In Search of the Ultimate Cameraphone: What is out there now, best of class, and what might we expect from upcoming iPhones, Lumias, Sonys and Galaxies; the definitive cameraphone blog for shutterbugs and pixelnerds (updated)

Ok lets talk cameraphones. I’ve been wanting to write this blog for a long while but I also wanted to do the topic justice. This is my ‘definitive’ analysis of what is the status of the ‘top camera’ handset as in ‘cameraphone’ segment of the industry. I will discuss various technical aspects of the techology itself and its evolution, and will make predictions about what we can expect from the four main ‘camera’ leaders of the handset market. So for example I will explain why we should not expect Xenon flash onto an iPhone or an optical zoom onto Lumia series. Also I will explain why there is a total break between the true ‘cameraphone’ devices in the world and the ‘premium/luxury phones with good cameras’ rivals. The distintion has become quite drastic in recent years. Oh, and I’ll toss in tons of personal anecdotes and occasional photography tips etc so this is gonna be a long long article - which I will decorate for you with many illustrations including pictures.

UPDATE 13 Feb 2015 - I will just mention briefly, spotted this rare consumer tidbit today: According to Comtech 2014 study, the third most important criterion in consumers buying a phone today is the camera, ahead of screen or battery life, and behind only 4G/LTE connectivity and reliability/durability. So just as an observation here, about was my blog relevant to the industry when I posted it last month haha.. Now please continue reading..

Lets then do some immediate disclosures. None of the pictures that I show will be taken with the iPhone 6 Plus or a Sony Xperia Z3 or a Microsoft Lumia 1020. The pictures are mostly taken with the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom or a Nokia 808 Pureview. When I need to illustrate a photographic concept and how it applies to the technology in those devices, I will use a mock-up out of an existing picture, and show only that aspects, that this is how x tech would appear in the Z3 or in the 6 Plus or the L1020 etc. I will be using usually the same photograph which has been manipulated (typically edited/cropped) to illustrate a given technical ability. It was still shot either on the K Zoom or the 808PV.

Secondly, this blog will be limited to ONLY the camera side of these premium/flagship smartphones. I will not look at any other issues that don’t apply to the picture-taking directly. So yeah, that given phone might have an awesome app store or be a delight to use or have a mobile wallet or include a built-in microwave oven and cappuccino-maker for example but we won’t care in this article. This is long enough as it is, the ONLY part I will discuss today - and to which all comments will be LIMITED is the picture-taking ability of the main camera.

So yes, we can also shoot video on the phones. Big whooptedoo. Much of what makes a good camera also makes a good videocamera so most of this article will be relevant to at least some degree about video, but not everything. And the camera ability is not all you need in video (important for example ,is sound recording which doesn’t apply to pictures). Video is another topic for another time. As is the selfie-cam. We won’t bother to consider how ‘complete’ a given cameraphone is for its other cameras. This is only about the main camera. That feature, which most people use more than the selfie cam. And on that camera, we only focus on taking pictures, as most people still today, take far more pictures than videos. We will also ignore other types of uses like videocalling or scanning barcodes or using the camera as a measurement tool etc. We limit it now to act ‘as a camera’ in a traditional sense. To take pictures.

And on those disclosures I am an ex-Nokia employee (left Nokia in 2001) and as a Finn I certainly will have a bias in favor of my old employer (even where Microsoft now owns their handset business). I currently use the Galaxy K Zoom which I bought with my own money (ie it was not given to me) and that tells you a lot about my choice of currently best cameraphone I must be biased in favor of Samsung too as I often use their products (such as typing this blog on a Samsung Ultrabook laptop). As to Sony the second most used phone brand I’ve ever owned is Sony(Ericsson). Need I specify that I’ve owned more Nokia phone devices than all other brands added together. But back to Sony. I loved my Xperia Z1 (for which I also had the accessory camera zoom lens the DX10) and am considering buying another Xperia to be perhaps my next phone. It would be in my second pocket however, as I will not give up the K Zoom as my primary phone for now (until a better cameraphone might come along).

As to iPhones, I am an old Macintosh user and trainer and I love Apple but I’ve never bought an iPhone. They were good phones that became great phones but where every smartphone is a compromise, the iPhone had consistently sacrificed exactly where I most appreciated a rivals’ ability such as a real QWERTY keyboard like Blackberries and older Nokia Communicators etc, and obviously cameras. I’ve owned every generation of the best cameraphone that existed. So, now that you know this blog will be pure anti-Apple hatered and continuous Elop-bashing of Microsoft and Nokia, lets get started.

PROLOGUE

This year marks 40 years since I got serious about photography, worked a summer job, and used my savings to buy my first serious camera. In 1975 there was no such thing as DSLR, the digital camera didn’t exist. That was when the top cameras were ‘merely’ SLR cameras. Single Lens Reflex is what SLR means, and that meant, that differing from other cameras at the time the way you ‘aimed’ the camera, in an SLR your view came through the lens that you were using (via mirrors). Then when you snapped your picture for a fraction of a second, the mirror would flip away, open a shutter, and expose the film. Then the mirror returned so you could see again, to take your next picture. Most other cameras had viewfinders that were above and to the side of the lens, so you would always aim slightly away from the exact photography target (called a parallax view and parallax error). The great benefit of SLR was as increasingly cameras were sold with lenses that the photographer could switch, the photographer could always see through the lens for what kind of image was being ‘seen’ through that specific lens vs another.

These were cameras for professionals and serious amateurs (much how DSLRs are today. The D in DSLR means digital, so DSLR cameras have similar construction but use a digital sensor instead of film). So yeah, in 1975 I got serious and bought myself a ‘proper’ camera, a Konica Autoreflex T3 and a Konica Hexanon 50mm F/1.4 standard lens to go with it. I would later save more money and buy the Hexanon 80-200mm zoom lens for it and an increasing array of gadgets, until I switched over to Canon and was a Canon guy for about 3 decades. Now, before I turned 15, I had dabbled in photography and next year 2016 marks the 50 year anniversary for me and my first camera. It did take 6 years from that lucky moment of receiving my first functional camera, however, that I took my first picture with my own camera, because at age 6, I was not rich enough to buy my own film (or to afford to develop it and print pictures). And by age 11, I had graduated from that very first functional camera without film, to my second real camera, a Kodak Instamatic 300 and I was finally rich enough to afford one or two rolls of film per year (and shooting totally ruined pictures of mere blur and confusion).

But lets do the tech love in a postscript to this blog article for those who would like to take that journey down memory lane with me. Suffice it to say, I’ve been rather serious about my cameras for a long time. Longer than many who read this blog have been alive. And once I started, I went all in. That summer 1975 when I worked at the Philips warehouse in Espoo Finland, it was my first paid summer job. It took most of my summer vacation (a considerable sacrifice) and my salary barely paid for the Konica that I then bought. Yes, I was getting very serious about this passion.

But think about this article a bit. I am writing on a computer. I write fast, but I also make a lot of typos (as regular visitors to this blog know all too well). For that we have a lovely technology solution - spellcheck - that could nearly eliminate any spelling errors in my writing. I’m just too lazy to bother to spell-check this blog. But there are plenty of automatic writing aids that help make better written output including spell-checking software that helps with grammar and even syntax. You know this of course but here is my point. That kind of software can only fix errors, it can’t put in text where none exists. So yes, it might spot a word thats missing or even some words. But even if some artificial intelligence algorithm studied all my writing including the millions of words in this blog and half a million in my books, no logic in the world could have inserted several paragraphs of text about spell-checking into an article written by tech blogger Ahonen about cameras in phones. So yes, computers and software can help fix errors. They cannot create where nothing exists to fix. This will become important in the story later on, obviously. Now lets talk about

THE FOUR BIG BRANDS

There are tons of good or interesting handset makers. I want to keep this article as short as possible (but cover all relevant issues of cameraphones in one comprehensive blog) so I have decided to pick ‘the’ four brands of most valuable insight. They are the four familiar names. First up, the world’s largest handset maker, largest smartphone maker, largest camera manufacturer and largest cameraphone maker, Samsung. Their best cameraphone is the Galaxy K Zoom.

The world’s second largest phone maker, second largest cameraphone maker, second largest cameramaker, but not a Top 10 smartphone maker, is the Nokia handset unit that Microsoft just bought last year. The Nokia brand is also the world’s most used camera brand and they never made any stand-alone cameras. so all of that was achieved only via cameraphones. The top cameraphone from the (Nokia) Microsoft offering is the Lumia 1020.

The world’s third largest cameramaker - who make more cameras than all stand-alone cameras sold per year - and world’s third largest handset maker and world’s second largest smartphone manufacturer is Apple. Did you know Apple actually launched the world’s first consumer digital camera, long long before anyone had heard of an iPhone. Yes. The Apple Quicktake 100 was the world’s first digital camera sold to consumers as far back as 1994. It never gained big success but now as Apple’s iPhone will pass Microsoft/Nokia soon and becoming the world’s second best-selling camera brand, that is a wonderful achievement over at Apple, thank you for launching the digital camera revolution 21 years ago, Apple! If iPassion runs in your iVeins the only cameraphone for you can be the iPhone 6 Plus.

And the fourth entrant I will add, is the only company that had a thriving camerabusiness before the cameraphone was invented and who still today offer leadership in stand-alone cameras. It is of course Sony who has been offering us (slightly) waterproof cameras that can be used briefly at a swimming pool (but can’t be taken for example on diving expeditions). Now Sony is not the fourth biggest phone maker or smartphone maker but as Sony also sells stand-alone cameras under the Cybershot brand, Sony is somewhere around 5th largest cameramaker in the world today when counting its smartphones and Cybershot stand-alone cameras. Not just for itself, Sony is also a major camera tech provider to the whole industry, in fact THREE of the four best cameraphones I included today, have Sony technology at the core of the camera side. So from Sony obviously I am including their flagship Xperia Z3. The two others that use Sony sensors inside their top cameraphones are Samsung Galaxy K Zoom and ... did you know this ... all iPhones sold today have Sony camera sensors, so the iPhone 6 Plus yes uses a Sony sensor. Its not the same sensor in all the phones, but lets not get ahead of ourselves, that will be coming.

So yes, you may love your LG or HTC or Xiaomi or whatnot, but I have to keep this to a reasonable length. These are the four top dogs we will consider. So then lets start with the theory. And go a bit back into history.

THE SENSOR IS LIKE FILM USED TO BE

Back in the film days of photography, there was a wide range of film that was manufactured for various uses. For consumers there were film types for cameras, that included black-and-white film, color picture film, and color film for slides. There were also some more exotic film stock from X-ray film to motion picture film. And there were several manufacturers with Kodak, Agfa, Fuji and Polaroid as the major film providers, plus some smaller brands. Polaroid only made film for its own cameras, the other makers made (mostly) film that was not specific to any one camera brand and was on standards like 35mm, 110 cartridge, 126 cartridge etc. Film also came in sensitivity, some film was very sensitive to light and was good for low-light situations while other film was not as sensitive and was intended for use in strong sunlight etc.

Obviously if you bought a roll of black-and-white film in 35mm size, you could stick it into any 35mm camera, and it always gave you black-and-white pictures. Then you needed another (usually more expensive, until the very end of film days) film to take color pictures. And if you wanted very sensitive film to work in very low light conditions, that was available but would again cost more, whether in black-and-white or in color formats.

Today all digital cameras shoot color and some can manipulate the pictures to turn them into black-and-white or you can use photoshop or any clones to turn color pictures into black-and-white, if thats your thing (I’ve shot so much B/W simply to save money, literally thousands of photographs, that I hate the format and refuse to see any artistic merit in doing B/W pictures or films in any other uses except if one wants to mimick a historical picture or film). But there is a strong parallel on the sensor, its quality, and image quality. So lets just explore film a bit more. So yeah, I mentioned 110 film cartridge (some readers will remember those) and 35mm and 126 cartridge. These were the three most popular film types by volume sold in 150 years. 35mm is named based on the size of the image on the negative 35mm x 23mm in size. 126 was smaller and 110 smaller still. The 110 film cartridge used a much more narrow negative stock that produced images the size of 17mm x 13mm in size on the processed negative, ie one quarter the size of 35mm film. This had a direct impact on the technical ability of film to store detail of an image. It would not be visible in a normal-sized photograph, but if you enlarged a picture to say page-size, then the quality of (similar spec) 35mm film was already noticeable vs 110 cartridge and if you enlarged further to poster-size, the difference was glaring.

Size matters (and yes, this becomes very important to modern cameraphones in just a moment, be patient). So there were also cameras that had larger film than 35mm cameras, most famous of the large format cameras is Hasselblad. And 110 was not the smallest film either. If you’ve seen spy movies from the past century, the pocket camera they used is a Minox which at first used a film with picture frames on the negative as small as 9mm x 6.5mm. Only 1/16th the size of the picture on a negative of 35mm. You could still take pictures but they were very ‘grainy’ ie you could physically see the grains of film elements as you produced pictures out of Minox camera film. Much how like if you try enlarging pictures made by very modest-resolution digital cameras like VGA resolution of 1mp resolution etc. Except that with digital cameras we see square-shaped pixels. But similar concept.

THE SENSOR SIZE RACE

So lets start our analysis of modern top cameraphones. And you do have to start where film left off, at the sensor. The digital camera sensor replaced that part of the camera that used to be done with film. The easy and superficial comparison of digital cameras is a count of megapixels. And megapixels do count, and I will count them eventually, but it doesn’t start with megapixels. It starts with size. The physical size of the sensor. Exactly like with film, the size of the sensor dictates a lot about the total quality of the image to be made. And what do I mean size if not megapixels. I mean physical size, length times width. The size of the camera sensor inside your iPhone 6 Plus is 4.8mm x 3.6mm (yes, in inches, that is less than 1/5 of an inch long and a little more than 1/8 of an inch wide). This by the way is an improvement over the size of the previous sensor Apple used, which was only 4.5mm x 3.4mm in size. So that was a growth of 13% in 2013 on the 5 series of iPhones vs the first 8mp sensor in the iPhone 4S. The 6 series uses the same Sony Exmor RS sensor now in the 6 and 6 Plus as it used in the 5S.

Bigger is better. Apple has already illustrated its interest in enlarging the sensor when it did so from the previous 8mp camera in the 4S. So the megapixel count remained the same, but the size of the sensor grew. Why is that? Because a larger sensor can catch more light and photography is all about light.

Now how’s that sensor race then with the rivals? Well, my Samsung Galaxy K Zoom in my pocket also has a sensor by Sony, the same type and class as in the iPhone 6 Plus except its bigger and better. The Galaxy K Zoom has Sony’s IMX220 Exmor RS which is 65% bigger than the Sony Exmor RS sensor on the iPhones. Its size is 6.2mm x 4.6mm. So remember, we are not talking megapixels yet (although yes, there are more megapixels also in this sensor) nor about its quality in terms of sensitivity to light (which also is better of course). No, this is about size. How much light can the sensor capture. Remember by prologue to this blog article. Yes, we can create computer programs and algorithms to fix errors in the image collected - but only if there is light to be ‘corrected’. THEN we can try to correct it for any faults by a poor sensor or lens (or many of the mistakes by the photographer) but if there is no light, nothing that can be corrected by automation. Just like if I don’t write something, you can’t run a spell checker or grammar checker to fix errors in it.

So what about the Xperia X3? It has as we can guess, of course Sony’s Exmor series sensor too, and its not the inferior one on the iPhone 6 Plus, of course Sony’s own flagship also uses its best cameraphone sensor of today in that ‘20 megapixel class’ just like the Galaxy K Zoom, the IMX220 Exmor RS which is 65% bigger than that in the iPhone 6 Plus. So is this the ultimate? Not even close. The sensor in the Microsoft/Nokia Lumia 1020 is far larger at 8.8mm x 6.6mm, almost four times larger than the sensor in the iPhones today. And this is the king of the hill of all smartphones sold and manufactured today by any brand. To get bigger sensors you have to go to stand-alone digital cameras. But the Lumia 1020 does not have the largest camera sensor ever put inside a phone. That honor goes to the predecessor of the L1020, the Nokia 808 Pureview. Its sensor was 10.7mm x 8.0mm in size. Yes, Nokia actually shrunk the size of the sensor when it ‘upgraded’ its top cameraphone from 2012 to 2013. The megapixel count was kept the same - this is that ginormous 41 megapixel camera sensor (manufactured by Toshiba) but the physical size was reduced. I will get to why that was done. Note, that as no other cameraphone maker had a sensor at the time that was even 1/8 the size of the sensor inside the Nokia by 2013, Nokia could safely reduce this dimension and rest assured they still held the title through the end of year 2013 with the Lumia 1020 (as they did obviously).

Is this of significance? Yes. Its the single most important factor that drives up the cost of the whole camera. I will explain and illustrate in just a moment but lets just look a bit at the real world outside our little fiefdom of mobile phones, shall we. The first 8mp camera made by Canon was the EOS 20D in 2004. That camera had a sensor of the size of 22.5mm x 15mm. So yes, more than 4x bigger than the pinnacle we have seen in cameraphones in that Nokia 808 Pureview a decade later. That was the old Canon as it was getting serious about bringing digital cameras to professional photographers. How is Canon today? They have grown the sensor from that. The most expensive Canon camera body you can buy today is the EOS DX1 that costs about 7,000 dollars (body only, so you have to pay more to get a lens for it). This is the current Canon flagship camera was launched in 2012. The sensor has 18 megapixels (note many cameraphones have more megapixels) but its sensor is 36mm x 24mm. Yes. The sensor on the top professional Canon camera is literally 50 times larger than the sensor inside current iPhones. Or to put it another way, the size of the iPhone sensor is only 2% the size of the rival sensor inside a Canon EOS DX1. Is there room to grow? You betcha.

