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Comment by mstaoru | Hacker News Reader

One word - bokeh.

You can get a Fuji X-E4 + XC 35mm f/2 for ~US$1000 new, and I'm yet to see a phone camera that can shoot something like this https://img.photographyblog.com/reviews/fujifilm_xc_35mm_f2/... - it's an enjoyable setup that will continue being ahead of any flagship phones for years to come. Not to mention that it's a hell of a rabbit hole and a great hobby.

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I have the Fuji X-S10 and the fantastic XF 56mm f/1.2. I love the sharpness and bokeh that this combo delivers. Definitely no match for a smartphone.

On the other hand, my old Pixel 3a delivers much better dynamic range in low-light situations with its HDR mode. (Of course, it only looks good on the phone, not on the computer screen, but I sometimes wish the Fuji hat better HDR.)

Fuji has dynamic range settings DR100, DR200 and DR400 which can help for sooc jpegs. I only wish my xt-30 did auto-bracketing, instead of having to combine the bracketed exposures manually on a computer.

https://fujixweekly.com/2017/10/18/fujifilm-x100f-dynamic-ra...

https://www.jmpeltier.com/fujifilm-dynamic-range-settings/

Yep, I'm aware of that and usually have my camera set at DR200. But of course it's still not close to the dynamic range that HDR+ creates on a smartphone.

Here's an early-morning photo taken with the Fuji: https://tmp.dbrgn.ch/DSCF7064.JPG (Either DR200 or DR400, not sure anymore). And here with the Pixel 3a: https://tmp.dbrgn.ch/PXL_20220709_033446459.jpg Of course, the photo taken with the smartphone has lots of artifacts, looks mushy when zoomed in, and the optical quality is far from the Fuji. In other words, it looks good on the phone, but not on a computer screen. But considering the differences in sensor size, it's still very impressive. (Fuji also has a built-in HDR mode, but so far I wasn't fond of the results.)

That's a nice comparison.

It is crazy that Fujifilm cameras can't do phone-type HDR. I have one and I share your pain.

The point was most people don't justify put $1000 on a separate camera when they already have one that does maybe 80% of the job in their pocket at all times.

I agree, it's really fun though. Never had great gear, but I used to just drive around my town with a tiny pocket tripod trying to find new spots to shoot with my Canon SX260HS in 2012-2013. Spent some time with borrowed cameras in school a bit later too. There's definitely something soothing about just going around looking at things that look interesting, point, tweak, click, then rediscovering the whole thing on your PC for some editing later. The experience is kind of lost with how instant picture taking has become with phones basically just taking the shot and post-processing it however they like.

For me, it's partly the things you say, but also the zooooooooooom. Ain't no camera phone with good zoom.

Ironically that image is terrible example of why a $1000 camera setup is better than my $1000 smartphone, and a perfect example that the photographer is far more important.

Also most folks these days consume photographs on their smartphones and not on larger screen devices.

I’m a prosumer photographer with a fairly sizable collection of high end Canon glass, and I now vastly prefer my iphone (since the 13pro) to my SLR setup

> I’m a prosumer photographer with a fairly sizable collection of high end Canon glass, and I now vastly prefer my iphone (since the 13pro) to my SLR setup

For what type of photography? Seems hard to imagine you'd "prefer" your phone over a nice lenses, but I guess it's less hassle to just use the phone?

There's a certain irony that the primary feature separating smart phone cameras and traditional cameras is the ability to purposefully make "blurry photographs".

yeah but thats not what bokeh is. You can notice almost instantnly natural bokeh and it behaves.

Wait till you hear about cameras which primary feature is the ability to purposefully make photos you cannot even see until days later, much less edit in any convenient way. You must fully replace storage every couple dozen of shots and dynamic range is just awful compared to my phone's HDR. (Sarcasm ofc, love film)

...and how that is a remarkably fast growing area!

They can't make film quickly enough.

the artificial bokeh in current phones it good enough for most people. It might not be what you want, but the same is true of every part of a smartphone camera. is night shooting as good on a phone? No, but is the computationally enhanced night photography good enough for most people? Yes. Same with bokeh

I'm too lazy to get my DSLR out of the closet but here's a F1.8 shot from a Sony RX100

https://pasteboard.co/LuNcEAPrjquh.jpg

And here's the same shot from my iPhone in portrait mode set to 2 different levels of fake bokeh

https://pasteboard.co/8cBjb7EoKjhq.jpg

https://pasteboard.co/MR4AnkS8bqfN.jpg

On top of which, most people look at photos on their phones, not blown up to poster size in some art gallery

Artificial bokeh (like in Portrait mode on an iPhone) is getting better and better. It went from looking cheesy to somewhat natural in only a few years. It’ll be a while before it’s close to the example you gave, but I can imagine a future where Camera.app has a “tap to blur” feature using live CV object detection.

