Digital cameras

[Murphyv310]

Mod note: Thread split from this one: https://golbornevintageradio.co.uk/forum...p?tid=8050

For low light and SD quality the Digital8 beats any camera phone. With the advantage of a decent zoom lens.

Sorry Michael.
I can't agree with you there. My Huawei P30 48mp camera eats any camcorder for low light video and still performance. The new P40 is allegedly even better. The latest Samsung offerings are just about as good. The low light videos I've done no this phone are spectacular.

[Murphyv310]

The spec says lower than 0.3 lux for the P30 Pro. I believe the Sony is 1 lux

[Mark Hennessy]

Yes, modern CMOS sensors are truly excellent now - much better in low light that a comparable CCD sensor. The increased sensitivity will be offset by the fact a Digital 8 sensor will be larger, but even so, a modern smartphone sensor will be better in most comparisons. The smartphone also has the advantage of serious image-processing horsepower to clean up noise and other artefacts. There's really no contest these days...

The last non-phone digital camera I bought - back in 2014 - was a Canon S120. It's a lovely camera - really very good. Comparing results with friends who had the latest smartphones, my Canon made them look a bit silly in low light conditions. However, that was 6 years ago - that gap closed pretty quickly. I've just done a couple of test shots to compare it to my 2016 iPhone SE, and if anything, there's slightly more noise with the Canon. It chose an ISO of 800, so it's not surprising that some noise is visible when you zoom right in. But 800 is pretty much unusable on my older 450D (a D-SLR from 2008), so that's impressive progress in a short few years. We have one at work which is a couple of years newer (a 550D, IIRC), and that is also much better than the 450. Without uploading the iPhone image to the computer, I don't think I can find out what ISO it chose, but either way, the results were excellent.

Until I got the iPhone, I used to carry the Canon with me wherever I could (and a separate MP3 player). Now, I only use it for high-quality shots in the workshop for the website. Remember - this iPhone is 4 years old, and was the cheapest in their line-up. I would expect that current camera phones would be considerably better again. Also, I rather doubt the sensor in a Digital8 is capable of shooting 4k video, unlike this 4 year old phone

[Mike Watterson]

I did say it the Sony Digital 8 was only SD. Mine has a special night mode. In regular operation it's no better at low light than a phone.

The biggest problems with a phone as a camera are holding them steady and using them when the screen is in direct sunshine. The lesser problem with most is the inability to change the lens. So I'd like a digital replacement for my OM10.

The phone has totally killed the market for any casual use of video and snapshots. Some are indeed very good and some not so good. Not everyone can afford an iPhone or Samsung either. My current smartphone would be better complemented by a decent digital camera which would be about the same price as top iPhone or Samsung even including the lenses.

[Murphyv310]

The Huawei P30 Pro has a Leica lens and optical zoom, it does wide, 3D and all sorts of stuff. Four sensors one of which is the front camera at 12mp the rear camera is up to 48mp. A picture of the moon taken at full zoom (phone on a stand you can buy) and then zoomed in on the picture was so good, a big file admittedly. This phone also does time lapse and slow motion.

[Mark Hennessy]

I was idly looking at the Canon website the other day, wondering what I'd replace the S120 with. While there might not be exactly that combination of manual control and tiny size, there is plenty of choice at a wide range of price points. There's still plenty of good cameras out there - they're just not as mainstream as they once were. Saying the phone has "totally killed the market" is rather blunt - there's no shortage of clickbait articles out there with titles like that. Depending on who's data you believe, the market is back where it was in the early-mid 2000s, before the peak roughly centred on 2010. It has obviously fallen a long way from that peak, but that would have happened anyway as the technology matured - it's impossible to quantify for sure how much of that was actually down to the smartphone. Some, definitely. Personally, and coincidently, I took a lot more pictures during that peak than I do now because we had 2 small children. But our digital camera purchases, as a household, have been evenly spread out over the last 20 years - the last one was about 2 years ago (not for me, but a family member), and I am actively thinking about the next one. Since we all moved over to second-hand iPhones, we definitely use our phones more, but for anything decent I have the choice of several cameras. For the non-technical, the convenience of a smartphone is what makes the difference. No more faffing around with USB cables or SD memory card readers. No more having to transfer the files to a PC or equivalent. Just keep them in your pocket, backed up to your iCloud account. For most people, most of the time, it's all they need. That's fair enough; that's progress. Given the incentive, it's astonishing what you can do with a tiny sensor, few or no moving parts, and a healthy dose of image processing software.

