Menu Sign In Contact FAQ
Banner
Welcome to our forums

Will a phone ever be anywhere as good as a DSLR?

Can any phone launch a 3rd party camera app (and shoot in RAW) if you use the quick launch feature (double press on some button, etc)?

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

I’m a camera dumbo looking for advice. Flying single handed I’ve found DSLR’s too clumsy to grab and shoot when something interesting comes up, and equally cell phones too fiddly to operate. Both expect you to look at them while you use them. For many years I’ve used a Panasonic micro 4/3 camera with a pancake lens which lies on the passenger seat until needed, stays in infinity focus, fires instantly when grabbed and needs no pilot intervention other than deciding which window to point it out of.

The results are, of course, truly awful compared with those presented in these hallowed halls, but at least they are results, whereas I have almost no photographic record of the first half of my flying career. BTW, even this setup has the drawback that, in grabbing the camera, it’s far too easy to accidentally touch one of the meaningless (to me) buttons on the back and put it into some strange mode that requires much fiddling or power cycle to rectify. There’s no way to disable the buttons on any of these cameras as far as I know.

Now the old Panasonic has developed a habit of going into B&W for no reason and needs a replacement. I looked at the iPhone 11 but it seemed slow to shoot and just as fiddly as all the other cell phones.

Are there iPhone apps that a) force infinity b) force widest angle c) disable all inputs other than the trigger button d) lie dormant all day until needed and fire instantly?

Otherwise, I think I’ll buy another 4/3 camera.

PS Here’s what I get: (The Goat Canyon trestle, down Mexico way, as featured in ‘Abandoned Engineering’, taken one handed last month while flying the plane, avoiding the canyon, watching for traffic and birds, and staying out of Mexican airspace!).


Any advice welcome!

EGBW / KPRC, United Kingdom

What you are looking for is a camera app which

  • can be quick-launched, and
  • can be launched with preset settings

IOS I have no idea, but for Android that is not possible, unless the device is rooted (jailbroken, in Apple terminology).

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Hello Peter and thanks for that. I wouldn’t mind dedicating an Android phone if jailbreaking would do it, but presumably that would need an app developed first. Equally, if I could find a micro 4/3 (or other small camera) where the settings can be fixed, that would do as well. My existing solution relies on the camera defaulting to infinity at power up when in MF and I don’t know how common that is. It’s all to easy to use AF for something else, forget, and get lots of nice pics of bugs splattered on the windscreen. Regarding the accidental button presses, camera guys like the Nikon crew at CES stare at me in disbelief when I ask about this, so I’ve seriously considered superglue…

EGBW / KPRC, United Kingdom

I doubt if any phone works properly set to infinity. On any camera, getting that really right requires an accurate stop on the focus mechanism. Nowadays almost all lenses are made for autofocus compatibility and that requires that the lens can be wound slightly past infinity. I’ve had various phones which had an infinity setting and none of them produced sharp images on that. They seem to be made for autofocus only.

BTW, re the Samsung S20 range, I’ve just extracted this info from Samsung, in case anyone is interested:

In regard to your query if all Galaxy S20 models can generate RAW and which camera can do it. We have confirmed with our support that the S20, S20+ and S20 Ultra would be able to generate RAW photos using only the main camera on Pro mode.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

This guy states the gap is widening between phone and DSLR. Interesting


I’d say he is stating the blindingly obvious

How can performance be even remotely similar given the huge difference in lens and sensor sizes?

On a very rough calculation, taking say 500nm light, and 5000px wide image, one would expect an optical system to be diffraction limited around the 5mm mark. And this is borne out by SLR lens tests which report the diffraction limit around F16-F22. So phones are now stuck – unless they can come up with a visual design which is market acceptable and which is thicker. The old Nokia 808 was a good solution, with a ~5mm aperture, and way ergonomic too, but the “thin phone” fashion overtook it. No present phone maker is going to go down this route unless the current fashion definitely allows it. The other solution is an x-ray camera but then you would need to provide your own illumination, which would face market acceptance issues

Also the price: just the A7-3 body is £1.4k which is well above the Iphone 11 Pro. With a half decent lens you are looking at £3k. And a really decent lens, with really good glass and coatings, will be more. I have a Zeiss Milvus 18mm which was 2.5k and that is fully manual However, even a £400 Canon G7X (a pocket camera, one of many in a disappearing market sector) totally outclasses any phone camera, and I’d say it must always do so

This merely shows that most of a DSLR’s performance is wasted for most of the things most people do with the pictures.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

I’d say he is stating the blindingly obvious

It made me realise that the gap isn’t really closing, or wideing, but rather shifting. Out of the consumer market.
Peter wrote:

This merely shows that most of a DSLR’s performance is wasted for most of the things most people do with the pictures.

I think that sums it up quite nicely, but it didn’t used to be so! You simply could not do with phones (except the 808 perhaps) what you can do with (i)Phones these days to get very close to ‘DSRL’ like image.

All these areas were out of reach a few years ago, but are now in the latest iPhones/premiums:
- 2X optical zoom
- Optical Image Stabilization
- 10-bit color Wide gamut
- Improved low-light performance (exposure blending)
- Shallow depth of field (with a depth map, adjustable in post)
- dedicated controls for iso/aperture/shutter setup
- RAW photography
- 4K video
- 13mm lens (‘GoPro’ in your pocket)
- HDR

Still lacking for the consumer:
- serious telephoto, variably adjustable
- better sensors (less noise)

Peter wrote:

What you are looking for is a camera app which

can be quick-launched, and
can be launched with preset settings
IOS I have no idea, but for Android that is not possible, unless the device is rooted (jailbroken, in Apple terminology).

The Huwawei built-in camera app does this. Put it in Pro mode, turn on RAW if you like, set shutter speed and ISO. If you go back into the camera, including using the quick camera launch from the lock screen, all those settings are preserved.

Administrator
EGTR / London, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

What you are looking for is a camera app which

can be quick-launched, and
can be launched with preset settings
IOS I have no idea, but for Android that is not possible, unless the device is rooted (jailbroken, in Apple terminology).

David wrote:

The Huwawei built-in camera app does this.

So does the built-in camera app in my Samsung Galaxy S6.

ESKC (Uppsala/Sundbro), Sweden
Sign in to add your message

Back to Top