If you use artificial bokeh, and why stop there, probably not taking pictures to begin with and just use AI to create one is the way forward.

In the hypothetical future scenario where the output is good enough I don't think there's much of a point in making a distinction between something that is optically manipulated via lens vs done so via software.

Because you want to capture memories but not necessarily everthing in the field of view.

I'm a serious luddite in a lot of ways but don't see a meaningful difference between blurring the background by focusing the lens a certain way, and blurring it after the fact using depth information captured in the photo.

The way phone image processing pipelines work these days, this doesn't seem too far from the truth. Images from phones are essentially AI renderings which use pixel data as a prompt, and have less and less relation to the actual pixel data with each new device.

If I could ask an AI for a photo of my dog and it looked better than one I took with my camera, why wouldn't I? We're representing the world as series of pixels on a bitmap, makes little difference to me where it came from.

Yeah, this.

Outside, on a clear day? My iPhone rivals my Sony A7ii for SURE.

But in less than ideal situations, I can still do better with the Sony. BUT this is because I'm an enthusiastic amateur with pro-level tools and some modicum of know-how. For an average Joe, those things are probably lacking.

This. If you're at the push-button-get-picture level there's no point to anything beyond a flagship phone. And that's where most people are.

Agree with bokeh: This was taken with a Leica m9 using f0.95 50mm noctilux lens: https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/rennlist.com-vbulletin/2000x133...

This was taken using an iphone 13 mini (not pro) in regular mode.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0dectlquUI6Ur6vDCWrYw6oHg

Not so bad IMHO.

Edit: this one is more pronounced, again not in portrait mode.

https://share.icloud.com/photos/0c9pBN5Fy2yL0fuSYrX4j3BnA

Bokeh is physics, for smaller objects it's easier to reach some DoF even with f/4-6. On the 1st example the bokeh is, subjectively, very far from the SLR level, displaying a lot of onion rings and generally busy texture. For portraiture and street photography fast primes will still produce much more pleasing results. For now. I agree that we are certainly getting somewhere with the phone cameras, but I'm not sure where the ceiling is.

I for one am quite glad that modern AI-powered cameras have increasingly less blur on their images. I know that focusing on one depth is how physical lenses (including our eyes) work, I know that it can be an artistic tool. But for most of my photos, I don't care and I'd rather not have it. If I can get a 'tourist' picture of me and some monument, and have both well visible, I'd prefer that over the 'correct' way of being focused on only one. If I want to put an artistic touch on my photos, I'll use an app that gives me blurs and a million other options, but I'd prefer to have an unblurry version to start from.

> I'd prefer that over the 'correct' way of being focused on only one.

I don't see how that's more 'correct,' by anyone's definition. It's pretty common to go for wider depth of field for landscapes and a lot of portraits.

You can just use higher f number.

> If I want to put an artistic touch on my photos, I'll use an app that gives me blurs and a million other options

most of them wont do it correctly. You need to have full understanding of the debpth to do it which does not seem to work well. E.g look at the edges of the articifical bokeh usually the subject wont be separated properly..

Well for good bokeh you need a large sensor or a very wide aperture, which is hard to achieve in the form factor of smartphones.

You can also achieve it with multiple cameras spaced out. It’s computational, but not exactly faked.

as a layman all I see is a blurry image. doesn't apple have software to add blurriness to pictures?

My iPhone 13 Pro Max portrait mode can produce a near-identical picture to the one you linked.

The optics depend so much on physical size that phones have to fake this stuff. Idk why apple doesnt just cut the crap and just release like a m43 with swappable glass rather than all this silly multiple sensor stuff.

They got rid, the story wnet, of a 3.5 mm headphone jack to make the phone slimmer. Only to have the alrwady slim optics stick out. Not sure tge same company would go for replaceable lenses.

Bokeh and long range. My favorite lens was a 24-105 F/4 for a very long time, but that has been replaced with my phone. Now my 150-600mm lens (for wildlife) is the only thing that is ever mounted.

I think you would be surprised just how close to this depth of field look you can get with phone cameras these days. Its mostly digitally enhanced but it takes a real good eye to tell the difference.

It's not there yet, but progress is being made fast on that front

I had a Sony Xperia that did a pretty good job.

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