If you think that a ‘pro camera’ is not a fair comparison for such ‘hobbyist’ uses of cameras as a cameraphone and it should rather be compared to point-and-shoot cameras, then yes. Lets take the King Kong of point-and-shoot cameras today. Thats the Sony Cybershot RX1 (a fixed focus, ie not even zoom, standalone point-and-shoot camera that came out in 2013 and costs .. get this .. 2,800 dollars. Four iPhone 6s or one Sony Cybershot RX1 haha). That camera sensor is 36mm x 24mm in size! Yes, size matters. Bigger is better. And out of the four cameraphones we are considering today, the iPhone 6 Plus is the dog of this category, totally holding the rear. All three other cameraphones have a bigger sensor. The biggest is with the Lumia 1020 so one win for Microsoft(Nokia). Let me show the sensors roughly in scale.




This image approximate size comparison by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

So yes, the iPhone 6P has the smallest sensor of our candidates for best cameraphone and this is an area that Apple has increased sensor size so it knows bigger means better. Currently of our four contenders Samsung and Sony have the same size sensor while Microsoft/Nokia Lumia 1020 is the biggest currently made. The previous Nokia 808 Pureview sensor is the biggest there has ever been inside a cameraphone. Now lets put these in context of the current pro-end serious camera sensors.

This image approximate size comparison by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.


The pink sensor is that in the first DSLR Canon camera that did 8 megapixels, the EOS 20D. The outermost grey sensor is the 'full frame' 35mm film equivalent size sensor of 36mm x 24mm that is in the most expensive Canon DSLR currently, the EOS DX1. This shows how puny the cameraphone sensors are when compared to the current digital photo champs.

Canon and Sony have increased sensor sizes in their stand-alone cameras to improve quality and yes, Samsung, Apple and Sony in their smartphone ranges have also increased sensor sizes to get where we are today. And as they found their lead was too huge within the smartphone rival field, Nokia was able to actually shrink theirs and still safely hold the title for largest camera sensor of any smartphone. But let me also show these in real size (approximate) so you see how small they are. This is now approximately life size illustration:





This image approximate size comparison by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

(This display will depend on your screen. To see the real size, the length of the largest sensor in grey should be 36mm ie 3.6cm for European measures. For Americans, the height should be just slightly less than one inch)

So yes, the largest sensor (as in the Canon EOS DX1 professional DSLR camera and the Sony Cybershot RX1 top dog point-and-shoot camera) is 36mm x 24mm so length-wise that should be 36mm or 3.6cm. In inches thats nearly one and a half inches in length. To compare to the real world, its about the size if you take a credit card and cut it in half, and then half again. So four times that sensor is a bit less than the size of a standard Amex/Visa/MC credit card. That is the largest of these sensors. So if a bigger sensor really does mean better pictures and camera sensors have been growing, why are cameraphone sensors so small today? Ah, vanity is the reason.

WHY CAMERA SENSORS ARE SMALL IN PHONES

Now we need more illustrations and theory. I’ll try to keep this brief and show with illustrations. The size of the sensor is directly impacting the size of the optical elements ie the lens construction that any camera needs. So lets take the sensor first. Its (usually) a rectangle shape, and lenses are round. So the rectangle of the sensor determines the absolute minimum required size of the lenses that are used. The optical lens assembly must be of the size that it covers every corner pixel of the sensor, else those sensors won’t get light and will remain dark. Remember my analogy of fixing errors vs creating new content. There has to be light first. And thus, if you enlarge your sensor, the whole lens element has to be enlarged again (unless the lens was already large enough to fit you newer camera element. So for example Canon EOS lenses were designed for 35mm film. When Canon first offered the smaller digital sensor, the lenses were larger and of course filled the sensor fully, with light spilling past the sensor even. Then Canon had the chance to evolve its DSLR range to premium cameras with larger sensors, up to that 35mm film size, where they did with that 36mm x 24mm sensor size, which is exactly the maximum they could fit that used all available space of the existing EOS lens series).

Lets take an example. Here is a strongly enlarged illustration of the difference between the sensor in the iPhone 6 Plus (top picture, sensor in green) and the sensor in the Xperia Z3 and the Galaxy K Zoom (bottom picture, sensor in red).

Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

Note how much the circumfrence of the lens assembly grows because of the larger sensor. If your lens element is simple and small and heavily mass-produced, this is not a very costly change. This type of lens element costs somewhere around 25 dollars. But if we go to the 35mm range, one lens can easily cost 1,000 dollars. If you change lens sizes, the impact is huge. Immediately from that point everything in the camera becomes more expensive. Larger lenses require bigger motors to be moved (for auto-focus for example) which drain more battery life meaning bigger batteries, etc etc etc. But that was the frontal view. Let me now show why cameraphone makers hate larger sensors - and this is pure vanity. And I’m not talking of the singer Prince’s past girlfriend, popstar and movie star Vanity of Vanity 6.

 

 

 

Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

You see what a dramatic difference in the length of the lens assembly. (same colors for iPhone and Xperia, Nokia would be far worse..) Each lens becomes larger - and thicker, and their relative distances have to grow in exact same proportion as the diameter grew. This is why lenses on DSLR cameras are thick as coffee cups while similar lenses on pocket cameras are thin like shot glasses. And a longer lens assembly will penalize you where? In the silly race to make our smartphones thinner. Thin is sexy.

Oh, and exactly why is Apple still pushing thinner iPhones? Why is there a race for ever thinner phones? Seriously? Who said the iPhone 5S was ‘too thick’ and undesirably fat? What madness is this now? When consumers beg and plead for longer battery life or removable batteries or microSD card slots (and would love better cameras) Apple keeps on that pointless race to create the slimmest phone, to what end? For bendygate? Is this not madness when form supercedes function? Isn’t that a principle of bad design? Isn’t that creating an Alfa Romeo, gorgeous cars that are pretty useless as reliable motoring. Apple is on a slippery slope here. If they increased their sensor size, that would mean they’d have to also fit a longer lens assembly when already now there is no more room in the case, between the screen and the sensor and the lens assembly. There is literally no more room. If Apple shrink their phones further, they have to consider doing a ‘Camel hump’ on the phone back, like the 808 Pureview, Lumia 1020 and Galaxy K Zoom all have (but it wouldn’t be that huge obviously, Apple would make it modest at the worst).

So what do cameraphone makers do about this? They compensate with electronics and programming. There usually is some light, so they then have software to make a lesser sensor deliver still a good picture. The HDR feature is a recent step to partly remedy problems of weak sensors. HDR means High Dynamic Range and it only started to appear in top cameraphones in the past few years. Apple added it to the iPhone 5S already a year ago. Sony’s Xperia Z3 and the Galaxy K Zoom also have HDR, so here Apple has no advantage. The Lumia 1020 sensor is so much better it doesn’t need HDR as the pictures natively are captured with far more light.

THE ISO RACE

(The word ‘iso’ in Finnish means ‘large’ haha, funny coincidence). But yes just having a large sensor is not necessarily the best sensor. Camera sensors today are all CMOS type and as electronics there is considerable evolution in their technology. Consider the scale, there are more than 2 Billion camera sensors manufactured now annually (and growing). But you iFans, don’t bicker about this point, just eat it up. The camera sensor in the iPhone 6 Plus is Sony branded Exmor sensor but of the Exmor series its the cheapest and smallest and the similar Exmor type sensor in both the Galaxy K Zoom and Xperia Z3 is newer and bigger and more expensive. Don’t try to argue that the iPhone has a better sensor or even as good a sensor as the 65% larger sensor on the Sony and Samsung. And the size advantage with the Lumia 1020 is so enormous (for a very recent design sensor) that there is no contest there. But apart from size, there is a qualitative measure of camera sensors and that is the sensitivity to light. A good sensor has the ability to be more sensitive to light, ie it can capture more light in poor lighting conditions. This is measured as an ISO number (the higher the better).

The ISO number is dependent on the camera sensor not other parts of the camera design and componets. Its a native ability of the sensor itself. So the Sony Xperia Z3 and Samsung Galaxy K Zoom have the same ISO rating because they use the same sensor. But lets start with the iPhone. The 6 Plus and its older smaller (weaker) Sony Exmor sensor has a maximum ISO rating of 2,000. That is nice and its a big improvement over the first iPhone with 8mp sensor, the iPhone 4S which had a sensor with sensitivity of an ISO of only 800. So how’s the newer Exmor sensor then on the rival Sony powered cameraphones? That ISO goes up to 3,200. Yes, better quality sensor still on both the K Zoom and the Z3. How’s the Nokisoft Microkia Lumia 1020? Well, that awesome sensor is so sensitive to light its ISO rating is 12,800. Totally dwarfs these three rivals.

Is this a bogus measure, how is the proper cameraworld outside of phones? That Sony Cybershot RS1 has an ISO rating twice of the Lumia 1020 at 25,600. What about the super pro shooters with a Canon EOS DS1? Its - ahem - a little bit better than that even. Its ISO rating is 202,000. Yes literally 100 and one times more sensitive to light than an iPhone 6 Plus. Yes, I think we still have a way to go before cameraphones catch up with proper cameras haha. The iPhone 6 Plus of today has barely caught up with the world of film 30 years ago when Kodak sold consumer color film with a 1000 ASA (ISO) rating and black-and-white film with 1600 ASA (ISO) rating. The Sony and Samsung have moved a bit beyond that world but the Lumia 1020 is far far ahead of film-based cameras on the sensor sensitivity. The Lumia 1020 is giving a very serious run for the money on this aspect, of most consumer point-and-shoot cameras which aren’t as potent as the awesome Cybershot RS1. To move well above the Lumia you have to go to the pro-end of the DSLR cameras of Nikon and Canon and their rivals. Nokia/Microsoft clearly wins also this round and iPhone 6 Plus comes again holding the tail end.

PIXEL FUN

Lets do the megapixels, Lumia has 41mp. Xperia Z1 and Galaxy K zoom have 20mp. The iPhone 6 Plus has an underwhelming 8mp. Is this something that will change? Apple raised its megapixel count from 2mp to 3mp to 5mp to 8mp. All other major camera makers keep pushing up the megapixel count of their top cameras and so do also all cameraphone makers. There is very much more to cameras than megapixels but on megapixels, the iPhone 6 Plus is severely behind the times. And why would/should you care? Isn’t 8mp ‘enough’? Haha yeah, sure, and thats just as much ‘enough’ as 1 megabyte was supposed to be enough for running any computer operating system according to Bill Gates early in the PC evolution haha. No. 8mp is going to seem quant in a few years just like how small and puny 1mp and 2mp pictures look nowadays. But lets take one practical example. Displaying the photographs. Here yes, 8mp is plenty. These are some premium screen options today:

A Macbook Pro 15” screen is 2880 x 1800 in size ie a 5.2mp picture
A Macbook Air 13” screen is 1440 x 900 in size ie a 1.3mp picture
An iPad has a 2048 x 1536 screen so its 3.1mp in picture size
The iPhone 6 Plus retina display is 1920 x 1080 or 2.1mp in size

If you’re not an iGeek, then for example my Samsung Ultrabook has a screen of 1920 x 1080 ie 2.1mp

If you have a standard HD television, its screen is .. yes .. 1920 x 1080 (2.1mp) as are screens of several flagship smartphones nowadays like Xperia Z3.

So don’t worry, currently 8mp is just about enough on all screens. If you only view digital images on electronic screens, then yes, today a camera with 8 megapixel sensor is about enough. Not great, but enough. However, at some point you may want to print out a picture (or maybe one of your friends wants to print a picture you took).

PRINT EXPOSES PIXELS

So what happens if you want to print out a picture? Then we do get into dpi resolutions (Dots Per Inch, a measure of printer image density, the more the sharper). It is recommended that photographs are printed at 300 dpi so that the print is so fine that the dots don’t show. Some prefer 400 dpi but most believe that 300 dpi is kind of the print equivalent of ‘retina display’ ie the human eye won’t detect the dots, so essentially its the limit of how accurate prints would need to be to be considered of high print quality. Lets see how they work with our digital images then.

Normal ‘photograph’ sized pictures like you see in the photo albums of your grandparents, either 3x5 inch or 4x6 inch size, are perfectly fine for the 8mp cameraphone. A 4x6 photograph printed at 300 dpi will only consume 2.2mp of pixels. So you can even crop your iPhone picture into four quarters, and print any one of those four and it still looks perfectly sharp on pictures that small. But lets enlarge a bit.

A magazine page is pushing your 8mp iPhone 6 Plus image to below 300dpi to fit the page. An normal magazine page at A4 page size (European measures, US measures slightly differ of course) is 3543 x 2480 pixels. Thats 8.8mp. For a perfectly sharp print, yes you can enlarge your iPhone picture but only up to one page size of a normal magazine, like say Time Magazine. That page size. Thats what you can do, no larger. If you print larger than that, the lack of image detail starts to become noticeable, the bigger the worse. How far can my Galaxy K Zoom or the Xperia Z3 go with 20mp image detail density? A full spread magazine (two pages) runs 17.6 megapixels. That is how much more these pictures can deliver.

What about the Lumia 1020? Its 41 megapixel sensor does not deliver pictures at 41mp (we’ll talk about why, later). It is actually not a 41mp sensor in the same way as the others, its actually a ‘convertible’ sensor that can run either 38mp or 34mp in pictures it produces but not 41. So lets take the smaller of the two which is the 16x9 resolution format, and that is almost exactly matching a four-page mini-poster size. Imagine four iPads laid in a rectangle. A printed page poster of that size can be produced from a Lumia 1020 picture without the human eye detecting any dots. So let me give you here a nice handy table to show 300dpi print outputs and some common print sizes, because I know my readers are dying for this info, right?:

TABLE OF PRINT SIZES CONVERTED TO MEGAPIXELS (printed at 300dpi)
Standard photograph 3x5 = 1500 x 900 pixels = 1.4mp
Standard photograph 4x6 = 1800 x 1200 pixels = 2.2mp (this is also standard postcard size)
One magazine page (A4) = 3543 x 2480 pixels = 8.8mp
One magazine spread (2xA4) = 4960 x 3543 pixels = 17.6mp
Three piece foldout (3xA4) = 7440 x 3543 pixels = 26.4mp
Mini poster 4 panels (4xA4) = 7086 x 4960 pixels = 35.1mp
Poster 8 panels (A1) = 9920 x 6968 pixels = 69.1mp
Bus stop poster 180cm/6 feet tall = 21,300 x 14,200 pixels = 301.3mp
Table by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This table may be freely shared.

Mind you, that 7,000 dollar Canon top-shelf super pro camera with its 18mp sensor cannot do this resolution detail. It can only do the 2 page spread. If the pro camera dude wanted to shoot a poster, he’d have to do it by taking several pictures and then stiching them together to get his large print (similar to how panorama picture works on your iPhone 6 Plus and in fact all four of these cameraphones. But that pro won’t bother with that, he’d just shoot film for a poster sized image, possibly with a Hasselblad or something superduper fancy haha.) Print is about pixel density so here the megapixels rule. Nokia I mean Microsoft wins AGAIN? iPhone 6 Plus is last again. On this count the Xperia Z1 and Galaxy K Zoom are literally exactly twice as good as the iPhone 6 Plus. The Lumia is then nearly twice as good as the shared silver-placed finishers. Incidentially on pixel counts there is nothing that the iPhone can do to add pixels when none exist. This is again the problem of you can fix errors with software, but can’t create from nothing.

So here is my first forecast about camera evolution. Canon and Nikon will continue to grow their pixel count of their top professional cameras into the 24mp and beyond range. Look at that print table. Currently a ridiculously expensive pro camera can’t do even a 3-page foldout (think of Playboy centerfolds haha). Because of what we heard and read about sensor size, the pro camera DSLR segment sensor size has reached its natural growth ceiling because the lenses can’t grow to be bigger. So the sensors will remain 36mm x 24mm in size but their pixel counts. You can count on those growing and growing. Every few years. Good excuse for those boys to then peddle newer fancier superduper premium cameras.

WHEN IS 8MP NOT 8MP

So then another shocker. Yes your iPhone 6 Plus does totally honestly measure and collect an image of 8mp in size (technically actually the exact count is 7.99mp). But that is only when you shoot pictures in 4x3 mode. If you want to shoot 16x9 you know what happens? And no iBashing here, almost all cameras, cheap and expensive see this same phenomenon. The 16x9 format picture has less pixels. About 1/4 less. If you select pictures in 16x9 format, their size is not 8mp, its 6mp. If I select pictures on the Galaxy K Zoom to 16x9 they are no longer 20mp, they’re only 15mp. This is true all the way to the supercameras I mentioned. Exactly the same phenomenon. The sensor is the same. Its been designed so that the maximum rectangle fits inside the circle (which is 4x3 format, not 16x9). And this is what you get:





Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

Yes. Just like how when we used to watch wide-screen movies on old style TV sets, there were those black lines on the top and bottom of the TV screen to create the wide-screen movie effect, similarly the sensor just dumps pixels to create the 16x9 image for you and me and every other person on (almost) every camera and cameraphone.