The 2016 iPhone SE is available second hand on the high street for around £100. Cheaper on-line, but obviously risky. I've bought several from CEX. They let you examine them and power them up to check the battery health, etc. If there is a problem, they sort it out with no hassle. The 2016 SE is still supported, and will continue to receive OS and security updates for another year at least. That's a total of 5 years of full support so far, which represents an excellent ROI for a sub-£400 phone. Of course, they will continue to work after support ends, just like any Android phone older than about 2 years. While I would struggle to personally justify paying £400 on a phone - any phone - I have no problem spending £100 on one. The trouble is, some people read the headlines and believe you need to spend the best part of a grand to own an iPhone, but that's really not the case. The new 2020 SE is also about £400, and according to people who follow these things, it's really shaken up that part of the market. Obviously most will be sold via contracts rather than bought outright, but even if you did, £400 for a minimum of 5 years of full support is not bad value for someone who needs a smartphone.

Society has changed - just look around; even the very poorest can find a way to own a smartphone, for better or worse. If you're happy to not have the latest handsets, the price of entry starts at £0, and PAYG can be feasible for light users. For many, it might be the only device they can access the internet from - money saved from not having a phone line and broadband can easily cover the cost of running a smartphone and then some. Obviously we all have different priorities, and that's fine - many might prefer to use computers connected to home broadband rather than smartphones, but most non-technical folk I know moved over to smartphones and tablets years ago.

I'll split this thread in a minute...

[peter scott]

I'm not into the exotics of the Huawei P30 Pro yet. I just have a Redmi Note 4 but my little Panasonic LF1 that I've had for years is still superior in most ways photographically including low light performance relative to the Redmi.

I did make the mistake a year ago of trying to replace the LF1 with its 1/1.7" CMOS sensor with the Panasonic TZ100 with its 1" CMOS sensor thinking it would have superior low light performance in addition to its 4k resolution. I knew it was bigger and heavier but was prepared to live with that for superior performance.

In fact the TZ100 was noticeably worse in low light and much less intuitive to drive. I resold it and returned to the LF1 and would certainly caution anyone against the TZ100.

I have had a Sony TRV22E DV camcorder for the last 15 years. It has been pretty good and using its digital slow shutter could record of CRT TV screens without aliasing bars. Unfortunately it recently started chewing tapes so I only use it now for video capture as it has an analogue video input and Firewire output.

I replaced it with a secondhand Sony HDR HC3E hoping that it would also give aliasing free recording in its digital slow shutter mode. My assumption there proved to be disappointingly wrong. I can use it directly for screen video capture without bothering to record on tape but unlike the TRV22E it doesn't have a video input. At least it gives better resolution than the DV camera.

Peter

[Murphyv310]

Hi.
Some of the recent YouTube videos I have done I've just used the auto mode, not realising at the time I can set aperture and shutter speed manually. Now that I know I can get nice flicker free videos.
A P30 Lite still has very good camera features and can be bought new very cheaply. No doubt because of all the political stuff going on with Huawei.
In fact my old P8 Lite had a good camera too, its now 4 years old and in this day and age a vintage phone.

I've also a Fuji S5600 digital camera, only 5mp but a decent lens and it still takes nice photos. I've also a little Canon IXUS 20Mp, it OK for general snaps but not the best.
My favourite is Dad's old Zorki 4, brilliant lens that's a Leica copy, not an SLR though.

[roadster]

I echo Peter's comments about the Panasonic LF1. I use mine for 90+% of my photography. For "serious" work I use a Sony A6000with interchangeable lenses, extension tubes, microscope adaptor etc. A very useful feature of both the LF1 and the Sony is the ability to save files as both Raw, for post processing and as a small jpeg, suitable for email or forum attachment. I can't comment on smart phone camera quality or useability as I have never used one. I still have all my large format equipment, unused for about twenty years and I am starting to realise that I will probably never use any of it again, the same probably applies to my 35mm gear, unused for about ten years, although I do use some of the lenses with my A6000.
Rod

[peter scott]

Hi Trevor,

Back in February Catkins posted a video taken from the screen of his Murphy and I was very impressed by the fact that his PowerShot SX720 HS camera actually registered the frame rate and locked to it without any intervention or genlock.

One thing that may be a factor is the area of TV screen videoed. If I make a video with the TV screen filling the video image then I get aliasing bars like this. But with a more distant view there is less of a problem.

I don't quite understand this but I could certainly be tempted by your P30 if it avoids the need for genlock for alias free video.

Could you post an HD Youtube of several minutes to let me see the P30 close-up video performance looking at a 405 line set in operation so that the TV screen fills the video image as in my flawed example?

Peter