[qubitcoder]

There are many things wrong with this. I have an iPhone 17 Pro Max and use it to capture HEIF 48 and ProRAW images for Lightroom. There’s no doubt of the extraordinary capabilities of modern phone cameras. And there are camera applications that give you a sense of the sensor data captured, which only further illustrates the dazzling wizardly between sensor capture vs the image seen by laypeople.

That said, there is literally no comparison between the iPhone camera and the RAW photos captured on a modern full-frame mirrorless camera like my Nikon Z6III or Z9. I can’t mount a 180-600mm telephoto lens to an iPhone, or a 24-120mm, or use a teleconverter. Nor can I instantly swing an iPhone and capture a bird or aircraft flying by at high speed and instantly lock and track focus in 3D, capture 30 RAW images per second at 45MP (or 120 JPEGs per second), all while controlling aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Physics is a thing. The large sensor size and lenses (that can make a Mac Studio seem cheap by comparison) serve a purpose. Try capturing even a remotely similar image on an iPhone in low light, and especially RAW, and you’ll be sitting there waiting seconds or more for a single image. Professional lenses can easily contain 25 individual lens elements that move in conjunction as groups for autofocus, zoom, motion stabilization, etc. They’re state-of-the-art modern marvels that make an iPhone’s subject detection pale by compare. Examples: I can lock on immediately to a small bird’s eye 300 feet away with a square tracking the tiny eye precisely, and continue tracking. The same applies to pets, people, vehicles, and more with AI detection.

You can handhold a low-light shot at 1/15s to capture a waterfall with motion blur and continue shooting, with the camera optimizing the stabilization around the focus point—that’s the sensor and lens working in conjunction for real-time stabilization for standard shots, or “sports mode” for rapidly panning horizontally or vertically.

There’s a reason pro-grade cameras exist and people use them. See Simon D’entrement, Steve Perry, and many others on YouTube for examples.

For most people, it doesn’t matter. They can happily shoot still images and even amazingly high-quality video these days. But dismissing the differences is wildly misleading. These cameras require memory cards that cost half as much or more than the latest iPhone, and for good reason [1].

With everything, there are trade offs. An iPhone fits in my pocket. A Nikon Z8 and 800mm lens and associated gear is a beast. Different tools, different job.

A modern lens, for comparison: https://www.nikonusa.com/p/nikkor-z-600mm-f63-vr-s/20122/ove...

[0] https://youtu.be/2yZEeYVouXs

[1] https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1887815-REG/delkin_de...

[jiggawatts]

You are totally missing my point and talking past me. I have a Nikon Z8! I know what it is capable of!

The point I'm trying to make is that the RAW images coming out of a modern full-frame camera get very "light" processing in a typical workflow (i.e.: Adobe Lightroom), little more than debayering before all further treatment is in ordinary RGB space.

Modern mobile phones have sensors with just as many megapixels, capturing a volume of raw data (measured in 'bits') that is essentially identical to a high-end full-frame sensor!

The difference is that mobile phones capture and digitally merge multiple frames captured in a sequence to widen the HDR dynamic range and reduce noise. They can even merge images taken from slightly different perspectives or with moving objects. They also apply tricks like debayering that is aware of pixel-level sensor characteristics and is tuned to the specific make and model instead of shared across all cameras ever made, which is typical of something like Lightroom, Darktable, or whatever.

If I capture a 20 fps burst with a Nikon Z series camera... I can pick one. That's about the only operation I can do with those images! Why can't I merge multiple exposures with motion compensation to get an effective 10 ISO instead of 64, but without the blur from camera motion?

None of this has anything to do with lenses, auto-focus, etc...

I'm talking about applying "modern GPU" levels of computer power to the raw bits coming off a bayer sensor, whether that's in a phone or a camera. The phone can do it! Why can't Lightroom!?

[trashb]

> I have a Nikon Z8! I know what it is capable of!

It seems to me you underestimate the amount of work your camera is already doing. I feel like you overestimate the raw quality of a mobile camera as well.

> Modern mobile phones have sensors with just as many megapixels, capturing a volume of raw data (measured in 'bits') that is essentially identical to a high-end full-frame sensor!

There may be the same amount of bits but that doesn't mean that it captures the same quality of signal. It's like saying that a higher amount of bits on a ADC correspond to a better quality signal on the line, it just isn't true. Megapixels are overhyped, resolution isn't everything for picture quality.

> The phone can do it! Why can't Lightroom!?

Be the change you want to see, if the features that you want are not in Lightroom write a tool to implement it (or add the features to a tool like ffmpeg). The features you are talking about are in just software after capture so it should be possible from the camera's raw.

Perhaps you would be better of buying a high quality point and shoot camera or just using your phone instead of a semi professional full-frame camera for your purpose. With a DSLR you have options how to process, if that means in your "typical workflow" light processing then that's up to you. perhaps If you want to point shoot, instagram you indeed don't want to spend time processing in Lightroom and that's fine.

It feels like you are complaining about how your expensive pickup can't fit your family and suitcases when going on holiday like the neighbors SUV even though they have the same amount of horsepower and are build on the same chassis. They are obviously build for different purposes.