So yes, if you shoot pictures in 4x3 format, you do get 8mp and I do get 20mp. But if you prefer to use the 16x9 picture format, for example, to use as screen savers on your laptops or phones etc, its not 8mp you get, its 6mp. And I only get 15mp. Its still far more than the screens of most uses (although now the Macbook Pro is getting awefully close..). But the same goes for prints of the images - now that table of printing looks far more perilous for the iPhone 6 Plus is we start at 6mp pictures in a print page size, nearer to 16x9 than 4x3.

Which brings me to a pro tip. Always shoot in 4x3 format and highest resolution of your cameras whatever they are. You can always edit them down to 16x9 later if and when you want, but this gives you a bit of editing latidude, while you can’t make your pictures wider, you can select how high or low to have the horizon for example, AFTER the picture is taken and you can take your time to edit the image. But if you shot 16x9 you can never go back to the larger image and the camera sensor always is collecting the full 4x3 image, but then just discards the unused pixels if you don’t want it. Memory today is so cheap that you should not worry at all about the slightly larger files you create this way, just collect the highest resolution and largest images you can, then you have more material to use when you use our pictures and you can edit them later with more flexibility if you collected the biggest image possible in terms of pixels.

CAN THIS BE DONE BETTER

(Some of my readers know what is coming next.) So, the sensor size has a drastic negative effect on the desire to keep smartphones narrow and slim because larger sensor means larger diameter lenses which means longer lens construction which obstructs the mad rush to create paperthin smartphones. Well, we now know the formula that a 4x3 picture is full megapixel count and 16x9 is about 75% of the megapixels. When I tell you that the 4x3 image on the Nokia-Microsoft Lumia 1020 is 38mp in size, you can now calculate that the 16x9 image is 28.5mp in size, right? The rules of sensor sizes and image formats. Ironclad rule applies to all cameras not just cameraphones. All the way up to 2,500 dollar point-and-shoots and 7,000 dollar pro cameras. So what is the Lumia 1020 size for 16x9 pictures (and also same for the 808 Pureview I still often use)? not 28.5mp. Its 34mp. Yes. 34mp for 16x9. And if so, shouldn’t the 4x3 then be 45mp? Yeah if it was normal sensor technology it should. But Nokia has discovered a way to get a larger 16x9 image out of a sensor that still fits a smaller cylinder. And what could be this magic trick? Its a cross-shaped sensor. A ‘fat cross’ like this:





Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.


So yeah, that is to illustrate ‘fat cross’. The Nokia sensor is not that ‘thin’ haha and only if I first show you that, can you discover the ‘cross’ also in this actual sensor SHAPE of the 808 Pureview and Lumia 1020. The ‘pureview’ sensor. It is yes a cross shape while extremely fat cross indeed. This is the Pureview sensor shape:




Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.


So the corners are chopped off. That means this weird-shape sensor fits into a smaller circle than a full rectangle of the same size, right? And because the primary use of cameraphones today is to shoot pictures in landscape mode increasingly in 16x9 and that is how all videos are also shot, Nokia discovered that this sensor creates by far the largest 16x9 images while retaining nearly as big 4x3 images as well. So let me now show you how it works. The one sensor has to be always selected either you want 4x3 images (at 38mp) or 16x9 images (ar 34mp). If you select 4x3 the sensor uses these parts and rejects the rest:

 

Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

And if you select 16x9 'wide' image, you don't lose the parts of the image that are gone in all other sensors, rather you get a wider image which uses these parts of the 'fat cross' shaped Pureview CMOS sensor:






Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

So the sensor is a ‘convertible’ that does either the yellow or the green shape. Does this help. Look at this image now here below to compare the traditional way and the 'fat cross' solution. Let me show you how much Nokia saved when using 16x9 images. Now of course the sensor would be bigger than 41mp, yes 45mp in size (red rectagle). So I have drawn the circles of what is the required lens size for the same 16x9 image the conventional way (light grey circle) and the Nokia Pureview way (purple circle)
 

Illustration by TomiAhonen Consulting January 2015
This image may be freely shared.

Seriously folks, isn’t this awesome technical solution when you are trying to solve ‘my phone is too fat’ syndrome while sqeezing in a larger sensor. So the only cameraphones in the world (I believe the only CAMERAS in the world) that use a cross-shaped camera sensor are the two top cameraphones from Nokia, the 808 Pureview from 2012 and its successor the Lumia 1020 from 2013. NOTE: After I posted the early version of this blog, I learned from comment by Anon that this type of sensors did exist on some cameras before the Nokia 808 Pureview, so it was not a Nokia invention for the camera industry overall, only for the cameraphone industry.

Meanwhile back to the story... Other cameras that were branded Pureview by the idiot CEO and against the internal protestations of his staff who knew better, were not using this Pureview tech. But for maximum image sizes in 16x9 the most popular image type, the winner hands down is Lumia 1020. They do 16x9 images in 34mp when Galaxy K Zoom and Xperia X3 only can manage 15mp and the iPhone 6 Plus can only do 6mp. The Lumia image is almost 6 times more sharp in 16x9 resolution than the iPhone. And in 4x3 mode the Lumia delivers a bit more than 4x the image resolution. Winner hands down is again Lumia and the worst is iPhone 6 Plus.

WORLD’S BEST INDEED

So lets make this quick astounding observation here. The Lumia 1020 (and 808 Pureview) has a 41mp sensor that does 38 mp pictures in traditional 4x3 format and even more astonishing 34mp in the wide-screen modern 16x9 format. Obviously that is the best cameraphone for those resolutions but did you notice this.. The Lumia 1020 is better than any stand-alone point-and-shoot digital camera AND its better than ANY professional DSLR camera. Yes any. Better than the top Nikon D810 (36mp sensor built by Sony) that costs 3,000 dollars for just the camera body; better than the top Canon EOS 5D Mark 3 (22mp processor built by Canon) and costs 3,000 dollars also body only; or the Sony Alpha ILCE-A7 (36mp sensor built by Sony) which would be a bargain at 1,200 dollars including lens.

It used to be that if you wanted to go beyond a Nokia smartphone in your camera resolution you had to be friends with the NSA as no mass-produced cameras were that powerful and only the USA spy agency built cameras with higher digital resolutions - for their spy satellites haha. But from 2014 there is ONE option instead of 41mp, you can get to 50mp if you can afford 45,000 dollars. Hasselblad’s new H5D 200c does have a 50mp sensor. But you can buy a Microsoft-Nokia Lumia 1020 today for a discounted price (new) for about 400 dollars without contract, sim-free unlocked. And if you look hard, you can catch still the last 808 Pureviews for something like half that price. Who cares that it runs Symbian, what you want is the world’s best camera on that one metric of image detail ie pixel count, by literally any brand this side of a Hasselblad and costing less than very good car.

And yes please don’t write. There is OBVIOUSLY more to cameras than pixels, this article is clearly proof of that and I haven’t yet moved beyond the sensor haha. But we do need to make this point. If you want to take a picture today, with a digital camera, and you want maximum resolution ie detail. You want a group picture of 100 people where all faces are as sharp and clear as possible, or you want to take a landscape view where you can count the individual leaves on trees, or you want a cityscape view where you see each window in detail.. The most detailed digital camera in the world today, at a price that won’t threaten to put you into bankruptcy, costs LESS than an iPhone and carries a Nokia brand. The Lumia 1020 (and Nokia 808 Pureview) have that awesome sensor that does collect 38mp in 4x3 picture mode and 34mp in 16x9 landscape. The sharpest pictures possible (as long as the picture is shot in daylight and you used a tripod for stability). Get the most expensive Canon EOS DX1 and stick onto it their most expensive 28mm F/1.8 lens and take the picture from the same spot. Then elarge the two images and voila! Nokia has more detail.

The phone is such an amazing miracle for modern tech today, at such a ridiculously low price, that even if you hate Microsoft and Windows, that is worth the purchase simply as a gadget to stick into your camerabag. Next to your beloved Olympus or Panasonic or Leica or whatever is your camera of choice. Don’t bother looking for modern apps for the phone or using it as your primary smartphone. Just buy it now while it still exists, as the technical marvel that it is. Then whenever you take landscapes or cityscapes or group photos, thats the camera you will always use. Just like how I carry my 808 Pureview to all trips and whenever I anticipate I might want those great pictures of breathtaking views, those I shoot with the Nokia not the Galaxy K Zoom which I use for all other pictures. But it is an undeniable fact, that when it was released nothing came close and today, years after Nokia’s first 41mp sensor on what was a 600 dollar cameraphone, has finally been eclipsed by the Rolls Royce brand in cameras, who only make obsenely priced huge things, Hasselblad. And by how much? 50mp to 41mp. Or else, yeah, you can maybe buy yourself a spy satellite from the NSA.

A cameraphone is by definition a compromise as it combines two devices with only minimal overlap in utility - a mobile phone and a camera. For one cameraphone today to outperform even just on one specification ALL the digital cameras by all the major cameramakers that even true professionals use - and indeed one of the most important technical specs (remember people I did not say THE most important and its only one of many) that is an achievement worthy of a special mention prize. The Nokia Lumia 1020 is starting to run away with the best cameraphone distinction now at the early running of this blog article. Lets leave the sensor now after Nokia has biggest sensor (iPhone smallest), Nokia has most powerful sensor by ISO count (iPhone weakest) and Nokia having the biggest pixel count for most detailed photos (iPhone rather lame on this count).

And we can now make another forecast. Because they don’t want to increase the thickness of their phones, at least Nokia and Apple will focus on adding megapixels. Apple hate it when people call them out for being behind the pack (while they maintain a cool demeanor, this truly eats them inside). If they increase the physical size of their sensor there is a big thickness penalty to the iPhone handset itself. Megapixel count is easier to implement. And for Nokia a bit of a different reason. They don’t need to go for a bigger sensor currently as they’re so far ahead of the pack but that big sensor can accommodate plenty more sensors. What kind to expect. Apple should soon do a modest upgrade, hopefully this year to 13mp. 16mp would be a pleasant surprise. Nokia meanwhile the logical megapixel count upgrade would be to about 61 megapixels (allowing 2x zoom effect for pictures still 12mp in size). Samsung’s megapixel count depends on the internal dimensions of the K Zoom lens assembly. If there is room to grow, could go to 24mp. Else they might hold these sensor specs through the L Zoom or whatever is the next device in this family progression. Lets now move just a tiny sliver of distance from the sensor to...

SHUTTERING ABOUT SHUTTERS

So yeah. The shutter. What is the shutter. There is a kind of door on all film-based cameras that opens to show the light to the film and then closes. This ‘shutter’ determines how much light gets onto the picture, so the picture is not too dark (not enough light, keep the shutter open longer) or too washed out white (too much light, close the shutter faster). And modern digital cameras have digital sensors operated by electricity. Can’t we just turn off and on the sensor itself. Sure, that is called an ‘electronic’ shutter. Here the main technical problem is of electronic complexity, if you turn on and turn off the electronic shutter, you need that type of electronic extra control which for a camera with a mechanical shutter does not need. That type of camera can use the full power of the sensor simply to catch all the light it ever sees and not worry about the shutter-operation.

So the technically a better solution is a mechanical shutter and keeping the sensor always ready for all light available. But a mechanical shutter is an extra physical element that has to be inserted between the lens and the sensor. So if beauty and slimness is your desire, which option do you think cameraphones want? Yeah of course, the electronic shutter. And what do all pro cameras and serious stand-alone cameras have? Yeah, of course, they all have a mechanical shutter (and yes, there even is a hybrid solution, lets not bother with that complexity now). Top cameras have mechanical shutters. But we can’t just give points for ‘DSLR envy’ we do need to see if there is any practical utility out of this technology, other than that its work-around on electonic shutters requires some electronic complexity. Remember that the smartphone is an incredible supercomputer anyway, who cares if we happen to exchange some extra computing requirement, to balance against an unnecessary component.

So is it unnecessary? Haha, well, the one thing you can’t do with an electronic shutter is real proper flash. Cameraphones tend to have LED based flash, usually just one LED flash, some premium phones have now dual LED flash. But ‘real’ flash as in all hand-held pro flashguns and accessory flash units for stand-alone cameras including DSLR cameras and most of the flash units in any mid-price or premium point-and-shoot cameras are Xenon flash. Not LED flash. LED flash is like you turn on a spotlight, then take a picture, then turn off the light. Xenon flash is the thinnest slice of a second, from 1/10,000th of a second to as incredibly brief as 1/200,000th of a second burst of intense light. An electronic shutter cannot handle Xenon flash and some of the light sensors will not react in time so the picture is messed up, some pixels are correctly colored with light and others are dark. Unusable totally ruined pictures. Cannot be done (at least with modern sensors today). If you want real flash, you have to have a mechanical shutter. Thats the deal.

So iPhone 6 Plus, do you have a mechanical shutter. No. Samsung Galaxy K Zoom? Yes. Sony Xperia Z3? No. Nokia Lumia 1020? Yes. This is a make-or-break feature that differentiates proper cameras from toys. If you want a serious experienced camera user to accept the cameraphone as a ‘proper camera’ then here is one of those ‘must have’ elements. Proper flash ie Xenon flash. It has to operate with a real, mechanical shutter. Simple as that. So that eliminates the pretenders in this category but leaves two to contest for the crown.

But can we decide between the two? If you do have a mechanical shutter, is there any way to compare them, a shutter-specific metric that says which is the better unit in a given camera. Sure there is. Its called shutter speed. The better the camera the faster the top shutter speed. How is my lovely Galaxy K Zoom? Has a very nice (for a mid-price camera) top shutter speed of 1/2000 seconds. Then the Nokia Lumia 1020? Well it kinda runs away with this category, its shutter goes to 1/16,000 speed. So on shutter, Nokia wins, Samsung gets silver medal but there is no bronze medal at all. The Xperia and iPhone don’t qualify on this. But this is not a ‘very big deal’ by itself. If you have a mechanical shutter, then you do have to have Xenon flash, else there is no practical gain out of this technology. So we could group this next item as part of the same. BUT it IS a different spec. So lets do

WHO IS BRIGHTEST

The flash. There is Xenon flash as real flash and there is pretend flash as LED lighting. You can guess that the only reason Nokia and Samsung went through the trouble and expense and thickness-penalty of a physical shutter, was so they can add Xenon flash to their cameraphones. They both have it. And the two pretenders, Sony Xperia Z3 and iPhone 6 Plus do not. Now, on the Sony Xperia Z3 there is only single LED flash, so here is the first time we see the iPhone 6 Plus move from last place to second-from-last, as it does have dual LED flash. It is better than single LED. But for Xenon flash we do not have luminance measurement stats on the two top cameraphones, I can’t determine which might be better of the two, so we award dual Gold Medals (the first for Sammy) for Lumia and K Zoom with its first bronze for the iPhone and a last place for the Sony Xperia. Is this foretelling a change of fortunes?

But wait, before we go further, I should mention that because LED flash does weak light, here is another area where electronics and software matters a lot. As long as there is some light, if the cameraphone is very smart, it can adjust for very poor light and try to compensate. Again Apple iPhone 6 Plus is doing the best job at these kinds of compensations, because it obviously has to. The others have larger sensors, more sensitive sensors and except for Sony also real Xenon flash units. They don’t need to compensate as much. The difference between the leaders and the iPhone is not as severe as one might expect, but it is measurable and noticable nonetheless. On Xenon flash it is no contest, the light is far brighter, it is pure white, it is far far FAR shorter-duration, so it stops movement, that means pictures are crisp and clear. LED needs far longer exposures so picture get more blurry out of movement both of object and of photographer’s hand. Oh and perhaps most important, Xenon flash reaches further.

And now we are ready to make another forecast. Apple will not have Xenon flash on the iPhone. That would require adding a shutter assembly which would add bulk where Apple tries to put the iPhone on yet another diet. No, no mechanical shutters for iPhones and that means, yes, there will not be Xenon flash units in iPhones. Sony might do it but Apple won’t. So you might just as well stop wishing for it. Apple will improve the iPhone in other ways but if it needs more power for flash, expect a third LED rather than adding the space for the mechanical shutter needed to incorporate Xenon flash.

ELEMENTARY, MY DEAR LENS

So next out from the sensor we have the lens construction. Now, its not inherently true, that always more elements means a better camera lens but generally, of similar type of lens, and especially from the same manufacturer, more lens elements means a better lens and less elements is a worse camera lens. Again please don’t write, there will be plenty of exceptions. But look. Apple went form 4 elements in its iPhone camera lens to 5 elements when it introduced the 8mp camera on the iPhone 4S. 5 elements is near the top of most flagship class smartphones. The Xperia Z3 also has 5 elements. Nokia’s 808 Pureview came with 5 elements but Nokia bumped that up to 6 elements in the Lumia 1020. The Galaxy K Zoom runs away with this, partly as zoom lenses are more complex, it has 9 elements.

So Where are professional cameras going? That uber-point-and-shoot, Sony Cybershot RS1 has 8 elements in its fixed-focus (ie non-zoom) lens, so Nokia’s 6 elements is by no means the pinnacle. And if you feel like paying 740 dollars for a fixed-focus 28mm f/1.8 wide angle lens from Canon’s EOS line, their top 28mm wide angle lens does have 10 elements. The best lens construction goes to Galaxy K Zoom. Second place is Nokia. Tied for third are Sony and Apple. What about the lens material?

