Samsung leapfrogs Nikon with Galaxy camera, 16mp 21x optical zoom and jellybean | Hacker News Reader

Samsung leapfrogs Nikon with Galaxy camera, 16mp 21x optical zoom and jellybean

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38 pointstarandeep44 comments

What is the point when the pictures will be all weird. To get 21x zoom on that sized camera, you need a horribly small sensor. The sensor on this is a bigger than iPhone's, but they also crammed in 16mp. Now, that screwed them to limit the fstop value to f/2.8 widest open. Note that widest open will happen at the time when you're zoomed out completely. You will most likely end up using the f/5.5+ fstop value on this camera on most images.

Any image this can produce would be way worse than an iPhone. Usually, you are shooting at f/2.4 on an iPhone. Notice that blurring smooth creaminess you get on off focus areas on iPhone? You will never get it from this camera. Things will either be focussed, or bluntly blurred.

They don't care about image quality at all with those specs. This is a marketing gig.

I don't think it's fair to compare the aperture of this lens when zoomed in to the aperture of an iPhone lens. Without using it, my first guess is that having an optical zoom is going to do more for general purpose image quality than what is lost by cramming 16mp into a small sensor. Obviously it depends on the use case, but in general, people like to zoom.

On a less speculative note, I disagree that image quality = narrow DOF. There's more than one style of picture in the world.

That said, I agree with the overall point of it being mostly a marketing gimmick (16MP on a tiny sensor? app store access? yawn). But then I'm a guy who's not happy without at least an APS-C size sensor, preferably with interchangeable lenses. And even then, it does drive me crazy that this can have GPS built in and my SLR requires an obtrusive, reportedly-very-slow add-on.

People like to zoom, but I'm not entirely sure if a 480mm effective focal length is what most people zoom to. When I used a point and shoot, 6x zoom seemed enough, but that's only one man's opinion.

GPS and wireless access pisses me off too, just for the cost alone. GPS unit for my DSLR is like $250. This is nuts.

16 megapixels packed into a 1/2.3" sensor? Ouch. That's the smallest sensor size on this image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sensor_sizes_overlaid_ins...

I hope DPReview does a review on this camera -- I suspect it's going to produce extremely poor photos.

>> I suspect it's going to produce extremely poor photos.

Relative to what? Compared to an SLR? Sony's RX100? The iPhone 4? Other 1/2.3" cameras?

Keep in mind that a 1/2.3" sensor is still significantly larger than something like, say the 1/3.2" sensor in the iPhone 4. Scaled to real-world image sizes (i.e. Facebook, etc.) the downsampled images will probably be good enough for most snapshots.

What's the point of 16MP if you're only concerned about scaling to Facebook?

Exactly. Megapixels only really matter if you're doing photo-editing or photo-printing. If it's being down-scaled - and it is, if you are uploading it to whatever social media site - then a 5MP iPhone 4 camera will serve you just as well.

But if you're not ready to make the smartphone/data-plan plunge, or your smartphone has a crap camera...

Well, except for the part where high density, low area sensors tend to have more noise and poorer sensitivity. If you were to assume that the iPhone and this device's sensors were the same size (they're probably not), then the iPhone's images would generally turn out better.

They also matter if you do a lot of "digital zoom". While I'm not a fan of digital zoom, people seem to use it.

What's the point of 16MP anyway? I've been very happy with my Nikon D40 shooting at 6BP.

There really isn't much of a point to 16MP, but seeing how the camera comes with it, and how people will practically use it (i.e. downsample), there's really nothing you can do but accept that it's there.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/digital-camera-se...

this page has a convenient calculator for diffraction limit of a sensor given it's MPix and dimensions. it shows that a 1/2" sensor with 16MPix becomes diffraction limited at f/2.7, so this slightly bigger one would be limited at around f/3. lens is specced at f/2.8-5.9. results out of anything more than the widest end might be less than spectacular...

Yup, it's a real shame. Imagine if they made it 5 megapixels, with BSI and full well? You could still make 8x10 prints (if anyone still does that...), but you could also take photos of your friends in a dark bar with no flash at f4. It would be amazing. But no one is doing it, and I have no idea why. Even the SLRs are now up above 20 megapixels. Why? I'm really anxious to see if Apple has the balls to keep the next iPhone at 8, or if they bump it up to 13.

Because most consumers aren't well informed?

If you buy into the notion that the ideal sensor pixel size is around 6 microns, the megapixel count on a 1/2.3" sensor would only be around 0.8 megapixels.

On the other hand, I recall one of the leading sensor designers (Eric Fossum?) stating that high megapixel counts don't necessarily sacrifice image quality or sensitivity.

I'm not convinced that a point-and-shoot camera can be considered "pro". Thumbs-up for manual exposure settings and the inclusion of Android, but a single f/2.8-5.9 lens is not going to be suitable in a lot of situations. I also don't see a flash (or flash mount) anywhere, which would make it annoying to take photos in a dark bar or restaurant.

Alternatively, I think it would be neat to apply some of these features to Nikon/Canon's existing DSLR lineups, eg. having wifi/4G connectivity on a DSLR that didn't require an $800 attachment.

There's a small pop-up style flash, but you are right, no mounting for an external flash.

exactly. "Samsung Galaxy Camera is a pro camera" I practically stopped reading there. This is not even remotely close to what in camera land is considered pro.

Completely Agreed - add to that an external mic, switchable lenses, high ISO (DSLRs can go as high as 8x higher) - some of the other things a "Pro" might want of the camera.

Though this product looks nice - what's the point? - that you can play Angry Birds on your P&S camera? Keep in mind P&S cameras are a shrinking market being cannibalized by smartphones and DSLRs.

>> what's the point? - that you can play Angry Birds on your P&S camera?

