is much smaller, therefore the field of view is much wider for the same sensor size, therefore the angular confusion is much bigger, therefore for the same FoV at the same f number detail goes down.
Or put another way, yes the light spreads more, but the sensor on a camera is bigger, so in the end you have much more detail anyways.
This is why, for example, spy satellites despite operating at f/11 or so can resolve much more detail than a cellphone :)
This is a standard exam question if you ever take a Wave Optics class, by the way. But as you say, enthusiast discussion, such as on DPReview, is often based on basic misconceptions about optics :)
Apologies for the snark. This would probably be a fun discussion in person. In my experience, most apparent disagreements like this just come down to confusion over which factors are being held constant out of field of view, sensor size, focal length, total amount of light gathered, etc. etc.
If the phone was using a slice of a DSLR sensor, then yes, the absolute aperture would be what was relevant, as you obviously cannot improve the resolution of an image merely by cropping it (if you imagine a ultra ultra wide DSLR lens which becomes a normal phone lens after the crop).
But two points:
First, you're then comparing resolution at a focal length that's irrelevant to DSLRs, so in practical terms it's not a like for like comparison.
Second, phones are using sensors with higher pixel density. The question is just whether the phone can use a wide enough fixed aperture to avoid being limited by diffraction at the desired resolution. A fixed aperture of e.g. f1.6 is practical at phone focal lengths but not (as a fixed aperture) at full frame focal lengths. If you calculate the theoretical linear resolution limit imposed by phone camera f-numbers, it's approaching 1000 lp/mm for the better models (e.g. an iPhone with an f1.6 aperture and a ~10mm sensor). I'm sure the real limits are lens aberrations and noise at the moment.
It's not an either-or. Diffraction makes things a lot harder, and some phone lenses are indeed essentially diffraction limted
Secondly, I'm actually comparing resolution at fixed FoV, not a fixed focal length.
Again, the sensor size doesn't matter, what matters is the focal length. The focal length of an iPhone main lens isn't 10mm, the sensor size is 8.5mm but the focal length is actually around 5mm. You find the theoretical maximum linear resolution is more around 300-400 lp/mm. If you run the numbers, at f/1.6 the airy disk diameter is already bigger than the pixel pitch (2.11 microns airy disk and 1.7 micron pixel pitch). The resolution is already being seriously degraded by diffraction, although it's not completely diffraction yet. Lens aberrations make it even worse, of course. All in all, realistically the resolution is pretty much at its limit.
If you work at this regime where the linear resolution is close to equal to the airy disk, you start having a type of abberation where changing the wavelength of the system causes a change in the resolution, which can't be fixed. So pretty much in practice you can't really exceed the resolution we see now even in perfect light with a perfect lens, because you start having unavoidable abberrations that are very significant to the image.
>Again, the sensor size doesn't matter, what matters is the focal length.
Well, yes, but the two are obviously tightly linked if we're comparing a DSLR to a phone camera.
I'm going by the calculation in the 'Cameras' section of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk It explains why only the f-number is relevant. If you plug values for an iPhone into the 'x =' equation, you'll see that an iPhone camera is not really close to being limited by diffraction. The minimum separation distance at 500nm wavelength at f1.6 comes out to 976nm. Along an 8mm sensor dimension that's 8188 line pairs. Now sure, that's by the Rayleigh criterion, so you're not resolving 8188 perfectly sharp line pairs. But that's a still a good margin over the sensor resolution, and it's an open question how good sharpening algorithms can get.
I'm afraid that the radius, not the diameter. The diameter of the airy disk at f1.6 for 500nn is of 2 microns, and for a line pair you'd need double that, not a single, so a line pair would fit on 4 microns. Over an 8mm sensor that's 4000 lines, 2000 line pairs. Note that even here contrast is reduced by diffraction as we are operating from the first null. If you use the Rayleigh criterion and relax your standard for resolution you're at 4000 barely distinguishable line pairs. IIRC that would 4000LP at MTF15, so at MTF50 you might be at around 2500-2600?
And this is of course the very best you can do at 26mm equivalent focal lengths, if you want a tighter or wider shot your image quality degrades because once again the optics don't fit and you'll have to reduce your f number.
2000 line pairs in perfect conditions is quite low. Better is expected from cheap DSLR zoom lenses.
I think you are basically out by a factor of 4 by using the diameter instead of the radius and requiring line quads rather than line pairs. I believe the lp/mm value obtained is for ~9% MTF, so it's a fairly generous estimate of the available resolution, but not excessively so.
Regardless of the correct definition of lp/mm, the iPhone has plenty of room to increase the sensor resolution at f1.6. And phone cameras could certainly move to somewhat wider apertures and somewhat larger sensors.
Phone cameras are already at the limit of the space they can occupy. You would have to trade off the number of cameras.
As for the rest, lp/mm only makes sense at a given MTF rating. MTF50 is the standard. MTF9 is very, very, very generous. Incredibly so.
But anyways, sure, let's take 900lp/mm on the short edge for 4590lp/mm MTF9 - maybe I misremembered. A 5DSr with a real world zoom lens, the 24-70mm F2.8L, gets 7700lp/mm in the real world, and that's the MTF lens-sensor system, not just the lens. And that's not even close to the maximum possible resolution, nor to the maximum you can actually get in real life as you can. If you take the sharpest full-frame lens I know of whose MTF9 is limited to 400lp/mm because no testing apparatus was available that could go higher, the actual maximum is around 9600lp/mm. In any case, even the highest theoretical resolution of a phone is far lower than the practical resolutions of ILCs in use today, and is actually less than the sharpness of a 90$ lens on the very cheapest full-frame body you can find.