CLEAR AS GLASS

Best camera lens material is not plastic, it is glass. Cheap cameras have always plastic lenses. Yes, its possible to do good camera lenses out of plastic but that would require quite considerable skill and yes, no top lenses are made out of plastic. They are always of glass. How are our field? The iPhone lens unit is made by Taiwanese low-cost lens manufacturer, Largan Precision who switched from glass to plastic many years ago just to save money. Thats your iPhone guts in a nutshell. You know how much the total camera assembly for an iPhone 6 Plus costs including sensor and lens? Under 20 dollars including assembly. And Apple charges you 750 dollars for the device and can’t be bothered to spend a few dollars more for a glass lens assembly. Yeah, “world’s best” camera it certainly ain’t. Who has even HEARD of Largan Precision? Lets move on.

How is Sony Xperia Z3 lens material. Well the son of Cybershot brand is certainly going full glass optics on their flagship, on a lens assembly by Sony optics. Very high quality. What of Samsung Galaxy K Zoom? Plastic or glass in the fancy zoom apparatus? Its totally glass too, manufactured by Samsung’s camera division which also is a branded optics unit but not as illustrious as Sony’s Cybershot by brand. And how about our leader? Nokia’s Lumia 1020 is a mixture of glass and plastic in its lens material. Now the brand of all Nokia premium cameras is Carl Zeiss, arguably the best lens maker in the world, from Germany. While Sony makes its own lenses, you wanna know what brand is on the nose of that hyper-expensive point-and-shoot Cybershot RX1? Not Sony, that is labeled clearly and proudly as Carl Zeiss glass there, if you spend 2,800 for a fixed-focus point-and-shoot camera haha.. Even Sony admit Carl Zeiss do the best lenses. So Nokia/Microsoft/Lumia is in good company yes, but come on. The category was not who has the best supplier, it is what is the best construction material. Sony is all glass, Samsung is all glass, Nokia is only partly glass partly plastic. That takes the gold away from Lumia.

I’m going to make a jury’s decision here and award the best material for Sony ahead of Samsung simply because Sony has a longer more illustrious history making top cameras than Samsung. Samsung still gets a silver here. Nokia gets its first bronze medal and coming in last, where they already know their place seems to be, is the iPhone 6 Plus. So yes. Largan Precision does the lenses for your iPhones, and proudly in only plastic. Can that be the best cameraphone when all good cameras are done in glass and with branded optics masters in cameras? If Largan had suddenly discovered the secret to revolutionizing camera optics, they’d be known to everybody and Apple would proudly hail their name on the front of their cameras, like Nokia does Carl Zeiss for example. You might hope that Largan is better than its non-existent reputation, but its not the best lens-maker in the world. Once again the iPhone 6 Plus disappoints us.

WIDE WIDE WORLD OF WONDER

So lets see how the lenses compare. Lets start with the main use of the main camera, its wide-angle view. Cameraphones are by far most used in short distance pictures, often with groups of people, like birthdays, weddings, etc. Or then various pictures celebrating whatever famous tourist site etc that one happened to visit that day. They are not used generally for bird-watching or paparrazzi photos from a mile away. They are often used to try to take pictures at rock concerts and sporting events until the owners learn that the targets are so tiny that its pretty useless. So most pictures that tend to be taken, are typical short-range groups. The team sitting at Starbucks around the table, lets fit everybody into the picture, move over, move over, move over. Ok, say Cheese!

Lets do wide angle. I prepared a little illustration for you. First up, Apple iPhone 6 Plus. It has, what is called a ‘30 mm equivalent focal length’ wide-angle lens (lets not worry where that specification comes from, it is true, that is a metric, the smaller the number the wider the resulting picture. Wide angle lenses start from ‘35mm equivalent focal length’ and go down to ‘24mm equivalent focal length’. After 24mm at 21mm equivalent focal length start ‘fish-eye’ lenses of extreme wide angle, which distort the picture in that distinctive style, so fish-eye lenses tend not to be particularly popular as they don’t produce pictures that are accurate in terms of what we humans see normally.)

So lets imagine that you visited Singapore and you are staying at the fabulous Pan Pacific Hotel and you walk into your room and you see the view! And then you think, this has gotta be one of the best views in the world, so you reach into your pocket and you snap a picture of it of course. This is a simulated edit of a picture to illustrate a 30mm focal length picture taken of that view. This is what you’d get, gorgeous isn’t?




Picture by Tomi T Ahonen, you may use with attribution

Now your wife who works at Microsoft and has a Lumia 1020 as her work phone wanders in, is amazed at the view, and grabs her phone and snaps the picture too. This is the picture her camera takes.

Picture by Tomi T Ahonen, you may use with attribution

Yes? Yes! Her picture captured more of the scene. Quite a lot more in fact. She manages to get the whole building in front of you for a more dramatic picture than your iPhone could. If you tried to reframe the picture to match that of your wife’s it would cut the top of those pretty 3 hotels in the top left corner out of the frame. Hey? Whats going on? Aren’t all cameras the same? No. They are not. The simplest cheapest lenses to make are by focal length equivalent called ‘standard’ lenses at 50mm equivalent focal length. The more you move away from that, the more you start to pay. A telephoto lens of 100mm is more expensive but a similar-quality and brand and specs telephoto lens of 200mm is even more expensive and so forth. Similarly wide angle lenses. A 35mm equivalent focal length wide angle lens is least expensive and then the lenses get more expensive the wider you go, to 28mm, 24mm and so forth. So your iPhone 6 Plus was at 30mm equivalent focal length, how is the Lumia 1020? It is 26mm equivalent focal length. Quite a lot wider than the iPhone as you can see, compare the two pictures.

Now your son, who happens to be a big fan of Sony because of his Playstation addiction, has his brand new Xperia Z3 and comes there right next you, says, hey, Dad, thats an awesome view and pulls out his Z3 and snaps his picture. This is the picture his camera takes.

 

 

Picture by Tomi T Ahonen, you may use with attribution

So yes, the Sony Xperia Z3 has a wide angle lens with a focal length equivalent of 25mm. It is still wider and now he can actually add photographic style elements to his picture, adding more sky to the top than mom can with the Lumia. This lens is so wide you can’t really go much wider before the picture will get distorted. But you could go to 24mm. So in walks your daughter who is the family’s budding photojournalist, who uses the Galaxy K Zoom. And yes, you knew where this was going, the K Zoom has a 24mm-240mm equivalent focal length zoom lens. Of course she catches the widest image from the exact same window. Only the K Zoom gets this much crammed into that same photograph:






Picture by Tomi T Ahonen, you may use with attribution

So yes, look at the buildings to the right and you’ll spot the difference between the last two pictures. This is camera lens design choices. A wider angle lens is more expensive. It is also what most cameraphone users constantly crave - squeeze in, squeeze in - as they take their family pictures and group photos. The wider the better. The difference between the iPhone 6 Plus owner and the K Zoom owner is, that if its a crowded dining room, the iPhone user may have to leave Uncle Tomi totally out of the photo simply because the angle is not wide enough. And again before you start bickering, Apple is moving in the right direction, the focal length equivalent on the iPhone 4S was 33mm. And the other manufacturers are doing the same with cameraphones only they are further along, Nokia went from 35mm equivalent on the N93 to 28mm equivalent on the N86 to now the 26mm equivalent starting with the 808 Pureview (which is on the L1020). This is because that is how consumers use their cameraphones. So this round goes to the K Zoom. Sony Xperia takes honorable mention. Nokia comes in only third and Apple is behind on the curve (again), significantly behind the other three. And reason for Apple being so obstinate is cost and .. light. (Did you say light? Not weight but light as in sun, a lamp? That kind of light? Yes indeeed. But lets first do the picture-stiching).

BUT PANORAMA

So yeah the iLoyals will remind me that iPhone 6 Plus has Panorama that so smartly lets us take wide pictures and then automatically stitch them together. Fine. First, you and I know this, the normal user non-geek in the random sudden photography situation will never remember there is such an option, and often won’t ‘notice’ that there is ‘a problem’ and will just try to take the best single picture possible (or if smart/experienced, take several pictures of differing angles). But this is now again a work-around to a clear technical deficiency. And Panorama was once a clever idea, today it is on all premium cameraphones so its nothing for iPhone to beat the rivals. But panorama on a wider-angle original picture is even more powerful than on a narrower field camera. And then is it really the solution? Lets go to the pictures. This is what most normal people would think of doing, if they remembered they had panorama. Will this solve the front building problem of missing drama? No




Picture by Tomi T Ahonen, you may use with attribution

So yeah, you can do panorama and get a wider image but its not the same shape as on a wider angle lens. And this is not going to work on your lovely laptop screen saver, now you get those black edges on the top and bottom. And in this case of using Panorama in horizontal mode, it solves the wrong problem. I wanted more sky, I wanted more of the building in the front not more of the view to the sides. So then you could of course do panorama up-and-down way (that most ‘normal’ people will not even think is possible on a feature that is called ‘panorama’) which gives you this:

Picture by Tomi T Ahonen, you may use with attribution

Ok now the front building and sky are yes, nicely visible but where can I use this narrow tall ‘picture’? On an elevator maybe? This fits exactly no laptops or TV screens etc. Now we don't get any of the width to make this a normal-shaped image. Nice try but no cigar. This is a clumsy, partial solution that most users will not even think of when the need arises. Why not just give us a proper wide angle lens instead?

COMPARE IN ONE PHOTOGRAPH

So lets compare the 4 lenses in one picture. This again is a mock-up but superimposing the lines of how much less is visible when you go from 24mm to 25mm to 26mm to 30mm wide angle lenses at the exact same location in Capetown at Tabletop Mountain:




Picture by Tomi T Ahonen, you may use with attribution

And remember, because iPhone has the lowest resolution, any of the other cameras can always crop into the image, get the same picture as the iPhone can do at 30mm wide angle (and still have far higher resolution in that image than the iPhone's 8mp). But this picture is probably more useful as a 'tool' to compare the four phones than those individual pictures in the above series.

So onto forecasting. Will we see lenses even wider. Eventually yes but not soon by the three that are so close to (or at) 24mm equivalent. Apple should get a wider-angle update which might only be from 30mm to 28mm, slightly more but not all the way to 24mm. Apple doesn’t make big jumps, they do small iterations and lag in the specs. A little change they can handle, a big jump would mess up the very tight space for the lens assembly and trying to maintain f/2.2 aperture while making a 24mm lens would almost necessitate buying premium camera elements from someone who knows what they’re doing like a Carl Zeiss. Apple isn’t interested in that. They aren’t selling the best cameraphone, the cameras will only be ‘good enough’ not the ‘best’. Apple focuses on other areas instead.

MY APERTURE IS BIGGER THAN YOURS

So who needs an aperture in the cranial cavity then? (ie a hole in the head?). There is some method to the madness over at Apple. So they have been resisting very wide angle lenses. Is there any other gain than simply a few pennies saved out of this behavior? Yes. A camera lens is quite a complex set of compromises. One of the compromises relates to lens design extremes and the ability to pass light through it. Every camera lens imposes a tax on the light that passes through. The maximum possible light it allows depends on the largest opening in its aperture (some lenses have fixed apertures, these are always cheaper lenses). The ‘standard’ lenses of 50mm equivalent and near that, allow largest apertures. Apertures are measured by ‘F Stop’ (don’t ask). F/1.2 is in commercial lenses the perfection in aperture. The larger the number the smaller is the hole through which the light is passed in the lens design. So F/1.8 or F/2.4 or F/3.5 etc type of maximum apertures for the lens. And yes, you can fit a larger aperture on a 28mm equivalent lens than on a 24mm equivalent lens (and the same in telephoto lenses, the further past 85mm you go, the larger F/ stop number you get in other words the lens cannot get as large an aperture for light to go through).

So the rivals are moving away from a standard lens design to ‘more wide angle’ and that means its ever more difficult to design a lens with a large aperture, ie from 35mm to 28mm to 24mm. One need we consumers have of our pocketable cameraphones is the widest possible angle yes, but a conflicting interests is 'maximum light'. We often shoot the pictures indoors and at times in very poor lighting at dimly-lit restaurants, clubs, bars, pubs, discos etc. Apple is optimizing more the large aperture than the wide angle. Lets measure.

How are the biggest apertures of these lenses on these cameraphones? The smaller number the better. Apple manages a F/2.2. That was improved from the iPhone 4S that only did F/2.4. Its significantly ‘easier’ to do F/2.2 on the 30mm equivalent lens focal length design than it is at the 25mm end where Sony Xperia Z3 is. So yes, while we hate the iPhone lens for not being wide enough, at least it does allow Apple to build in a large aperture (and in terms of penalties of a fatter iPhone overall casing, this should not impact it). Apple hits aperture size of F/2.2. That is a very good result for a smartphone.

How are the rivals? Nokia’s Lumia 1020 has an aperture of also F/2.2 (and its an upgrade from F/2.4 in the 808 Pureview). The Samsung Galaxy K Zoom suffers from a very complex lens design. Zoom lenses always perform poorly on aperture. The K Zoom only does F/3.1. And how about our Z3 darling? Sony shines with the Xperia and wins this contest at F/2.0 with the biggest aperture. But Apple did not finish last, in fact the iPhone 6 Plus came in tied for silver with the Lumia. Galaxy K Zoom came last on aperture.

TELEGRAPH TELEPHONE TELEPHOTO

What about telephoto capability? Yes, these were cameraphones that are usually used to shoot family group photos and selfies. But if you do see that spotted owl or bald head eagle and wanted to snap a picture of it? Or you can see Lewis Hamilton sitting at the terrace too far to go take a picture from near him, but you’d still like to grab a picture of the reigning Formula 1 Champion. These cameras on smartphones are not usually used to take pictures from afar, but we often do try to do so, and would like to have that ability. Consumers notice they have digital zoom on their phones and think that will do it, but it won’t. Digital zoom is just magnifying the pixels and won’t get you any closer to the real action. The iPhone 6 Plus can’t help us here. Neither can the Sony Xperia Z3. What is needed is ‘real zoom’. That is called ‘optical zoom’ like on all videocameras and most premium point-and-shoot cameras and available (at higher costs) to all DSLR cameras.

And for a mobile phone? Its actually not such an absurd idea. The world’s first true optical zoom cameraphone was released in 2006, yes, before the iPhone. The incredible Nokia N93 (the ‘contortionist’ phone) was that masterpiece. At the time it was Nokia’s first smartphone with a 3mp camera but added 3x optical zoom (well, not quite, it was actually measured only at 2.7x zoom but who’s counting). The focal length equivalent was 35mm to 95mm. So the same cameraphone could be used as a 35mm wide angle lens or just pressing the zoom button, all the way to 95mm telephoto ability. Without any digital shenanigans. Honest real optical zoom. It was a breathtaking device back in 2006. That was the phone that decided it for me to abandon my old Canon SLR film-based gear, and go fully digital and only on cameraphones. That smartphone alone was by no means enough to replace my existing gear at the time, I don’t mean that, but I could see that the evolution from that starting point would deliver ever better cameras on phones, that I would of course be buying.

So who cares about an 9 year old step in the evolution of cameraphones? There is a very big relevant point, hold on. So next up was the iPhone right in January of 2007 and suddenly the amazing N93 contortionist phone was instantly obsoleted. Not because the iPhone could hope to match the optical zoom of that camera, and the video and flash at the time. No, it was because the iPhone was so incredinly thin (for phones at the time) and with its large touch-screen, it made the N93 look like a phone from the stone ages. Nokia wanted to continue with super cameraphones and after that, the world’s first true zoom in a phone, they wanted to go further. The obvious next step in Nokia camera evolution was to put a 5mp sensor into that design with the 3x optical zoom. Except that the phone physical form factor was so fat, thick, nasty, that Nokia management decided that form factor was ended. They even announced it to be gone, so nobody had any second thoughts about it.

What Nokia then said internally to the cameraphone team who had just made the N93, that they could have ‘real zoom’ in a Nokia phone if they could do it without the optical penalty. Talk about a ‘moon shot’ project. Talk about ‘mission: impossible’. The laws and physics of photography said this was not possible. So the Nokia engineers went outside the box. Then they spent 5 years developing what became the 808 Pureview.

The reason the 808 Pureview and Lumia 1020 have that gargantuan sensor of 41mp is not to capture the most detail of any camera made. That was a bonus outcome from their concept. They wanted to produce a 5mp camera, that had 3x optical zoom, without the optical. So to keep the phone design semi-flat, they decided to make a massively oversize sensor, something so big nobody else had even conceived of one. And the cost of that huge sensor would be offset by the fact that now the housing of the phone was minimized, there was no moving zoom element in the lens that needed a motor and drained battery, etc. Yes, still expensive but technically it was possible. Because as we know, you can take an existing picture, and crop into it, and as long as you’re happy that the ending picture has less pixels than you started with, that is ‘zooming without optical lens’. Yes, its zooming with megapixels but out of such a huge starting point, that at 5mp resolution, you do get 3x zoom from 41mp and end up at a 5mp picture. For a design out of 2007 (when the iPhone had 2mp camera) a 5mp cameraphone with ‘loss-less zoom’ was a very big achievement.