Instagram? Snapseed? Hipstamatic? Direct upload to Facebook? Untethered transfer of images to your other devices?

I'd like to see this tech on Samsung's NX mirrorless line. If Samsung wants to compete with the big boys, they'll need to differentiate, and Android's one way to do it.

Having a full 3G modem in a camera, and a flexible operating system to control it is certainly nice. Having a camera that just uploads everything to Dropbox (or whatever), that's awesome!

However, I have some doubt. One thing is that I think all the regular "smartphone" features here are a distraction. No, I quite certainly do not want to check my e-mail on my camera. I'm all for having a flexible system there, so people can build new innovative image editing software to use right on the camera, and let me install this on the camera, but PLEASE keep in mind that a camera is still a special-purpose device.

The second doubt is, as others here have indicated, that this particular camera might just not be very good.

Interesting that camera get the latest jellybean before Galaxy phones. I guess next up will be a Galaxy TV. And Galaxy fridge that auto order to restock your pizza and beer.

The camera's software isn't controlled by carriers, unlike smartphones.

It's a bit early to say that it leapfrogs. Any camera is as good as its lens is good. And Nikon makes it better.

>> Any camera is as good as its lens is good.

That might have been true in the film days, but these days sensor quality is just as important as the lens.

>> And Nikon makes it better

I don't know if this is particularly true about their lower end point and shoots, and that's where I would categorize their Android camera.

Actually, I've heard that the best camera is the one that you have on you. A smartphone with optical zoom is a good thing, I think.

Wow, so much negativity in these comments. To me this is the logical conclusion of the phone camera (a lot of people had this idea, I'm sure, but they seem to be the first to get it out). After bashing Samsung for their iPhone copying, I applaud them here for making something innovative. Camera phones (always available, and now internet connected) are a not-insignificant part of the social web revolution--people want to see and be seen (and apply some filters, too).

Front like a camera, back like a phone. Slick UI to control the camera instead of the usual confusing array of buttons. Image quality should be equivalent to other P&S, which is better than the usual camera phones. 16 MP is just a number to sell the thing into the target demographic: active camera phone users, not DSLR users.

And I think leapfrogs is not an exaggeration. If this takes off, Samsung will have the edge and can start branching out into other wireless-enabled cameras, camera OS's, and who knows what else they can think of. The pure camera manufacturers will be playing catch-up forever, just as the old cellular phone manufacturers were leapfrogged by Apple and never caught up.

But how do you hold it comfortably with that big bump on the back?

Hold it like a point and shoot camera.

"The pure camera manufacturers will be playing catch-up forever"

Why? Nothing stops other camera manufacturers from using Android in their products.

Why on earth would I want my camera to be running a full phone OS? It's one thing to build a camera into a phone for convenience, but when will having an OS and touchscreen in the back of my camera make something more convenient?

Communication programs would make synchronizing and sharing photos (particularly one-offs) much easier.

Touch-to-focus, touch-to-set-white-balance are pretty awesome and far more user-friendly than comparable functions/processes on today's point-n-shoots (when they're even available).

Applications would be able to extend what are fairly difficult-to-kludgy with todays point-n-shoots (HDR, stitched panoramas, night shots, etc)

etc.

That's what I told a guy I went to school with when he has shown me Snakes on his Nokia phone. Who'd ever want to play a game on a phone?

And then, around two years later, I asked him who'd ever want a color display on their phone when he was showing off his T68. Who'd ever need a color display on a phone...

I also remember laughing about the ridiculous camera add-on for that T68. I mean: who'd ever want a camera in their phone?

In this present case, being able to instantly upload to Dropbox or picture sharing sites certainly has some appeal, but I guess we'll have to see how this develops over time.

I certainly stopped asking "why on earth..." when talking about gadgets though :-)

When there is an app on the Play store for 3.99 that makes your camera a much better camera.

Better than a 1/2.3" sensor in front of a f/2.8-5.9 lens? Right.

You are kidding right? I said better camera, not better sensor or picture quality. What makes a better camera often is more features or a better interface for taking pictures, post processing them or sharing/archiving/distributing them.

How many point and shoot camera's can upload pictures to any existing/future social media websites? How many point and shoot camera's can run Photoshop? How many can archive to any cloud storage median immediately after taking the picture?

Many apps will follow this camera. There are already many Android camera apps that are far better than the stock Android 4.1 camera. They have a far better than the interface of any point and shoot camera. There are also already many Android photo manipulation apps that are better than any built into ANY other camera in any price range.

Down-voters are likely jealous Apple fanboys. And your comment is quite short sighted jarek. If you think that a superior lens and sensor is all it takes to make a "better" camera you should stick to old school "film" cameras.

1/2.3" and f/2.8-5.9 are on the Android camera in question.

I haven't shot a film camera since disposables in the 90s but thanks for the thought.

There are smartphones, tablets, netbooks, watches, ski goggles running Android. It is interesting to consider Android as a "phone OS".

Sure, your camera doesn't need apps. Neither does your phone. But just because it's not necessary, doesn't mean that it won't provide lots of benefits. You can, for instance install Dropbox and use Camera Upload to automatically sync all your photos to all your devices the moment you shoot them.

>> Sure, your camera doesn't need apps.

A lot of people seem to like using apps on their phones for photography though. This Samsung camera seems like a great Instagram camera.

That's exactly what I meant. A camera doesn't NEED apps, but it would be useful to have the ability. I would definitely use Instagram and Dropbox Camera Upload with this device.

To the extent that it can provide better, more responsive, more flexible user interface than your typical camera - nothing wrong with it.

(NEX5 user - great camera but every time I use the interface it always feels less than friendly/sophisticated)

The price for the first phone: $1 billion

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