How are smartphones getting great photos from such small lenses?

7 years 6 months ago #499853 by Happy Snapper
We all have our pro and semi pro lenses that we enjoy.  When you compare the physical size of a DSLR lens and then you compare that lens to the tiny lens on on your iPhone.  It's like having a watermelon next to a pea.  Now I understand the smartphone photo can't be printed to the same size of the DSLR shot.  Which BTW is mainly due to the sensor size.

So how are these tiny lenses able to take such great photos?  Does that mean DSLR lenses COULD be much smaller and still take the same quality of image?  

Gripped Nikon D810 --- Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 --- Sigma 10-20mm f/4 --- Nikon 50mm f/1.4 --- SB600
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7 years 6 months ago #499931 by Stic
What great photos?

I've never seen an image from a phone that was worth taking...


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7 years 6 months ago #500017 by Flash Steven

Stic wrote: What great photos?

I've never seen an image from a phone that was worth taking...


That made zero sense.  

Canon 7D w/grip, Canon 40D, Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS L Canon MPE 65mm f2.8 macro; Sigma 70-300mm f2.8; Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro; Sigma 8-16mm f4.5-5.6
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7 years 6 months ago #500018 by Flash Steven
There are a number of photographers who got their start from shooting with just their iPhones.  The major difference is the printable size is much smaller.  

Canon 7D w/grip, Canon 40D, Canon 70-200mm f2.8 IS L Canon MPE 65mm f2.8 macro; Sigma 70-300mm f2.8; Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro; Sigma 8-16mm f4.5-5.6
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7 years 6 months ago #500050 by Stic

Flash Steven wrote:

Stic wrote: What great photos?

I've never seen an image from a phone that was worth taking...


That made zero sense.  


I can't see why, it implied all the photo's I've ever seen taken on a phone were awful...


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7 years 6 months ago #501817 by Patrick G
So this brings up a good point.  How large can you print a photo from an iPhone for example?


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7 years 6 months ago #501838 by effron
Its an illusion, until you begin processing those seemingly great photos...

Why so serious?
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7 years 6 months ago #501866 by Joves

Happy Snapper wrote: So how are these tiny lenses able to take such great photos?  Does that mean DSLR lenses COULD be much smaller and still take the same quality of image?  


Well first I have to say define great. Sure they may be great looking when viewed at their native size, but when compared to any given size of another format they are not so hot.
Now to how can they do this? The same way that any other lens works, and that is through deciding how you need to focus the light rays to form that image, or through optical formulae. No you cannot make a lens for a dslr that will form a suitable image. It would actually require a ton of light manipulation to form a large enough image to the plane/sensor, therefore distorting the image. Now you can do somethings using a lens through a smaller optic, and get good results, but you need to have a good lens to start with to do it.
This whole thing of my phone takes great images is getting really old, as it was really started as trolling by some long ago to justify paying too much money for a phone with a camera. Camera phone images are, and always will be inferior to a dedicated cameras image. Much like an actual video camera will always make better movies than a dslr with a video mode. And before we hear the line the technology of the phones is getting better all the time, well so is the camera tech, and every other electronic mediums. 


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7 years 6 months ago #501908 by ShutterPal

effron wrote: Its an illusion, until you begin processing those seemingly great photos...


:agree:  However I wouldn't be surprised to see this changing in the next 5 years.  


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