And when you do the math (and trust me, I’ve done it) the specs of the 808 Pureview (and thus also Lumia 1020) hit the ‘exact’ performance of the N93 but upgrading from 3mp to 5mp. Yes, at 5mp resolution, you get to zoom not quite 3x but 2.7 times. Exactly like the N93 did 2.7x zoom out of 3mp sensor. Now, the 808 PV also went wider than the N93 so that 35mm equivalent zoom focal lenth at 5mp picture size is from 28mm to 77mm mild telephoto length. If you had an N93 and felt you got now robbed, because the older phone went longer telephoto in the zooming, not to worry. At 3mp resolution the 808 Pureview does zoom to 100mm (for 3.6x zoom rating). An astonishing achievement while not needing heavy lens elements of optical glass. Unfortunately by the time they finally got the 808 Pureview to the market, the sensor race had moved to 12mp and 16mp sensors, so now the effective zoom ability in the Pureview was no longer that impressive, and the argument became again about pixels.

But against your iPhone 6 Plus with its 8mp sensor, if you stand at the exact same spot at the big sports arena - say you are halfway up the seats - if you take a picture with your iPhone you get mostly the audience filling your picture and the field of sports play (football, basketball, ice hockey, tennis whatever) is a small piece in the middle of your phone. Now, what about your pal who has a Lumia 1020 (or 808 Pureview). They can take a picture with and zoom in it to 8mp. So by picture resolution, it is still an 8mp picture just like yours, but at 2x magnification. 2x zoom. Real zoom (real may be stretching it) or definitely zooming without loss of detail (at that target resolution). The Lumia 1020 can zoom more depending on what is the end image size. It does 8mp zoom at 2x, 5mp zoom at almost 3x and 3mp zoom at nearly 4x.

You can call it a gimmick if you want, but its a clever and valid technical solution to a difficult problem of how to do real zoom without optical manipulation. How does this compare to your picture? Its like your pal walked all the way to the front row, and took his picture that close with the iPhone! Half way to the game. Your picture of 8mp shot with the iPhone 6 Plus gets you lots of pictures of heads of people in the audience. Your friend standing right next to you, with his Lumia 1020, gets a picture of 8mp that is as if taken as close as from the first row of the seats. Is this fair? What kind of magician-phone is that? Its pretty darn clever thats what it is. But it also means, that yes, they put in a 41 megapixel sensor when pro cameras were at about 20mp.

IS THAT A BINOCULARS IN YOUR POCKET OR ARE YOU JUST HAPPY TO SEE ME

So that was Nokia’s entry, and very novel way to achieve modest zooming capability without a massive lens construction to clutter your pocket. If you start off with that 38mp picture (or 34mp) then yes, you sacrifice the huge pixel count detail picture when you do the ‘Pureview Zoom’ but yes, at 8mp you can do 2x zoom. If you are satisfied to have a camera image only of 5mp, you can do 3x zoom. And best of all, you don’t have to decide on the spot. What I do with my 808 Pureview is I always shoot full mode, and do the zooming later, after the fact.

So yes, we know already the winner of this category is gonna be the Galaxy K Zoom. The only real optical zoom in a cameraphone. And to start with, here is where many buyers have in the past broken with the cameraphones, if they need real zooming (and/or telephoto ability) then its a clear choice, a cameraphone is a toy, a real camera has optical zoom and now its time to walk to the camera store. The single biggest reason for anyone buying a stand-alone or DSLR camera today, above what they would have in a top-line smartphone, is zooming/telephoto ability that most top cameraphones simply don’t deliver. And 10x optical zoom (and add to that 20mp sensor resolution) will be impossible to describe accurately. So let me illustrate for you.

This is my hotel room, shot with an 8mp resolution cameraphone. No, its not the iPhone 6 Plus so don’t look at the quality of the color or image. Just look at the room.




Now if I showed you variations of the room shot at different image resolutions, they would not look any better because of the limitations of the PC screen you and I are using on our laptops. But we can see the quality difference if we do some serious magnification. And I do mean 'serious'. Can you see that watch on the table just to the right of the flat-screen TV? The watch with a yellow dial? Lets magnify to see only the face of that watch. Lets start by using the iPhone 6 Plus (equivalent resolution) at 8mp. 





The pixels are very clearly visible. We can tell the time but can't really see the detail of the smaller dials nor the brand of the watch. Now lets take a picture from exactly the same spot with the 41mp sensor like on the Lumia 1020, and magnify the watch to the same size as above. It looks like this:




The pixels are barely noticable, the detail is far greater, we can now see the Ferrari branding of the watch and a lot of the detail in the three smaller dials for example. Then lets take the Galaxy K Zoom and use 10x optical zoom and 20mp from the same spot. The image looks like this:




Hahahahahahahaaaaa....  Yes. From the same spot. If we are back at that sporting game and I stand next to you and your friend who had the Lumia. If I take out my K Zoom and take a picture - from half-way up the stands - the picture will not be as if I was taking it from the front row. No. I get 20mp pictures - sharper than your 8mp and I get ‘closer’ so much, that I am not only on the playing field, I am close enough that the athlete doesn’t FIT fully into the frame! If I use extreme zoom range I get a picture where that athlete is visible in my picture only from the waist-up !!!! And at 20mp crystal-clear clarity (haha, assuming my hands aren’t shaking too much to mess up the long-distance photo).

Let me show you what I mean. Lets imagine that someone (not me) is a creepy Peeping Tom who likes to spy on girls at the pool. So I happen to be, no, THAT person happens to be at a hotel with a balcony or nice view from the window like this:




Yes across the street a few buildings over, there is a nice hotel with a rooftop pool in that house in the front. And its quite far away, but I can kind of see some people possibly there. So lets take the iPhone at its 8mp image and then lets see if we can see any sexy girls by the pool.




Ok, yeah, there might be something there but this is not a ‘picture’. This is a blur at this range. We can't really tell even if that is a woman or a man. And the 20mp of the Xperia won't really help better than the 8mp on the iPhone. What about the clever zoom on the Lumia then? It is better, definitely, see this:




Wow that IS far better and yes, clearly there is a girl by the pool. Now is there a second person at the chair next to her. While its still too pixelated for us to really use this picture, note how much detail it captures than 8mp, look for example at the floor. The 8mp shows a flat brown floor. This 41mp sensor detects that the floor is made of wood, we can clearly see the planks and could count how many planks there are on that pool floor haha. And beyond this level of detail, I have now pushed the Lumia modest zoom to its limit. Now lets pull out James Bonds’ spyphone. K Zoom do your magic. Running the Zoom to max 10x magnification the 240mm equivalent focal length, and then using the 20mp to its best, I get this image. Who’s your daddy?

 

Yeah! So its not just one girl, its two. In very sharp detail (at this distance!) If either turned to face even partially this way, they could be identifed clearly - at this DISTANCE. With a CAMERAPHONE. I estimated from a map and the height differential that the distance is about 130 meters from where my balcony was at the hotel and this neighboring building's roof swimming pool. So thats about 400 feet for you American readers. (And yes, I had to wait until I spotted the picture where both girls were facing away from me. They would be easiy identifyable if their faces were seen at this resolution haha. And no, they were not any celebs, just that I of course don't want to post identifyable pictures of anyone without their permission)

Look at the detail on the table between the girls, or for example the swimming pool tiles in top left of picture - that type of detail is all lost even on the Lumia sensor. This is what I mean, if we are in the basketball game, your iPhone 6 Plus will get a picture of the backs of the heads of 1200 fans. From the same spot, I can isolate the star player so close that he’s cut from waist-up and see his expression clearly. This is POWER in your pocket. This is magic. The K Zoom is the first phone that has effectively a binoculars function built in. An ASTONISHING feature for a smartPHONE.

THE MOON SHOT

So? The further the object is that we try to photograph the more obvious is the telephoto capacity. Did you ever try to take pictures of the moon with your cameraphone? Haha yeah, I tried it too. On all of my past cameraphones. But that darn thing is just too far. So what if you have 240mm equivalent telephoto lens (and 20mp sensor). If you put that Galaxy K Zoom on a really steady platform (ie tripod), have the manual settings correct for the exposure (aperture and shutter speed), and use the 10 second self-timer to ensure there is no shake. Then this is was the raw image from my hotel view tonight:



(So obviously I have shrunk the pixel count form 20mp to 1mp to fit the blog, i just wanted to show what kind of maximum moon-size framing we can do at 10x magnification. You'll never capture a moon this enormous onto your iPhone picture haha). So now, lets see if we can enlarge that to see any real 'moon' detail shall we? Check this out...




YES. Those ARE craters very small yes, but we CAN see detail ON THE MOON. With a CAMERAPHONE.


So what is the factor? Yes, the Galaxy K Zoom goes from 24mm to 240mm equivalent focal length measurement, so it is genuinely 10x optical zoom. From reading the blog you now know we have some issues to consider if we compare the 4 cameraphones across. Obviously the K Zoom is gonna run away with this ability but the 'advantage' is not the same against the rivals. The sensor pixel count is a factor in the final picture as is the actual focal length of the rival camera(phone). So yes, if you have another - any brand, any design - camera that has a 20mp sensor and a 24mm equivalent focal length wide-angle lens, then the resulting image at K Zoom's maximum telephoto zoom setting is 10x magnification. Now, lets keep the megapixels the same (20mp) but lets change the actual lens optical length, to illustrate. How much closer can I get with the K Zoom compared to the Sony Xperia Z3? Its focal length is 25mm not 24mm. What does that mean, it means the K Zoom is not 10x magnification, it is only 9.6x. Ah-ha! You see what I mean. Now lets take the Lumia 1020. That has further slightly larger focal length of 26mm equivalent at its starting point but also has the 41mp sensor. So the Lumia can fight back a bit. How much closer can the K Zoom get than a picture shot at the same spot, using the Lumia? Only about 7x magnification, not 10x. And what of the iPhone 6 Plus with the 30mm focal length equivalent starting point, but now the pixel count is only 8mp. Here the opposite effect happens and the effective magnification becomes more than 10x. Now the picture shot with maximum telephoto zoom setting of Galaxy K Zoom is about 13x magnified compared to the same picture shot with the iPhone 6 Plus. 

Pro tip: if you own a zoom lens on any camera, cameraphone or videocam then here is a good pro tip. Learn how the widest angle zoom and longest telephoto zoom positions relate to your body. Push out your hand then measure your fingers/hands to see the exact width of the extremes of your zoom. So for me, with the K Zoom now, I know if I hold my hands wide (thumb and pinkie finger widest spread apart), three such hands next to each other is the 24mm angle (or two hands thus on top of each other is the 24mm heght for my hands). And the extreme telephoto zoom setting. If I hold my hand flat, all fingers touching each other, then 240mm setting is the width from the thumb to the pinkie finger. This way I can instantly see without taking the camera out and aiming at a target, is the resulting picture 'of the right size' that it 'fits' inside the picture that my camera zoom lens can handle. So learn your body, push your hands as far out as they go, and learn the measures. It will make photography more fun when you know when the lens(es) fit the picture and when they don't...

So lets do the grading on zoom ability for the four rivals. Yes, the Lumia did a bold ‘out of the box’ solution for zoom and deserves credit for it. But there is nothing like the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom on the market today. The only rival this cameraphone has ever had on telephoto and zoom ability, was its predecessaor the Samsung Galaxy S4 Zoom (a somewhat incomplete first iteration on this concept from 2013).

This is a technological slam dunk! This is a home run. The moment any camera fan starts to play with the K Zoom they are forever hooked. THIS is how pocket phone-cameras were supposed to be. Thank you Samsung for the K Zoom. The telephoto ability winner by knockout. Lumia comes in at still a nice silver place in a category nobody else has bothered ever even to try (there is supposed to be a third optical zoom entrant, from Asus, later this year, so lets see). And both Sony and Apple are in tied last place, no points for not qualifying.

MACRO ME CLOSE, OH MACRO ME

Wanna get close to the subject. I mean real close-up. Collect butterflies or insects or postage stamps or coins or figurines? And ever tried to photograph those with your Xperia? Ain’t happenin, dude. Its lens is too simple, it doesn’t have ‘macro’ ability to take close-up pictures. But this feature is becoming common at the top end. The Lumia has macro as does the iPhone as does the K Zoom. And would you even notice? Well, when we not only have macro on the phone but also a 41mp sensor, check this out.




Thats the EU version. For our Yankee cousins who are metrically-challenged, here is the inches version:




Try doing that on your Xperia. This is what Steve Litchfield coined the term ‘megapixel microscopy’ is. Using a cameraphone’s pixel count and a close-up function to enable a kind of poor man’s microscope. See very small objects in large, sharp detail. And yeah, almost all premium cameras with built-in lenses have macro functionality and all major camera lens makers offer series of macro lenses or macro ability in some of their lenses. A real honest need for many (but by no means most) camera users. One that Sony is unable to address but all three rivals, Nokia, Apple and Samsung do quite happily. PS Thanks to reader wolf 6 for correction where an earlier version of this issue had an error on the iPhone. wolf 6 even provided handy pictures to compare (see comments).

So macro ability is a deficiency Sony should fix without much of a thickness penalty to the slim Xperia phones that several other upgrade options would add.

THE MEGABYTES OF MEGAPIXELS

 

So then you took your pictures. Will your camera store them. All of these do, obviously to very large storage ability. But all rivals are not equal here. Do you offer removable storage media to expand picture (and especially HD video) storage? No, don’t tell me ‘cloud’. I want to store my pictures privately, to share them with friends even without network coverage and move them rapidly to my PC ie by inserting the microSD card rather than clumsy file transfers or slow USB cables etc. And where’s your precious cloud when I’m travelling in Kenya and Nigeria and Ecuador and Bolivia and Nepal, eh? In some cities and expensive hotels, sure, but I want to exchange my pictures NOW with the friend who also has a nice smartphone. Who offers removable storage. Sony yes. Lumia yes. Samsung yes. Apple. No.

Apple wants to screw you by not conforming to industry standards. They simply refuse to join all other smartphone makers who offer microSD storage media. But not Apple. Apple who introduced the world to the 3.5 inch ‘hard’ floppy disk (the one that the ‘save’ icon is based on. Previous floppy disks were 5.25 inches in size and literally were floppy ie bendable material). But no. Ok Apple but then you suffer another fourth-place when all rivals get a tie for gold for this ability. ALL stand-alone digital cameras have removable media storage. ALL. All videocams have removable storage. ALL. All rival smartphones have removable storage. ALL. But Apple says ‘screw you’ to removable storage, because ..iNonsense follows.

WANNA SWIM

So Sony’s party piece. Wanna take the phone to the shower or bathtub? That was what the modest waterproofing on the Xperia Z3 was meant for, not for diving or long swims. But it will allow brief visits to the pool (I don’t imagine taking many pictures from under the water in the shower or bathtub haha). Yeah, its the only cameraphone of this group which can be taken to the pool and to shoot pictures (and video) from under water. I did it with my Xperia Z1 so I know it works.

Now is this a gimmick yes obviously it is (when considering it as a cameraphone, the main intention is for us to bring our entertainment to the shower and bath). And yes, Sony wins this and the other three do not even place, tied for the category of disqualified. But is this a biggie no, not really. Nice yes for Sony and yes we’d like all electronic gadgets to be waterproof at some point but not huge points for this. Not like say Xenon flash and optical zoom haha.

So forecasting time. This is something Apple will find relatively easy to do because it already is refusing removable batteries and microSD card slots. I am not expecting the 2015 iPhone range to become waterproof but it may be something Apple might do around 2016 or so. There may well be plenty waterproof Lumias but likely not at the pureview camera end, so Microsoft would rather do it at other devices. Sammy already sells waterproof variants of Galaxy and K Zoom would be ridiculously complex to try to waterproof so no, the K Zoom want be getting its own cloack of dryness.

DEPTH OF FIELD

Depth of what? Yes, depth of field. You know if you take a picture at the birthday of your 5-year old nephew blowing the candles on the cake? And you focus on the candle. And then the child is slightly out of focus. Or your camera focused on the child and the candle is slightly out of focus (but not the whole picture, the nephew is perfectly sharp). This is depth-of-field and its not an accident. It is a photographic phenomenon that can be controlled. The control of depth of field comes from the aperture. You need an adjustable aperture (like all good cameras have and no cheap cameraphones have). This is a somewhat ‘basic’ camera tech ability that those hobbyists interested in photography learn about early but one that pure amateurs almost never understand or bother with. Oh, one frustrating example - taking a picture of the wonderful view from the airplane, and the phone focused on the raindrops on the window instead and the rest of the picture is unfocused blur haha... Sharp raindrops on the glass though...

This is not an unheard-of quality in a cameraphone either. The world’s first cameraphone with aperture control was the Nokia N82 in 2009. But then along the way Nokia dropped this feature as it was not very much demanded by the average cameraphone users. But it is a technical ability that proper ‘real’ cameras all have from mid-price point-and-shoot cameras and all DSLR cameras. And one current cameraphone does aperture control. Its not the iPhone 6 Plus. Its not the Xperia Z3. Its the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom. Another mark of a proper attempt of a ‘real’ complete camera that ticks all the boxes, not a severe compromise bordering on a toy. The K Zoom is the real thing. It is the only cameraphone of this bunch that allows depth-of-field control ie an adjustable aperture.

Forecasting time - we may well see a Lumia (or perhaps ‘Nokia classic’ next year) that has a novel way to do aperture control. Nokia has some recent patent in this space. Might be a similar radical ‘out of the box’ solution like Pureview was to zoom. But don’t expect this kind of ‘camera nerdy’ tech onto an iPhone or Xperia.

