[elgaard]

I agree with all that.

But smartphone cameras are not progress on all fronts. They are small and seem to be optimized to take pictures that look impressive.

I sometimes have a slideshow with family pictures running on a large monitor. Sometimes I stop and look at a picture that somehow just look much nicer that the rest when you spend some time looking at it. If I then check the metadata, it almost always turns out to be one of few pictures I took with my old DSLR camera or a newer compact camera.

Of course those cameras are much bigger and has bigger lenses and should be able to make better pictures. But the best camera is the one you brought with you. Which is why so few of the pictures are made with a smartphone.

But it seems to me that all the computational power of smartphones does not quite compensate for the smaller optics. Or that they are trying too hard to make the pictures look spectacular.

[J_Shelby_J]

Smartphone cameras will never compete with full size optics.

They can only simulate the physical properties of optics. Eventually we’ll get to the point where they’re far from “photos” and more AI generations that look like photos.

[its-summertime]

Comparing the output of the camera app to the RAW you can also get it to produce, you can already see an absurd amount of reconstructing taking place.

[ianburrell]

The newest iPhone and Pixels have much larger sensors than older phones. That is the reason for the hump on the back. The sensors are bigger, and better, than digital compacts. They are half the size of the 1” fancy compacts and with newer sensors might be better.

The only difference with compact cameras is not having zoom lenses. But the telephoto and wide cameras on some models help make up for it.

There is a big jump to interchangeable lens cameras. But those aren’t what is popular as vintage.

[Suppafly]

>But it seems to me that all the computational power of smartphones does not quite compensate for the smaller optics. Or that they are trying too hard to make the pictures look spectacular.

It seems like if you have the latest top tier phone: iphone, pixel, samsung s, etc., you get decent photos, if you have any of the 2nd tier phones, they all continue to suck no matter how many mp they claim to have or whatever optics they claim to have.

[prpl]

I think low light performance is still worse than I thought it would be with an iPhone 16 Pro. With enough light the cameras are great.

[qingcharles]

My girl has an S24U and outside it is badass. Indoors, low light, it's really weak. We just bought a 13 year old Canon EOS (Rebel) and it takes much better photos inside. You can get some amazing bargains on old DSLRs.

[telgareith]

Probably because everybody is convinced they can beat entropy with math

[asdff]

With enough light all cameras look great

[soylentcola]

* until you zoom in or look at it on a screen larger than you'd hold in your hand.

Seriously, even on a modern Pixel (mine) and iPhone (gf's), I'm often disappointed in the level of detail you find once you want to crop an image or zoom in on something distant/small.

The software has come a long way and does incredible things within the limitations of such tiny lenses and sensors. But I've got much lower resolution images from point and shoot cameras in the mid/late 2000's that show more detail and none of the weird software sharpening artifacts of a 20-40+ megapixel phone pic.

[asdff]

Pixel peeping is another story, but most people are looking at these things on the iphone screen itself or at most something ipad/laptop size. Its not like the old days where you went down to the basement with the slide projector and watched the vacation photos on a sheet.