Indeed, take the Canon 50mm EF II, with an MTF50 yielding ~2000-2400lp/mm on the short edge of FF sensor. According to this source (https://www2.uned.es/personal/rosuna/resources/photography/D...), at around f/1.6 we should get around 420lp/mm, on the short edge that's 2142lp on the short edge, which is less than the cheapest EF lens in production right now. I don't know about you, but the best possible performance in theoretically perfect conditions being under the performance of the cheapest EF lens in the real world says something.
In real life, of course, the lens-sensor system will barely get close to the theoretically perfect result, and you will peak at the best possible result being around half the linear resolution of the cheapest production Canon lens.
Keep in mind, if you were to go for a larger sensor, you'd have to increase the focal length to compensate too. So 20% increase in sensor size length would need a 20% increase in focal length and at the same f number you'd need a 20% wider aperture too. And again, you'd be fixed at around 25mm FF eq. focal lengths, if you try more practical focal lengths like 50mm FF eq. you would see a drop in quality. They're already pretty much at their optical limits and have been for a while, actually f/1.6 isn't even the fastest phone lens - but those had smaller sensors still.
Image stacking is extremely common in low-light photography, especially astrophotography (where it is essentially the only way to get the 30min+ long exposures needed to image some deep-space objects). This need is somewhat mitigated by a sky tracker, which moves your camera together with the sky, but these are expensive and will slowly drift, making it still require multiple exposures (though you can get to several minutes before you get trailing, while without one you can only really get to a few seconds).
Basically, it's a pretty common technique for increasing SNR, it's a very different kind of "doing things in software" than, say, an iPhone's fake bokeh. It's no surprise that phones are starting to use it.
I would love smartphone postprocessing over DSLR raw images.
I feel that phones usually make better decisions for contrast, white balance, exposure than DSLRs do. With a DSLR, reaching the same finished product usually requires a ton of manual work editing photos.
Of course, the DSLR has far better detail on the pixel level, and if you need to zoom in at all, it wins in a landslide. I wish I could combine the strengths of both platforms.
DSLRs (and other high-end cameras) typically have a ton of JPEG options too. Though I usually just shoot raw and let Lightroom apply presets.
That said, the traditional camera manufacturers are pretty much laggards with respect to software so their better hardware isn't really used to full advantage a lot of the time.
I use a little bit newer Nikon DSLR (~2013), which adds another thing (the first generation of DSLRs wasn't really good at this): Color. The color of iPhones is just bleirgh in comparison, which is a little bit weird considering the cargoculting on HN of Apple's "computational photography".
The color of iPhones is just bleirgh in comparison
They're trying to solve two different problems. Nikon want to reproduce colors that are balanced and accurate. Apple want to produced colors that 'pop' and catch peoples eye when scrolling through Instagram.
This is the first comment here on computational photography, which I think is really the reason for traditional camera manufacturers going away. Most high end cellphones this generation can do stellar photography.
My dream is a camera with a nice sensor/lens and an iphone brain. It likely already exists, up there orbiting the earth...
This is so laughably wrong it's not even funny. We're not talking about individual lens elements but entire camera lenses.
There's a ton of engineering that goes into designing eg; a zoom lens that can cover a focal range while retaining sharpness, minimal color fringing, etc. And that's assuming you can use software to correct for distortion... in the past that was a dealbreaker. The result is a lens that requires 10-20 (or sometimes even more) individual elements. No matter how you cut it that will be expensive.
I can't find it now, but I remember reading about something with what seems a lot more boring than the articles I find about "metamaterial lenses". Maybe someone has a pointer for what it's actually called.
It was something reproducing a sort of "solar furnace" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_furnace) at a micro scale, coordinated with electronics. Think creating a dynamic lens by redirecting light from many micro lenses (mirrors?).
The upside being dynamic focal lengths using extremely short lens (the whole thing being microscopic).
Am I day dreaming? I can swear I read something or saw a documentary somewhere.
Or is what I'm describing just another name for metamaterial lenses? Based on what I've read about metamaterials, right now, I don't think it is, but I can very easily be wrong.
The cine lens and professional photographer lens market is big and irreplaceable until they figure out how, for example, to make an f4 600mm prime without a 150mm front element. Many problems to solve until we see the last days of optical professional lenses. Price points for these start at $2000, the cine lenses are around $4500 for primes and that 600mm I mentioned is a Canon lens, has a front element grown from fluorite crystal and runs about $12,000 and is currently on version 4.
A 600mm F/4 lens gathers a lot of light per-unit sensor-area, and there are many reasons why professional nature photographers have historically needed such a large lens
(1) Older digital sensors weren't good at all with high-iso (high read-noise, low photon-electron conversion efficiency, etc)
(2) An off-sensor DSLR AutoFocus array has a very small effective-aperture, making the lens aperture very important in low-light situations for autofocus (which a lot of nature photography is)
(3) Bokeh - Ofcource nothing beats large aperture bokeh, but this can be tackled perhaps through computation?
For (1) and (2) Modern imaging sensors perform beautifully in high-iso scenarios. Also, with mirrorless, there are cameras that can AF down to F/22 - something unimaginable (and impossible) with DSLRs.
While the demand for 600mm F/4 is there from a professional standpoint, there is an even larger demand for cheaper options - and.. this point is important, you can produce award-worthy images using those cheaper potions. In fact if you look at any nature competition a lot of the awards go to images made with cheap/budget gear.
Modern lens are made with techniques perfected in semiconductor manufacturing, and use advances in material science (meta materials in particular). I don't know how close this is to mass market, but I've seen superthin flat lens, with a marginal cost of production around ~$2 in a university facility, that work better than some $500 lens -- and the latter are expensive because they are hard to make the traditional way.