Several features that recently came to the iPhone and seem still amazing like Panorama, Geotagging, Autofocus etc are actually standard features also the rivals here, so no points there but one recent technical solution has to be mentioned, that the Apple iPhone 6 Plus brags about and is very real

OPTICAL IMAGE STABILIZATION

This is an expensive and valuable aid for essentially every photographer who doesn’t exclusively use a tripod for all pictures haha.. There have been digital image stabilization systems for a long while which are pretty weak but optical image stabilization is the real thing. And as this is founded on the motion sensors, it even works in the dark. It won’t make perfectly stable pictures all the time but it helps even very competent photographers achieve sharper images because we as humans cause movement in the camera when we take the pictures, from camera shake (and we may even not be on a totally stable shooting platform, such as a moving vehicle, etc). This is one of the few big reasons why the iPhone 6 Plus is ‘Plus’ on the camera side vs iPhone 6 basic model that doesn’t offer optical image stabilization. And yes, its for all users and its very useful. And it helps improve iPhone 6 Plus photographs significantly over all previous iPhone pictures.

So yeah, cudos for Apple for this big improvement. Now is it unique? The Sony Xperia Z3 doesn’t have optical image stabilization. The Lumia 1020 however, does have it. And the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom... also has optical image stabilization. So here we split three golds and one no-show.

Forecasting, Sony should add this to Xperia Z4 or soon thereafter. It will soon be a glaring deficiency.

MOTOR DRIVE

And do you want rapid-fire photographs? Like the pro camera users do with their ‘motor drives’ on their cameras that go click-click-click-click and take rapid-fire pictures, so that you can for example get a series of pictures about some fast action? Yeah. Its on some smartphones too, its called Continous Shooting mode. The iPhone has that as does the K Zoom and Xperia but Nokia’s Lumia 1020 doesn’t do continuous shooting mode. Here a rare last-place finish for Nokia with the three rivals sharing a gold.

This should be on the next iteration of the Pureview Lumia top cameraphone.

SPOT METERING

So how do automatic cameraphones determine how much light there is coming into the picture, and then adjust their picture settings to get a good image? The focus point for auto-focus is also the measurement point for the light (this is good to know, sometimes you get a particularly dark or light picture, by shifting the aiming point then to a darker target (gets lighter image) than the center/default, or lighter target (gets darker end picture) can be a useful little trick. But yeah. Professional photographers often even carry separate hand-held light meters to get the lighting measurements exactly as they wanted. Is there any way to use the existing light meter in the phone, to point to a separate spot than the focus point? Yes. This is called spot metering and its also not exclusive to premium stand-alone phones. There are a couple of cameraphones currently in the market who offer this ‘pro camera’ type of feature. You guessed already which two offer that. Nokia Lumia 1020 and Galaxy K Zoom have separated spot metering option. Xperia Z3 and iPhone 6 Plus don’t let users make such measurements to improve their photography.

MAKE IT SIMPLE

So yeah, many of the features I talk about here are issues only shutterbugs and cameranerds even know about or care. Macro settings, spot metering, depth of field. What was that aperture thing and why did anyone care about a mechanical shutter again? Yes. Apple is the master at making things easy and simple and automated. The iPhone 6 Plus is one of the easiest cameraphones ever made, with which you can take great pictures. Not good pictures, great pictures. Inspite of all the shortcomings I listed here, the iPhone 6 Plus will produce great, award-winning pictures. It is definitely more than good enough for that. It is most definitely easy. And its clearly the best cameraphone Apple has ever manufactured. But is it the best cameraphone? Not even close. The best cameraphone, in fact the global winner of cameraphone of the year for ten years running has always been the top Nokia cameraphone including such huge milestones as the N93, the N86, the N8 and the 808 Pureview. The N8 was so far above the field that it won cameraphone of the year two years in a row - when it was no longer Nokia’s flagship but the camera part was that good (oh, and Elop had screwed up all of Nokia R&D so the next phones were delayed in the Windows transition mess).

The current reigning champ (ie of phones released in 2013) is by near unanimous choice the Lumia 1020 winning the awards for best cameraphone of 2013. Nokia faced its first serious contender in a long while that year, when Samsung brought the Galaxy S4 Zoom to the table. That was still a technical knock-out win for Nokia but Sammy went back and did a thorough update for the Galaxy K Zoom and judging by the reviews of camera magazines and enthusiasts and experts, the Galaxy is now the front-runner for the first non-Nokia cameraphone-of-year winner in ages, for 2014. Lets see how the various awards come out.

Yes I have one and love it. And no, even for all its glory, the Galaxy K Zoom is still not ticking all the boxes that a premium stand-alone camera has, so for example still missing are tripod mount, flashgun hot shoe mount, viewfinder, but thats close to it. This is the nearest thing we’ve ever had to a total stand-alone camera merging with smartphone. The Lumia 1020 was the previous champ, but now the K Zoom adds aspects that Lumia doesn’t do or match, such as wide angle to 24mm, zooming all the way to 10x while retaining the full 20mp resolution. aperture control, continuous shooting. On some aspects they somewhat split the honors like on the lens construction, Sammy has more elements, Nokia has a bigger aperture; Samsung is all glass but Nokia’s was made by Carl Zeiss. You could argue here either way which was the better lens construction.

And Nokia still wins handily the sensor race from size to light sensitivity to pixel count. So its not all K Zoom’s way. But the optical zoom (also very powerful advantage in shooting video) is a huge advantage. From wider angle to far longer telephoto range. 10 times optical zoom without loss of 20mp resolution vs Nokia who go down in resolution the further you Zoom.

But to remind those who wished their iBling could finally win in this category, no dice. Let me summarize. On no category is the iPhone ahead of all 3 rivals. The only times the iPhone was rated best, was a tied gold. Each of the rivals had a total honest solo gold several times in this contest. And the Sony places third, the Nokia second. So briefly iPhone vs K Zoom. Bigger sensor. More powerful sensor (ISO count). More detail (megapixels) in sensor. A mechanical shutter. Xenon flash. A nine element lens. A lens out of glass. A lens made by a known established camera maker (Samsung) vs a low-cost camera elements plastics provider, Largan Precision. A wider angle in wide angle (24mm vs 30mm). And telephoto zooming all the way to 10x. Macro close ups, microSD storage and spot metering. In only one aspect did the iPhone 6 Plus outperform the Galaxy K Zoom and that is in maximum lens aperture at F/2.2 vs F/3.1 but even here iPhone wasn’t the best of class (which was Sony). Between these two there is no contest. There is no contest. The iPhone 6 Plus may be many things, read minds, do your homework and do time travel but its not the best cameraphone of 2014. The K Zoom has a legitimate claim to be that. As a smartphone it may be ugly and only mid-class not tops, but as a camera it is unmatched on any phone. It is clearly the best cameraphone currently in the world (that Samsung inexplicably isn’t marketing in all countries such as the USA...)

I WILL DO AN AMAZING PART 2

When I was editing this blog story high in the cool air onboard a Boeing 777 on yet another long haul British Airways flight, sipping on a smooth Glenlivet 15yo single malt whisky in comfy business class, I stumbled upon a thought. Ah yes, even we old fogies do get them. I may have thought of something amazing. Lets say i Dream of an iDream. I initially wrote it into this blog article, but it was 7,000 words more and totally tilted the story into another direction, so luckily for you reading this now, I decided, no, that should be its own blog story. So with that teaser and cliff-hanger. Tomorrow part 2: I dream of iDream.

UPDATE: now that blog is up: I Dream the iDream.

EPILOGUE TO FOLLOW AFTER THE FOLD

The above blog story was very long as it is, even by my long-winded writing style, at 18,000 words. But this blog article has been a long time coming, and researching it brought back vividly all sorts of memories. So in the extended ‘epilogue’ part to this blog article, and another 7,000 words, I will share some of my personal memories with cameras after the fold, there is nothing more to the cameraphone industry analysis part which ends here. Those of my friends who are interested in personal stories relating to one of my all time fave gadget the camera, do follow me on a trip down cameralane.

..... (divide) .....

Now the rest of this blog has nothing more to do with modern cameraphones. This is just a personal story of recollections, many that have been long forgotten, that came to me as I was preparing this story. And honestly, the first calculations I did about zooming and megapixel counts and various cameraphones for this blog were done 3 years ago, in 2012 when I was starting to use my brand new Nokia 808 Pureview. I kept adding to this story, I wanted to make sure I really cover all aspects of the cameraphone wars, and then the story took a new twist with my waterproof Xperia Z1 and its accessory 10x optical zoom DX10 lens, and as that story was then maybe half-way done, my life changed radically as Samsung quite out of the blue did the K Zoom update to the Galaxy Zoom, and I just had to have that. Even that was more than half a year ago, so I worked on the research and did various calculations and tests (I took several photography tests outside to test out my gut feelings and theories) and started to draw the illustrations. But this work of passion didn’t really get the time it needed until now Christmas break 2014-2015 and I just pushed the research and work to get this blog completed. And as I did all that, I would frequently bump into my own history with cameras. So this is that story.


SECRET SAM SPY CAMERA

 

I got my first camera for Christmas as a 6 year old. It was not a toy, it was a fully functioning camera although cheapest possible and aimed at kids. Fully functioning nonetheless. And this was 1966 (yes I am 55 years old). And no, our family was not awash with cash, I am no son of an oil sheikh or megamillionaire who give their kids outrageously valuable toys as mere trinkets. No. This was a weird thing, as I did not explicitly request that gift for Christmas, it was part of a package of something else I desperately did want for Christmas. The Topper Toys Secret Sam Spy Attache Case. I was a normal 6 year old boy and such boys like guns. This Secret Sam spy briefcase had a toy gun in it, which was very James-Bondian (long before I knew who 007 was). It was a pistol, but in the briefcase were also a rifle-butt and a silencer/barrel extender, which converted the pistol into a rifle. How cool was that. Exactly like we see James Bond doing in his movies from time to time.






(Image is frame capture from YouTube video by dezurtdude illustrating this toy in mint condition today)

So that was what I wanted. Oh, that spy case had everything. The gun fired plastic bullets (the gun was spring-loaded, so they didn’t fly very far and couldn’t really hurt you). The case had all sorts of ubercool spy gear, including a working periscope for spy work for 6 year olds. The wicked briefcase had a mechanism, that when the gun was inside the case, and the case was closed - like you carry it on the street - you could fire the gun and the bullet came through a hidden hole on the edge of the briefcase. So yes, you could shoot the gun even when the case was closed. This was the ultimate toy for a kid who liked guns and was just starting to grasp the idea of spy games haha.

And last but not least, the toy gun spy gear loaded briefcase included a camera. An actually functioning camera (no flash) of very cheap construction all plastic but yes, it did work, and you could load film into it, take pictures, and have those pictures developed into real photographs. Today kids play with old cameraphones and its no big whoop if someone has a camera at age 6. In 1966 none of my friends owned a camera. I did. Because yes, in 1966 I received that Topper Toys Secret Sam spycase and it was my favorite toy for years to come.

Haha. Try to find another 55 year old who had his or her own camera at age 6. Now here is the reality bit. The case came with clear notice: film not included. You got the gun, accessories, bullets, periscope, all other sorts of spygear, instructions, and the functioning camera - but there was no film included. Camera film in 1966 cost a lot. Developing film cost more. Then printing pictures from the negative cost even more after that. So we had this deal with my parents, if I would save enough money to buy the film, they would load it into the camera, and they would pay for the picture developing. Well, if you know the writer at this blog, there is no way in h-e-double-hockey-sticks that Tomi as a 6 year old could have had the patience to wait for months saving his total allowance to buy one roll of film. That camera was in heavy use in all sorts of play, but never once was it loaded with real film. And at some point in the late 1960s the camera was lost but I remember I had the periscope still late into the 1970s when I was no longer playing with guns haha (a very useful toy BTW).

FIRST PICTURES

So I got my second camera when I was 11. It might have been Christmas of 1970 (still at age 10) or my birthday in the new year. I do recall that I finished taking the pictures of my first roll of film (a 126 cartridge of Kodak black-and-white film) and having that developed in the spring of 1971. So I started to take actual pictures at age 11 or 44 years ago. This was still very rare among my classmates and I remember I was the only one of my class at the time who had the luxury of a flash-unit in the camera. The flash was of the bulb type and single disposable bulbs were used (every time you used the flash, you used up a new flashbulb). The camera was a Kodak Instamatic 300:






(The picture is from Rodney's Camera Collection)

This was a premium camera in the Instamatic range from Kodak. I remember I was very frustrated with my early photographs in that they were all ruined. All were blurry. No pictures turned out good. I would much later learn about how to take photographs and discovered that this camera had a very heavy trigger, it caused a lot of shake when you took pictures and me, 11 year old or thereabouts, totally oblivious to what camera shake might do to the end picture, didn’t ever think of even attempting to steady the camera. All ruined pictures in 1971 and 1972 and 1973. Maybe two rolls of film per year and maybe two or three usable pictures per roll of film by 1973, not more. And I was paying out of my allowance always, now not just for the film but the developing of the negative, and the printing of the photographs. At this time there was no customer-friendly options where you could select which pictures you kept. They developed every picture and you had to pay for every picture, whether it turned out good or bad. (Later I learned that you could also study the negative and SPECIFY which picture to print, and avoid the obviously unusable pictures, and while these one-by-one pictures cost more per photograph, it was still cheaper than having the whole set developed if most turned out bad haha).

It was a long struggle for your cameradude. In 1973 I think (might be early 1974) a British popstar named Gary Glitter came to perform in Helsinki. He was the hottest thing back then and I went to the rock concert. My parents warned me not to take my camera as it might be stolen. I was that determined that my valued posessions won’t be stolen, I thought on the contrary, this is exactly why one owns a camera. Exactly for these situations. And I splurged on extra flash bulbs and took my camera to the concert anyway. Nobody hassled me for the camera haha. So I took many pictures from a seat maybe 15 rows from the stage. You can imagine a point-and-shoot wide-angle camera lens and that distance with my puny little flash haha. The flash was useless. Most pictures turned out totally dark. But the few that happened to catch light of strong stage lighting or someone else’s flash - had the performer Gary Glitter and his Glitterband as tiny specs in the middle of a dark photo. Useless. But I proudly took these, I think there were only 3 usable prints, to show to my classmates who had also been to the concert, and they were all envious.

And I discovered that several wanted to buy reprints of these memories. I of course, mr businessman, made a good profit out of these pictures that more than covered the costs of my negative and flash bulb costs. I had sold my first photographs at the age of 13 or 14 with a point-and-shoot camera haha. My pro cameradude journey had started.

THE APPRENTICE YEARS

I was very frustrated by how poorly my supposedly premium camera performed, so I now got involved with a photography club, started reading camera magazines and started to seek the advice of older experienced photographers like my dad. He had a brand new Asahi Pentax SLR camera system, several lenses, flashgun, tripod etc. And as I was really curious and apparently have a pretty good brain, I learned real fast. And I then wanted to start to explore these skills. While I only could use my little Kodak Instamatic 300 at my own trips to town and various parties and such uses, at home under the supervision of my dad, I was allowed to use his Asahi Pentax. And I started to take pictures of my toys, specifically my little model tanks and airplanes and soldiers and ships. Because the advanced camera could get to do very sharp pictures very close-up, I could get pictures of my soldiers that ‘kind of’ looked as if they were real sized people and real-sized tanks etc. Especially when set in elaborate settings with little buildings and toy trees etc. The deal with my dad was, I bought the film and paid the costs of developing my pictures, he’d help me learn the finer points of using the advanced camera, and I only used it while he was with me.

And now, almost all pictures turned out sharp. Boy were they sharp. This is what I wanted out of my camera. So in 1975 I decided I would buy my own camera. No point-and-shoot toy, a real proper ‘pro’ camera, an SLR camera. And like you can imagine me, I would then go into overdrive reading every magazine in any language I could find and every guidebook from the library, and get every test and review and comparison, to make the ‘right’ choice. This was going to be my most prized possession, paid by my own money, I would not want to make the wrong choice haha.

SHUTTER PRIORITY OR APERTURE PRIORITY

Now I found myself considering a choice. I knew that the lenses that you bought for cameras were brand-specific. An Asahi Pentax lens would not fit a Canon camera nor a Minolta etc. So the first camera purchase was somewhat going to bind me to that whole brand kind of into perpetuity. And at that time in the 1970s there were SLR cameras for consumers that were totally manual, or cameras that were semi-automatic (that usually also included the fully manual mode). Semi-automatics were more expensive. And everybody advised me to buy a camera at these prices and considering the whole investment including lenses and other gear, to go that extra mile and get the semi-automatic type.

And it was then a choice. There were two types of semi-automatic cameras. Asahi Pentax had invented the original semi-automatic SLR mode, which is called Aperture Priority. This meant, that you, the photographer made your selection of what aperture you wanted, and the camera then automatically set the shutter speed, based on a metering of the actual image that the camera was aimed at, to make (under most conditions) a perfectly lit photograph. Not too dark, not too light. You set the aperture, the camera then adjust the shutter speed automatically. For taking pictures quickly, this is far more convenient than attempting to guess or calculate or measure the settings for the exposure. Asahi Pentax won all sorts of awards for this technology and it boosted their sales massively. And as we learned in the story above, if you the photographer can control the aperture, you can set the depth-of-field. Do you want it to be very deep, lots of area is sharp from near to far, then set the aperture small (not much light). The camera then adjusts for a long exposure time to allow enough time to get a properly exposed picture. If on the other hand, you want a picture where the depth-of-field is narrow, just the foreground is sharp, and the background is more blurry, then select a large aperture (much light) and the camera then selects the corresponding fast shutter speed so not too much light came through.

