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

Hey Achim,
I did the shot as the Editor in Chief of Airbus’ Magazine, so I have all the rights to it :-)
Did you forget :-))

what next,
that F-18 shot is very interesting and cool!

ILA 2006, A340-600 display. Nikon D2X, AF-S ED 70-200 + TC 2.0

Wow!

EBZH Kiewit, Belgium

A340-600 display

The same aircraft under Bitish rain … Sigma SD10 (the competition called it a 3 megapixel camera as opposed to Sigmas claim of 10 megapixels) with an 80-400mm stabilised telezoom

Last Edited by what_next at 28 Jan 17:30
EDDS - Stuttgart

My views are the same as what next. I’d grant that the 808 is a pretty good pic in comparison, but the colour and the quality and detail (even in the alarm bell housing) would mean you would get a better print. I would also advocate RAW files – especially if you need to tweak shadows and highlights.

I don’t have the iPhone pic any more, but this was one I took of a tiger (don’t have any exciting pics of planes on my new 70D and its 400mm lens), but I can tell you that the iPhone camera, as good as it is, does not produce pictures this sharp.

PS, I know I was the first to start a watch thread in EuroGa’s 1.5 year history, and I suspect posting a photo of a Tiger is also a EuroGa first, but as we’re in the IT section, nothing says it has to be a photo of a plane does it ;-)

I guess it’s a Grumman Tiger, isn’t it?

I guess it’s a Grumman Tiger, isn’t it?

Errr, yes it is. Phew, so I haven’t committed an offense then :-)

Peter,

I got a Samsung Galaxy S2, 8 mp. On a recent flight, I managed to forget my trusty Nikon P500, so I had to use the phone. These are two of the pics which came out of that:


I still prefer the Nikon but if I forget it, I am quite happy with the results of the phone cam.

LSZH(work) LSZF (GA base), Switzerland

Don’t get me wrong guys… where did I say a phone (even the 808) is as good as a DSLR?

I would be well pissed off if it was, having just paid £1100 for the K3 (the K5 is on Ebay right now) plus the lens which a while ago must have been about £500.

My point is that for the purposes I described (easy scenery, good light, etc) a phone can get damn close. All my trip writeup ground shots from 2013, and most of the airborne shots too, were done with the 808.

My Canon G10 camcorder also way outperforms the 808, even though if you just stuck the 808 on a tripod and presented it with gently moving scenery, I am pretty sure nobody would be able to tell the difference between the two, with both doing 1080P 25FPS. Camcorder optics, in the prosumer price range (£1500) are pretty crap and probably about as good as the 808’s. In practice, the G10 is way better but that isn’t due to better optics or mpeg encoding, but due to superior motion compensation, the superb optical zoom, superior autofocus, the nice controls, etc – and these same factors mean a DSLR is much better for most photography where “stuff moves about”.

But a lot of the time one does have time to set up the picture, in one’s own time and in good light. Then you end up asking yourself whether carrying a ~1.2kg DSLR is worth it.

The mobile phone would not even have known what to focus on and tried to save the image by flashing a tiny LED they call “flash”.

A lot of that is caused by crappy camera apps. Nokia’s own camera app is not much good.

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Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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