camera for non photographers

Discuss cameras, settings, composition, or anything related to photography - cactus or other subjects.
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adetheproducer
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camera for non photographers

Post by adetheproducer »

There seems to be a lot of high end disscution about photography so I would like to give an opinion of the normal photographer who primarily uses their mobile phone to take pictures. I recently got a samsung S3 and am very impressed by the quality of it. Its the first digital camera I have owned which actually photographs the colours and deffinition I see. It great on extreme close ups which always have failed with any other digital camera I have used in the past. Take a look at this I just took. To give some perspective the diameter of the seedling is 5mm.
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Harriet
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Re: camera for non photographers

Post by Harriet »

The new smart phones are all working toward a very high standard of digital photography, so "crappy digital cell phone camera" is becoming less of an excuse. It never hurts to check out the "high end" discussions though, for tips on lighting, framing, etc.

I like the picture! Just as a passing thought, if you were setting up your picture it might have been improved with a tiny bit of water on the rocks and subject just to give it a bit more life.
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DaveW
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Re: camera for non photographers

Post by DaveW »

The reason your phone takes good pictures is it has restricted itself to 8 Megapixels. Unfortunately Megapixels sell cameras (and phones), therefore compact camera and smartphone makers try and cram too many Megapixels onto their small sensors. It is a fact that a full frame sensored camera with 8 Megapixels will always produce better pictures than an 8 Megapixel smartphone or compact camera merely because the pixel sites are larger, and still probably better than a 10 or 12 Megapixel compact camera or smartphone:-

"While the megapixel marketing race has come to a stop for traditional cameras, it’s playing out in another digital photography sector: smartphones. It’s déjà vu: With every new model that has a camera (which is nearly all of them) that comes out, we see smartphone makers boasting about the number of megapixels the camera can handle. One recent example is Nokia’s Lumia 1020, which claims a whopping 41 megapixels.

“They are following a similar path as the camera makers by stressing more is better,” Lee said.

As more people are embracing smartphones for casual photography, smartphone makers are trying to make their cameras on par with traditional point-and-shoot models, which still yield greater image quality because of components like better sensors, image processors, optical zooms, image stabilization systems – the things that many smartphones currently don’t have. Stressing the higher megapixel counts is one of the ways to overcome the shortcomings."


http://www.digitaltrends.com/photograph ... y-cameras/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

A camera image only needs to be good enough for it's final purpose. If you only post on the Web then the computer monitor you are viewing your picture on only has a resolution of about 3-4 Megapixels, so unless you crop your images even your 8 megapixel phone camera is overkill and you will see no difference in onscreen resolution (provided the lens is of sufficient quality) between it and a 24 Megapixel full frame DSLR. If you make large prints however the difference will be obvious, as they say "horses for courses".

What too many pixels on a small sensor does though is increase image noise:-

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/ ... -reduction" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Your phone maker is sensibly keeping the Megapixel count down on it's small sensor, but if the man in the street sees your phone has an 8 Megapixel camera whereas another has a 14 Megapixel one with the same sized sensor he automatically thinks the 14 Megapixel one should produce better pictures. Even the APS-C sensor sized DSLR's are now running up against the too small pixel site for sensor size problem, therefore their manufacturers are now moving to full frame models so they can sensibly add more Megapixels yet keep the pixel sites a reasonable size.

http://www.techradar.com/reviews/phones ... cleContent" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

With photography it has always been better the bigger the image at the taking stage (larger format film in the past and with digital meaning the largest sized sensor) so the less it is enlarged for it's final display the better the quality. When photography started with full plate film cameras the image was large enough to contact print without any enlargement. As camera and film size reduced for convenience the original image had to be enlarged much more, which also enlarged all faults in the image. As said though most of us have better equipment than we need for the final use we put the images to, unless we print poster sized enlargements.
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