Later, another Japanese cameramaker, Konica, decided that its not actually the only way to do this automation. You could do it the other way. The photographer could set the shutter speed, and have the camera set the aperture. This is called shutter-speed priority. So now you, the photographer can decide if you want a slow shutter speed - so for example if you take a picture of a waterfall, the water is almost dreamy, when it kind of blends. And the camera sets a small aperture so not too much light spoils the picture. Or if you want to capture something very fast like a racecar, then select a very fast shutter speed, and ‘stop’ the action. Now the camera opens the aperture very wide to allow enough light to the picture.

I know this is long and theoretical but it has lots of impact and funny sides to it. Hold on. So yeah. Two choices. And this is how I reasoned it. The choice is immaterial under good conditions. But in bad conditions, using aperture-priority, you will get pictures that are blurry but perfectly lit. Or with shutter priority you get pictures that are sharp but too dark. I figured, after years of wasted money on blurry photographs and selling those Gary Glitter pictures where nothing was really visible, that a sharp picture that is too dark, is the better option. A blur is a blur and never can offer any value no matter how perfectly it is lit. So I went for shutter-priority.

THERE ARE TWO TYPES OF PRO SHOOTERS

I then over time learned the camera industry rule of thumb. There are (were) two types of photographers, those who think fast and those who think deep. The artistic type photographers will take their time to compose a perfect picture, and think about the artistic elements including depth-of-field. They take the pictures that are in magazine covers, the pictures of glamour models, pictures used in advertising, and are famous artists in photography with permanent displays of their best pictures.
 
Then there are fast shooters. They take pictures of news and sports. They are not featured in magazine or advertising pictures, their names are in newspaper credits. They are the photojournalists who don’t get paid anything like the artists. But they are documenting life as it happens. If these photographers are in any art exhibits they are on a temporary display of last year’s best news photographs, etc.

The artists shoot Nikon. The newsguys shoot Canon. Nikon was built on aperture-priority like Asahi Pentax. Canon did its automation on shutter-priority like Konica. So which do you think your hothead Ahonen ended up selecting. Shutter priority of course. At that time in 1975 the inventor of this technology, Konika had just released its latest Autoreflex T3 model SLR camera that was winning awards. That is what I had to have. This was very expensive as were its lenses branded Konica Hexanon. And it was not one of the bestselling brands like Minolta, Asahi Pentax and Canon. So there were not that many camera stores in Finland that carried Konica brand. But I had a secret weapon. My dad travelled internationally all the time. He could go fly to Japan on an upcoming trip and buy the camera at its source for less. What my dad then told me was yeah, but the real place to buy the camera was Hong Kong. That was where all tech prodcuts were cheapest. Yes, even cheaper than in Japan where they were made.

So this was settled. If I saved enough money, he’d buy the camera for me, on his next trip that visited Hong Kong (boy was I immediately in love with that far-away exotic city from this day onwards. It was the meccha for a tech geek if thats where all gadgets were the cheapest. I had to get to visit that city at some point, armed with a huge shopping budget).

MY KONICA YEARS

So then that summer I took my first summer job, worked at the Philips warehouse in Espoo, and drove a forklift truck and unloaded trailer-trucks of color TVs and washing machines and microwave ovens and sweated and came home tired every day. But almost two months of work that summer earned me the money that I could (just barely) afford the Konica Autoreflex T3 and a Hexanon 50mm F/1.4 standard lens (not the cheapest 50mm lens made by Konica but not their best either). This is what my prized possession looked like:





(The image is from the Konica related pages at The Camera Site)

I received my camera late in the year and I loved it truly-madly-deeply-doo. And from that point on, an SLR camera hung on my shoulder wherever I went. It was always there. If you saw Tomi you saw his camera too. And I started snapping pictures. This was a big investment, I intended to make good use of it. I learned how to develop my own black-and-white prints in a darkroom. We had the darkroom equipment in our home so this helped me save money. But it also taught me many of the aspects of photoshopping that we can now do easily on a computer. I learned  how to do that manually, ‘the analog way’ with chemicals and paper and the enlarger and manipulating things like the printing plane to correct for distortions in the picture or how to do shading to underburn and overburn parts of the picture or to boost or reduce the contrast in a picture etc. Today we can do all this in a few clicks on the computer but yeah, I did that as a 15 year old in our darkroom.

Next summer I worked again and bought me a massive and outrageously expensive 80-200mm zoom lens by Konica Hexanon. At this time zoom lenses were still relatively rare in SLR photography and yes, carried a huge premium price. But I had to have that zoom.




(Picture is from Leicashop website)

It was like many early telephoto zoom lenses, still so heavy that it had its own tripod mount which made it even more cool (but compared to my later zoom lenses, remarkably heavy and cumbersome). Never regretted one moment buying it. I shot most of my pictures at the time using that, rather than my standard 50mm lens. And then along the years my cameragear grew to include a flashgun and tripod etc. But I found myself at a new dilemma. I noticed that there were an increasing number of interesting lenses I wanted, of various focal lengths and abilities (including a macro lens for ultra-close-up). And a bunch of independent lensmakers were appearing out of Japan that offered lenses that had mounts for many of the most popular brands - but not for Konica. And in camera magazine reviews, these lenses were not at all bad, they might not totally match the best lenses by the name brands but if they lost out, the differences were so minute you often even couldn’t tell in a photograph comparing side-by-side. They were far cheaper than similar lenses by the big camera brands and alarmingly, these newcomers started to produce lenses in zoom ranges that the big brands didn’t yet do. I needed that.

MY CANON DECADES

So I was faced with a new choice. I had thought I was a Konica Guy for life. But the brand was too small, the independent lens makers didn’t bother to do Konica. So I had to leave this very good brand and go elsewhere. Well, now it had to be top brand and big brand. Only choice was Nikon or Canon. Artsy pictures or fast pace. I went Canon of course. And never regretted it one moment even though I took a nasty hit on the price of my Konica selling the used gear. My first Canon was the freshly released AE-1P, the second best Canon camera body at the time, below the purely professional F-1. The F-1 was ridiculously expensive but looked better in all black, rather than the early version of the AE-1P with that black and chrome apperance similar to what most SLRs looked like at the time (Canon would later do an all-black AE-1P). But the only major technical compromise I made with this choice was that the fastest shutter speed on the AE-1P was 1/1000 seconds, same as on the older Konica T3, but the F-1 would have had a top speed twice that, at 1/2000 seconds. That difference did not justify to me and my budget at the time, to pay more than twice the money for otherwise the same specs and performance. So this is what my lovely Canon AE-1P looked like when new:

(Picture is from Ken Rockwell's Canon related pages)

So yeah. That Canon became an extension of my arm. I never went anywhere without it. Here is one picture of me with my Canon AE-1P, my 28-80mm Hanimex Zoom and with the Canon flashgun.

 

I am 21 years old in this picture. At this time I had a full time job so I could easily afford to expand my hobby and my Canon camera gear grew fast to cover 4 bodies (two AT-1 bodies and one AL-1), and 5 lenses including a Sigma 75-250mm zoom lens plus three Canon single-focus lenses, five tripods five flashguns, and whole home studio setup to do indoor portrait pictures with several wall-to-wall backdrops. I also bought an Olympus SLR body and lens, and a Polaroid instant camera. I had a full darkroom for black-and-white including developing the film not just prints. And I was buying 35mm film in bulk and rolling my own film.

I was shooting at least 1 roll of film every week as a personal rule - I thought that if I shoot continuously I will remain fresh. When I noticed some week I had managed to go 8 or 9 days without finishing a roll of film, I went out and shot whatever, just to finish this roll, and then developed it. And ensured that in the next 4-5 days I finished the next roll to be back on schedule. Obviously many weeks I might shoot 3 or 4 or more rolls of film when something interesting was happening like a scouting summer camp etc. I specifically excluded all paid photoshoot gigs from this rule, so if I got a job to shoot for some newspaper and that of course resulted in a roll of film, that didn’t count. In ADDITION to the paid pictures, I had to shoot at least one roll every week. I did this for years.

I was a semi-pro shooting graduation pictures and buduoir pictures and rock band promo and record cover pictures and I was a freelancer news photographer with dozens of pictures sold to several Finnish newspapers. I’ve had a front cover on Finland’s second largest newspaper at the time Uusi Suomi (which has since gone out of business) two times, and also had a front page picture twice at Finland’s largest evening paper Iltalehti plus cover shots on several smaller newspapers. I went by my artist name Tommy Ahonen. But all along I also knew that I would never pursue photography as my job, because I was obviously a news type photographer, not the artsy type who could make maybe big money with it. I was too greedy to think a photojournalist’s life was gonna pay me well enough haha. But I loved taking pictures.

THE BAG

But I want to talk about The Bag. In some camera shop in Finland I saw a ridiculously expensive Canon branded yellowish kind of canvas bag, that was enormous for a camera bag in terms of just big. I had seen nothing like it. There were no similarly-sized ‘massive’ bags in Finland at the time for any other brands either, just this one camera store had this one bag, and it happened to be branded Canon. There were some big ‘generic’ camerabags with lots of pockets etc, but this was my brand. And it seemed perfect. I loved it. I wanted it. I carefully measured all its pockets etc, and figured that this was the ultimate bag and after several trips to the store, I finally bought it. I loved it that it said Canon in those big letters on the top. And of camera bags available in the early 1980s in Finland this was a one-off. Nothing else was like it. And no camera magazine sold anything like it in any country (it must have been some promo bag done for Finland because I’ve also not seen it anywhere in any Google pictures about Canon camera bags). But it was fab. So me being me. The perfect bag. That wasn’t good enough. I then customized and upgraded it. Boy did I ever. I knew this was going to carry my ‘ultimate’ camera selection of the best-of gear that could handle anything. So it would go everywhere. And it needed some further preparation.

So I took it to a professional seamstress who sewed a waterproof bottom to it (haha canvas bag, gets moist, the toys inside will spoil). And in case of emergency in rain, I had her sew a waterproof lid but underneath the real cover, as I still wanted the original Canon branding to clearly show. So she did not go through the immense trouble of waterproofing it completely but the bottom and top were ‘rainproof’ and ‘puddle-proof’. Yeah, this was not cheap, but I had my most valuable possessions inside.

And then I used my sewing skills from boy scouts and the mandatory Finnish army conscription duty, to add more improvements. Into every pocket, I sowed a perfectly-fitting bottom ‘pillow’ so that all my gear had extra shock-absorption, in case the bag fell (And sometimes it did nearly causing me a heart-attack. Never once did anything break inside). I constructed an elaborate ‘two-storey’ pocket lengthwise to the main pocket, with velcro straps, so that I could hide an ultralight tripod into the underneath pocket, and then still have a good-sized top pocket onto which I could put other cameragear, with none of them ever touching ie scratching the tripod etc. I put in various hooks and attachments to enable me to carry a second big full-sized tripod on the shoulder strap, and so forth. Everything was perfectly measured to suit exactly my gear.

And pro tip - I also tossed in about a dozen of the ‘silica gel’ bags that you find in various electronics good packaging which say ‘do not eat’ haha. They are excellent in removing moisture, you should put one or two into your briefcase where you carry you laptop (as I do) just in case there is a water-related accident. That silica gel bag weighs nothing but it may save your expensive gadget. So yeah, this is my beloved Canon bag in all its glory in 1985 (at the foreground on right-corner of picture) (I’m 25 years old)




So let me tell you the contents of the ultimate Canon travel camera gear of 1985 that a college student could afford if he had worked for a couple of years full-time before coming to America. The bag had my Canon gear (and never, EVER anything other than the camera gear). It contained:

1 Canon AE-1P camera body with motordrive, on an L-shaped flashgun bracket with dual Cullmann tripod quick-mounts, loaded with 36 frame roll of 35mm Kodak black-and-white high speed film 1600 ASA
1 Canon AT-1 camera body (in black), with Cullmann tripod quick-mount, loaded with 24 frame roll of 35mm Kodak color high speed film 1000 ASA
1 Sigma 75-250mm macro zoom lens

1 Hanimex 28-80mm macro zoom lens
1 2x tele-extender
1 Vivitar Zoom flash

1 Philips 38CT top-of-line adjustable flash
1 white flash umbrella
1 Slik 500g ultralight tripod with Cullman quickmount receptacle
1 Cullmann table tripod/shoulderpod

1 pistol grip with attached Cullmann remote shutter release cable
1 Soligor spot meter

1 slide holder for close-up slide copying

1 Cullmann tripod quickmount atteched to flash hotshoe adapter

1 Velbon camera lens filter system and about 10 filters
3 spare rolls of film (Kodak: color slide film, color print film, black-and-white print film)

8 spare AA batteries for the two flashguns (rechargable type)
plus miscellaneous smaller adapters, cables, connectors, brackets etc.

That bag weighed close to 10 kg (22 lbs). I hauled it EVERYWHERE. And if you can remember camera gear from the 1980s this is all top-line stuff (except for my zoom lenses haha) so the German Cullmann brand was arguably the world’s best tripod system at the time with all sorts of award-winning innovations that today all tripods use. I had 4 Cullmann tripods at home but in the camerabag was the world’s lightest ‘almost full size’ tripod at the time the Slik 500g, but even to that I bought the Cullmann ‘head’ so the Cullmann gear connected to it. And in the bag I had the cool Cullmann tablet tripod which looks like this when opened up and standing:




(Picture from Camerahound website)

That is not what made it so cool for Mr Jamesbondwannabe. No. What made that soooo cooool was it converted into a shoulderpod like this:






(Picture from DP Review blog)

Yeah. I could turn my Canon setup into a rifle haha. Where have we seen that before. Oh, Tomi’s first camera gear in that Secret Sam Spy Case from when he was 6 years old. Haha. Wanna be a spy? Wanna have a ‘rifle-butt’ adapter to the camera. But don’t laugh. When shooting long distance telephoto and zoom pictures - look at all the Canonistas at any sports game. They all have either monopods all the way to the ground or else what? Rifle-butt shoulderpods. Yes, there is method to my madness. Using a shoulder pod on a long zoom lens gives FAR more stability to the pictures. Especially if you then include a pistol grip and a remote shutter release so you never touch the camera itself when you take pictures (remote shutter release also the most outrageously expensive one, the one by Cullmann of course...)

This setup went with me every day everywhere through much of the 1980s. Then after I got my MBA in New York City, I got a real job and the job consumed me and I noticed half a year later that oh yeah, my Canon. I might go out shoot a few random pics, and then bring the Canon bag back home and forget it for another half a year again. My hobby suddenly kind of died for more than a decade. If I was shooting more than a roll of film per week on average in the 1980s, I shot no more than 5 rolls of film per year in the 1990s. I didn’t take my camerabag to work, I worked very long hours (New York City) and since I’d lived in the Big Apple for years by then, there wasn’t anything that exciting to go photograph anyway on a given evening after sundown when I came back home. So the hobby went dormant for close to 15 years. Until I started to remember my new Nokia cameraphone in my pocket. And then the one that had removable memory. And then the one that did 1mp pictures. And then the one with LED flash. And then the Nokia with 2mp camera and so forth... As my cameras became better in my pocket, I was more happy with the pictures they took, and slowly returned to my hobby again. No longer using the Canon 35mm gear but taking digital pictures on my cameraphones.

I knew from my Nokia years that we (Nokia) expected cameraphones to arrive and become relevant. I could foresee by then the rapid evolution. What I wanted, however, was the zoom. It wasn’t a camera for me if it didn’t do zoom. So my heureka moment was then the Nokia N93. When that cameraphone was announced, I knew this was it. This is where cameraphones graduated from pocket toys, to that journey that eventually, they will do everything my old Canon setup used to do. I still waited until I had my hands on my own N93 (had it from the first batch that Vodafone received in the UK, before they even advertised it at their website). While Nokia often gave me free phones, this one I could not wait for maybe getting one for free. I had to have it immediately when it became available (and it was severely delayed, almost a year from when it was announced to when it shipped). After a few days with the N93 I made up my mind, the Canon gear was to be sold. I now quit cold turkey, all my old photographs will be either digitized or destroyed. I bought a flatbed scanner and made my transition and sold the old SLR gear that wasn’t even compatible with Canon’s current line of lenses..

THE BAG, REVISITED

I’ve owned every generation of the best cameraphone in the world (where I count the Lumia 1020 as just a variation of the 808 Pureview that was the real generational jump to 41mp). And now the Samsung Galaxy K Zoom. And you know what. The K Zoom gives me essentially the complete digital version of my ultimate Canon bag with all its magical goodies. All of it in one pocket-sized marvel. A bag that weighed nearly 10 kilograms / 22 pounds. Now is in my pocket.

Now, first off, the Canon SLR bodies that I used, obviously had Kodak film in them. Film can produce far greater detail than a 20mp digital CMOS sensor yes. That is true. But not so fast. When I scanned my selected ‘these pictures are worth saving’ photographs to digital on my flatbed scanner, I used scan resolutions around 300dpi that yielded pictures scanned to sizes corresponding with about 2 megapixels to 4 megapixels. Not more. These were my most treasured images out of 3 decades of photography and I had bought a scanner to just accomplish this task. I felt that resolution was enough. So if I now shoot new pictures at 20mp resolution on the K Zoom, I am getting sharper digital pictures than the process I used to convert my old film-based photographs. For practical purposes and my own decisions, yes, this K Zoom matches or exceeds that film resolution not at its native state, but at what I then scannned my pictures with.

