Android based camera from Nikon: Coolpix S800
nikonrumors.com
nikonrumors.com
[1] http://bythom.com/design2010.htm
[2] http://chdk.wikia.com/wiki/CHDK
Some ideas: http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/august31/levoy-opensource...
Obj-C on iOS isn't much better really though.
While Nikon makes great DSLR (but not necessarily better than the competition), their point and shoot cameras aren't any good. Not when compared to the Canon S95 in the cheap segment. Or the Fuji X10 in the expensive segment. Nikon can't even get the mirror-less interchangeable lens system right : what were they thinking with the Nikon 1 ? the sensor is way too small, much smaller than the already small sensors of the Four Third system from Olympus/Panasonic and the size of the sensor is one of the most important thing to consider when it comes to image quality. Canon obviously knows better than Nikon and their entry to that market will feature an APS-C sensor.
Whatever it is that Nikon does, they do not understand photography anymore, apart from the few who work in their DSLR division.
The iPhone has a 1/3.2" sensor (9.7x crop factor), a 4.28mm length f/2.4 max aperture.
That's like a 43mm f/23 full frame (basically, apature scales with crop factor just like length); or a 26mm f/14.5 APC-C.
Compared to a 1/2.3" sensor (which the S800 is likely to pack) it's like a 6mm f/3.3 lens (43mm full frame, as they don't like to mention how apature scales). The advantage of a S800 will be the range (25mm -> uselessly long without a tripod and good light), compared to the 43mm prime iPhone; apature and image quality will be similar. Also, the Nikon will have niceties like vibration reduction, a flash (maybe), smarter focusing / metering, better processing (maybe).
The real question is, who would want one? I'd say - people with dumb phones who carry cameras; and hipsters who want to be seen with a camera while they play Angry Birds on the bus. It might be bigger in non-US markets, where phones don't appear so cheap (due to hidden carrier costs).
The effect on DoF is different, sure, but not on light – and I think with those kinds of cameras you are more interested in their ability to let in light than their ability to produce shallow DoF (that’s pretty much a given for any small sensor camera).
But since the larger sensor can work with much more light, it therefore has a much higher S/N-ratio. If you switch that camera to a higher aperture, you get less light, leading to a lower ratio again.
So the lower S/N-ratio of the smaller sensor could be estimated as a higher aperture. Whether the numbers calculated by wisty are correct, I don't know, though.
The f-number is a property of the lens and nothing else. The S/N ratio of the sensor is independent of that.
It’s correct: smaller pixels tend to have a lower S/N-ratio, which mostly means that you can’t turn up the gain as much as with sensors that have larger pixels (you can’t increase the ISO by as much) and you will see more noise at the same gain.
But that’s no law of nature. It’s possible to have a crappy large sensor and an excellent small sensor. It’s the sensor that matters here – and there are many more variables involved there. Sensors with pixels a certain size don’t have a certain S/N-ratio only depending on pixel size. And any exact mathematical formula (like f-number scaling with crop factor) doesn’t make sense there, not at all.
f-number is a ratio of apature to length. A 400mm f/5.6 will have a 71mm apature. An iPhone lens does not (despite having a better f-number).
The light is spread out more, so you'll a higher ISO to take fast photos, but let's say ISO is proportional to sensor size. A larger sensor captures more photons, so it can have a higher ISO. That is a law of nature.
As you say, ISO is neither deterministic nor linear, but I'm more confortable considering ISO to scale with crop size than pretending it's constant.
If we are ignoring ISO altogether that's fine, but then there's no point talking about the amount of light hitting the sensor.
That leaves diffraction, but I don't really understand diffraction.
I'm not sure what you mean by aperture scaling with crop factor either?
DoF, the ability to take fast photos (due to better ISO) and diffraction can scale with crop factor. Maybe it's not a perfect equivalence, but neither is focal length.
And when its running Android, that can be win win for everyone involved, if Nikon makes the hardware sufficiently open. Anything is probably better than having to flash your custom firmware through a freaking IR led.
I mean, a camera is for taking pictures and the corresponing OS should only care about the job of taking pictures and show them later on.
Why do I need a fullfledge Android system running on my camera?
This seems more like a toy experiment.
I will ask the same question, but for a different reason— non-DSLR cameras are just becoming obsolete. Go to any touristy place, and you'll see more people using smartphones (and surprisingly, tablets) than point&shoot.
No teenager today would want to buy a p&s when they can use their phone, which produces similar (or better) image quality and already has apps/sharing/etc.
Most of my "everyday" shots (ie. shots of friends and family at events, etc.) are taken with my iPhone. It performs better than would be desirable in all situations. That's what people care about.
They are far away, so your telephoto cuts down the light, and it's too far for a flash.
That's my test for a camera.
Any camera can do well in good lighting, or with a flash. But take a picture in poor lighting and see how well it does.
This http://campl.us/posts/iPhone-Camera-Comparison finds that an S95 in ISO 32000 is equivalent to an iPhone 4S in ISO 80. That's a pretty dramatic difference.
And a really cool one. Never thought about programming a camera to do things it does not by default?
Not everyone is using their camera in a very simple way. Why not have software on there doing face recognition, panoramics, stop frame, etc etc etc
http://www.canonrumors.com/ http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/ http://www.fujirumors.com/ etc