But beyond film. Motor drive? Check. Zoom range on two lenses from 28mm all the way 250mm. Ok, I get much more at the bottom end to 24mm but slightly less at the top end 240mm rather than 250mm? check. I actually gain in this bargain. Xenon based real flash? Check (K Zoom is one camera, needs only one flash to match what I had the second flash was primarily for the second camera body with the other film inside). Macro? Check. Full manual controls, shutter control, aperture control? Check. A shutter-control programmed semi-automatic mode (would you believe the Galaxy K Zoom has this too)? check. High speed ASA ie ISO ratings of the film types I used to carry up to 1600 ASA/ISO? Yeah better than that, up to 3200 ISO: check. Spot meter? check. optical filter set? check.

Both my earlier Konica Autoreflex T3 and my Canon AE-1P had a top speed of its mechanical shutter at 1/1000 seconds and the one ‘tech envy’ I had in the 1980s was that Canon F-1 pro camera body because its shutter speed went to 1/2000. Yeah. Galaxy K Zoom now does 1/2000. Check. And the Canon F-1 camera body was all black. Yes, you knew it, I bought my Galaxy K Zoom in its black edition.. of course! (real photographers use cameras that are black!)

What about the 2x tele-extender? Thats an adapter that lets you double the focal length of a lens. So I used it if I needed to take pictures from very far away, it turned the Sigma form 75-250mm into 150-500mm. But like all tele extenders, it came at a severe penalty to the aperture and light being passed through. You can’t put a tele extender onto the K Zoom as its lens is not removable. But wait. My standard for digitizing my photographs was between 2 and 4 megapixels. The K Zoom shoots natively at 20mp. If I zoom into the picture to simulate 2x magnification, like with Nokia Pureview technology, I could magnify the picture two times and still have a 5mp picture. More than I ‘wanted’ and now I’ve essentially put a 2x tele-extender to the K Zoom but not with a light penalty, a megapixel penalty. I think its fair to say even the 2x tele extender functonality is in my pocket today, when compared to my ultimate camerabag of goodies. Today that Galaxy pocket marvel replicates for me this amount of that kit:

 

1 Canon AE-1P camera body with motordrive
1 Sigma 75-250mm macro zoom lens

1 Hanimex 28-80mm macro zoom lens
1 2x tele-extender
1 Philips 38CT top-of-line adjustable flash
1 Soligor spot meter

1 Velbon camera lens filter system and about 10 filters

Much of what remained were the second camera body for the alternate film, and then just ‘stands’ ie tripod and grip related accessories. So the actual camera ie picture-taking has been covered. Now lets see what I pack with me if I expect to take pictures that day? I put in my other supercameraphone, the 808 Pureview. Now I add out of my original superbag these:

 

1 Canon AT-1 camera body

1 Vivitar Zoom flash

 

Yes the Nokia 808 Pureview flash is not zoom, but yes, its now the second camera body and second flash, also replicated in the other pocket. All non-tripod related camera gear I used to carry has now been duplicated (except the zoom in the one flash, and a slight bit of the zooming range of the telephoto lens). And I gain massively beyond what I had, starting with no need to print images, they are viewable instantly, no need for darkroom, I can edit the pictures instantly on the phones; the total videocamera functionality that I could not even ever imagine having in my pocket at that time when portable videocameras were separate from the video recording units that were carried in backpacks by the cameraman haha. Five total rolls of film that covered at best 180 picture capacity in that bag. The K Zoom on one 64GB microSD alone (excluding camera memory and the Nokia and its microSD card) would be about 12,200 pictures at full 20mp resolution. Yeah I think I have ‘more’ ability now than then.

So what about the tripods then. I like tripods. I believe in tripods. I know my hands shake and I want crisp clear pictures. Well. Let me show you this:





Yes that is a selfie stick. And don’t worry, I don’t use it as a selfie stick ever. Not even when I shoot pictures for my 007 selfie collection. Real men don’t use selfie sticks haha. Why is it then? The key is the second gadget. Let me put these together:






Haha. Its the weirdest tripod you’ve seen. Its like a unipod that sprouted minilegs. But this works. It is just tall enough fully erected that it is almost ‘full size’ ie replicating the Slik 500 ultralight tripod functionality. So it is waist-height, just about. And when totally pushed into its minimum length, it makes a good tabletop tripod. Haha, its the modern equivalent of the Cullmann tablepod/shouldepod. So yes, as I speak at conferences all the time, and who of us hasn't been in the situation when we see someone showing a slide with some amazing numbers or graphs or stats or diagrams, that we didn't want to capture that slide? Now I can. I have this setup as a tablepod, with the K Zoom aimed at the big screen and I can catch any slide shown in almost perfect detail - yes, even to read the print too small for the audience to see that some speakers apologize for (sorry the text is a bit small, let me read it for you...). Haha. Mr Spy. I can now capture anything. Obviously if I wanted, I could also record the speakers in HD but haha no, I don't want to watch those videos again. But every conference yields dozens of good slides that I then - of course - always use with attribution as those who've seen me know. I always credit the sources of my data. But most who try to use cameraphones in conferences have to sit very close to the front or its pretty useless. With the K Zoom on a tablepod mount I haven't yet even needed its maximum zoom setting in any event so far, in the nearly 20 events I've spoken at since I bought the pocket wonder last year.

And in an emergency the selfie-stick and minilegs setup could be used as a shoulderpod. Yes, my total camera supports system has now been replicated at ultralight designs as the cameraphone itself is far lighter than the SLR cameras and their heavy lenses used to be. Best of all, this whole kit fits into my breast pocket of my suit jacket. Yes, the selfie stick is a bit cumbersome in my pocket but it does fit and Ive taken it for many walks now to help steady my long range pictures haha.

So now, for example today on this business trip I have this setup with me at my hotel room and if I go sight-seeing I will take this set with me:





And that replicates all this of The Bag that weighed 10 kilograms and I considered the perfect portable camera kit three decades ago:

 

1 Canon AE-1P camera body with motordrive
1 Canon AT-1 camera body
1 Sigma 75-250mm macro zoom lens

1 Hanimex 28-80mm macro zoom lens
1 2x tele-extender
1 Vivitar flash

1 Philips 38CT top-of-line adjustable flash
1 Slik 500g ultralight tripod with Cullman quickmount receptacle
1 Cullmann table tripod/shoulderpod

1 Soligor spot meter

1 Velbon camera lens filter system and about 10 filters
3 spare rolls of film

I did foresee that the camera functionality would shrink and grow more powerful and go all digital yes. I never thought even though year 2010 with all the cameraphone advancements that now in 2015 I can have in my pocket that full setup. I did not see this coming. And I am happy as a clam. I can do my full camera hobby once again, with all the technical ability I once had. All of it now, however in one package that doesn’t need to have pieces attached and removed haha.

In the first two decades of my camera hobby I estimate I shot 12,000 photographs. In the third decade I shot less than 1000 more. But now in the fourth decade I have shot at least 10,000 more so I am making up for lost time. As my cameraphones got better, I have started to shoot more. Since I got this K Zoom I’m now averaging 12 pictures shot per day. So at this rate in my fifth decade I will more than double the total number of pictures I’ve taken lifetime haha, easily.




So thats me, a pre-cameraphone ‘selfie’ shooting myself in a car mirror. Yes that is my darling Canon AE-1P with motordrive, with the Hanimex 28-80mm zoom lens, on the road somewhere in Pennsylvania around 1984 at age 24. Thanks for joining me in this trip through my hobby with cameras. And please do share your thoughts of your fave camera moments and gadgets. How did you discover the magic of the photograph? And yes, lets discuss cameraphones, is it really true that the iPhone 6 Plus lands in fourth place ranking among these contenders? Is the K Zoom the current camera master among smartphones?
 

Comments

[ville]

You appear to know photography, is my conclusion after browsing through your post. Would have appreciated if you cold also with a critical point of view cut the text into a readable format.

[AndThisWillBeToo]

One typo:
"least Nokia and Apple will focus on adding megapixels."

Probably you mean Microsoft and Apple or Samsung and Apple. Nokia does not make phones anymore.

[AndThisWillBeToo]

@Tomi
Analysts estimate that Apple full year 2014 sales in China exceeded those in United States. Sounds right?

[Maggan]

@Tomi

"Oh, and exactly why is Apple still pushing thinner iPhones?"

I think it is at least in part because they want to prepare for wearables. Making their phones thinner means they can sink R&D cost into smaller components, which they can then one day build wearable computers with.

If they would say "this is thin enough", eg "the 5s is thin enough", there wouldn't be an internal pressure to make the components smaller, and the work towards other goals might be compromised.

/M

[Anon]

Hi Tomi,

What you called the "cross-shaped sensor", before Nokia's PureView models, had been used in cameras from Panasonic, Fujifilm, and since April 2014, in one model from Canon.
This concept/technology, known as "multi aspect ratio", was not invented by any of these companies, as you can see from this international patent application:

[Anon]

http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument;jsessionid=AF428A2EB3CE1F20EE3DD08CC68FE470.espacenet_levelx_prod-sna_6?CC=WO&NR=2005125186A1&KC=A1&FT=D&date=20051229&DB=EPODOC&locale=en_GB

[Vikram]

This has been an education...great post

[Vikram]

Tomi, what about image processing software and speed? Undoubtedly there are phones with better hardware specs than the iPhone, but many people - including pro photographers - say that the iPhone is faster and has better software in shooting good pictures quickly. It may not be the best if you have time and can adjust settings so the Pureview or K Zoom will be better then, but the iPhone apparently works better and faster and has better software to help make pictures better (not to mention just better camera apps which is another story), and generally is at the top (or very near it) of the list when it comes to the phone that takes the best pictures. This isn't just me saying this.

Any thoughts on software as it relates to camera phones?

I'm not arguing that the K Zoom will not take better pictures than an iPhone due to raw spec advantages in the package that it is in, but that outside of an expert like yourself, won't iPhones generally be ahead for most people in many situations due to the software that powers it?

Having said that, I am in the market for an Android phone (shocker I know) and I was going to look at the new Xperia but you may have convinced me to try to locate a K Zoom. I don't think that it is generally available out here but after reading your post I will seriously look for one.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi Anon

Thanks! I didn't know that. I will have to go adjust the story yes, I thought it was invented for/by Nokia but clearly has been used before. Still, its a pretty clever way to increase final digital image size while keeping the rest of the optics as small as possible.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[abdul muis]

Tomi,

I wasn't expecting a good photography/camera article from you, but this is a surprisingly good article that I really enjoy. Congratulation & Thank you.

[Anon]

Hi Tomi,

Yes, the "multi aspect ratio" feature is a very clever one, and one wonders why it took so long to be invented and used.
Please note that, as described in the aforementioned patent, it is also applicable to all types of display methods/technologies, and it is especially well suited for projection systems, such as the micro-projectors that have been talked about that one day will be incorporated in cell phones.

[Crun Kykd]

Great article on cameraphones. I sat in on a talk on lightfield photography (Lytro and Pelican). They were saying a way to get high resolution with thinness was to use an 10 x 10 array of multiple small sensors (1MP?) side by side, each with their own small lens. And use software to stitch a high resolution photo together. I didn't understand any of it, but I wonder if it true.

[Whoever]

Writing style:

Tomi,

you should drop the "Haha"s -- or at least reduce them to one or two per article. It reads as unprofessional childish writing.

[nerd6]

Great article, Tomi. I enjoyed the trip down memory lane - I also took my first photos with the family Kodak Instamatic 300 and then went on to fully manual (used) SLRs - first a Praktika then a Minolta SRT-101b. I even had a Hanimex zoom lens! (It was rubbish)

You are basically presenting the opposite view that Vlad Savov states in his Verge article "To beat the iPhone, you have to beat the iPhone's camera". In Vlad's article he wishes that his Android phone could shoot good photos as quickly and as easily as an iPhone does.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/13/7537011/iphone-6-camera-editorial

Different people want different things from their cameras and value different qualities as "best".

I have an iPhone 4S and the biggest improvement I wish for when taking photos with it is a zoom lens. Otherwise it is fine, at least in good light.

[Tomi T Ahonen]

A few comments

AndThis - the US/China numbers don't smell right. Apple's market share is so strong in US market, and if you remember most market analysis of China (like Kantar) are only of the big cities not nationally. I would be surprised if total China 2014 iPhone unit sales exceeded that of total US. But China should be 2nd biggest market for Apple.

Maggan - ok, makes some sense but not if it then hurts functionality. I do think the pursuit of 'credit card thin' smartphones is silly. A bigger screen yes, a better battery life yes, a better camera yes, but thinner phone - at some point it got ridiculous...

Anon - I credited you for the change to that part of the text, thanks.

Vikram - good point but with a bit of caution. I believe - and I have NOT attempted a comprehensive survey - I believe those who think that (that its faster to take pics on an iPhone) weren't comparing to Lumia 1020 (or 808 Pureview) or Xperia Z2/Z3 or Galaxy K Zoom. I think they were comparing to older iPhones and the typical rivals in the flagship class like Galaxies, HTC's, LGs, etc. But to your point, yes, the speed of how quickly you can take a picture, from camera in pocket in locked mode - that is a legitimate issue. For that however, we have to have a test of the actual cameraphones as there are no specs on this. I do hope we get some serious camera specialist magazines and websites that do proper 'thorough' comparisons and that issue - speed of taking pics - is included. I'd be very interested to know and with some past phones its been a pain. The 808 Pureview gets fast to camera mode from sleep by pressing the camera shutter. The K Zoom does require to do the touch-screen swipe which I think is a bit silly and time-consuming, it should go directly to picture-taking from pressing the shutter long enough (in my mind). The zoom lens extending from hidden mode to shooting mode is reasonably rapid for that type of construction. Partly the iPhone of course can utilize its simplicity haha, has less to worry about to be ready to shoot. But yes, especially as a pocket camera for random sudden photography situations, yes speed is a factor.

Crun - yeah, good point. Its the same principle they use for example in very large radio telescopes and the new phased array type radars. I know there is research into that direction but haven't seen commercial cameras yet using it. Am sure we'll see it coming and a cameraphone would be particularly well suited for that solution. Thanks for mentioning it.

Whoever - nah. This is a blog and I'm totally not serious about what I write about here or Tweet about. If you can't take a bit of sillyness every now and then, you certainly don't want to come back to my writing.

nerd6 - haha no way! Even a Hanimex? And yeah the Verge took a typical US centric view, ignoring the better products out there and haha, some of the complaints are indeed valid. The speed and convenience of the Nokia 808 Pureview on that 'obsolete' Symbian OS and its camera functions are fast and smart and many complained that the Windows version was a step down in that aspect. I can't say, I never used the Lumia 1020 but I never felt the 808 PV was anything less than fast and intuitive and easy, plus obviously obliterates the iPhone 6 Plus in almost every conceivable way on its camera haha... But yes, in the USA, probably true that the iPhone has that 'automatic transmission' type of convenience that Americans particularly love even when it means performance penalties haha... As to what consumers want, yes totally agree, different people value different things. As you and I happen to value an optical zoom, but most definitely most cameraphone buyers will not value an optical zoom enough to pay a premium for that functionality. That would be always only a minority of all cameraphone buyers...

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[wolf 6]

It looks like you have an error on your blog post. It's possible to take at least that good or even better photos of close objects if you use iPhone 6. I tested it and iPhone 6 was able to take very good pictures of a similar setting to the one you had with memory cards and a battery.

[wolf 6]

Here is a replica of the same setup Tomi was using. It took me 2 minutes to find similar looking items and set it up. These were taken with no extra light and it was shot with a free hand.

Same image setup. It's further away compared to what iPhone 6 can produce but gives us idea about what iPhone 6 can do in comparison to Nokia 808.

http://i.imgur.com/Z9acUp0.jpg

Another image. Now iPhone 6 is closer to the object. Nokia 808 can't come this close. if a full crop from Tomi's image was available we could compare those. It's unlikely that 808 could come this close.

http://i.imgur.com/JvcKesL.jpg

[Tomi T Ahonen]

Hi wolf 6

Thanks! I wasn't aware of it and the sites I checked when researching this blog didn't include macro. I've now seen not just your pictures but on further digging that yes there is macro ability to a bit closer even on nearest focus (where then the megapixels will fight it out for for whose magnified close-ups would be biggest). Thanks. I've updated the entry to give the iPhone 6 Plus a well-deserved shared gold for this ability. PS I especially appreciate replicating my photo haha... good job. I of course credit you for the correction.

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Pekka]

Tomi
You are focusing completely on the wrong thing. Reason why Iphone camera is the best and trashes everything android has even windows. It's because people don't care about getting a clear picture of someone far far away.
What they care about is getting a great picture within 0.5 second in every kind of environment, whether it's in a snowstorm, 200 people running around, there kids running at full speed, pitch dark room or whatever situation. Android phones are just complete trash and can't even thouch iphone.
Deal with it.

[AndThisWillBeToo]

@tomi
On the Apple China sales: Now Canalys says Apple is leading smartphone vendor by unit sales in China:
http://www.canalys.com/newsroom/media-alert-apple-takes-top-spot-china-first-time-smart-phones