I think we've finally came to the place where consumer-grade digital cameras will quickly begin to fade out. The images and video coming from the 4S are mind-blowing -- I'm still dumbfounded such a small lens array can produce such clear photos. (Check Vimeo's iPhone video channel.)
The only thing my 4S lacks that my point-and-shoot has is an optical zoom. Beyond that, the phone's ecosystem of photo apps plus the ability to drop photos into Facebook in seconds makes warehousing my old digital a no-brainer.
As for still shooting, you may want to take an inventory of the places that people use their point-and-shoots.
In my surveying, they're almost only used in places where macro, low-light, flash, speed (image stabilization) and zoom performance are very important: birthdays, landmarks, weddings, kids events, zoos.
And those are features where the known solutions just do not fit into the physical constraints of smartphones.
It seems to me that there's still a place for a well-designed point-and-shoot. And certainly a place for one with better software and integration.
On the low end, I went into a store 8 months ago and compared time to photo-snap from finger-press as well as blur on non-steady targets and none of the sub 500 dollar digitals stood up well. My iPhone 3g consistently captures better images than our 2 year old Cannon Powershot.
You must be exaggerating. I have a SD960 and it kicked the crap out of my 3G, and I'm no photographer to speak of. I can set a custom white balance, aperture and focus off-center if I want. With my 3G there isn't much control at all.
My 3G was handy if I forgot my P&S at home, but it was just a fallback, nothing more. I don't know if I'll replace my Canon with my 4S, but we'll see.
I'm not looking for control. I'm looking for non-posed shots of my children to be 1-captured in time before the moment is over and what I'm photographing is gone, and 2-not blurry. With most low end digitals, you can take a nap between when you press the button and the actual picture is snapped.
Don't forget drunken photos. The iPhone is relatively unforgiving when it comes to mashing what I think is the button - with my camera, I know where to put my finger and press, and I get tactile feedback.
One thing smartphone cameras still don't do for me is minimize the time between wanting to take a shot and taking a shot. This is one area I think consumer cameras could also be improved. Ideally I'd like one button for pictures, one for video -- mash it down, the camera powers on and figures out what to do as fast as possible.
In iOS 5 you get instant camera access from your lock screen. This lets you quickly pull out your iPhone (or iPad and iPod touch of course) and take pictures without having to unlock the iPhone or clicking on the camera app. Here’s how to do this:
And once you are in the camera app, you can use the Volume Up button as a shutter to take pictures.
I've also noticed that the camera records what the action was at the time the shutter button's pressed, perhaps even a moment before the button was pressed, as though it's recording a continuous buffer and reaching back into it a few frames.
There are also a couple video apps that record a continuous buffer, and when you "start" a recording, they start it retroactively, so you can press record after something neat happens and not miss video of the event itself. The one I use has the great "Philip K Dick"-esque name Precorder:
The Galaxy Nexus has zero-shutter lag, which means you take pictures instantly once you're in the camera app. You can also reach the camera from the lockscreen, too.
Compact cameras are still terrible in that regard; you can only get that 'off to photo taken in 0.3 seconds' with SLRs today. It's thus not really a valid argument for compact digital cameras still having relevance.
Digital cameras win hands down. Slam the power button, slam the photo button, and you have at least a blurry blackmail-worthy shot of your friend dancing with a hobo.
With a mobile phone, by the time I get the app up and running, the hobo is gone and my friend is left with nothing but hobo sweat.
On my Galaxy II, whenever I want to have the camera functionality ready, I open the camera app and press the power button. The screen turns off, and I simply need to wake the phone back on to be immediately ready to take a blackmail picture.
This is even quicker with the "NoLock" app that disables the lock screen.
My Finger DNA has already memorized "Double Click + Camera Icon" from the lock screen, and then hit the shutter release/+ button on the iPhone like mad.
Even on the relatively poor shutter speed iPhone 4, I'm usually taking pictures within 2-3 seconds. Supposedly the 4S has significantly reduced the shutter-lag to first picture - looking forward to seeing the truth of that.
How is that sequence so significantly different from (in iOS 5) double pressing the home button from the lock screen, touching 'Camera' then taking a photo? I'm not suggesting that camera phones are as good as compact digital cameras yet, but it's getting much closer.
Either that or the consumer-grade digital cameras will start to evolve in new directions. I think we're already seeing the beginnings of this with Lytro's light-field camera, for example. I wouldn't be surprised if we start seeing light-field cameras from the major manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, et al) in a few years time. And given the physical constraints of the microlens array, it'll before you get one of those in a mobile phone!
Agreed. A place standard PnS cameras might still be desirable is in conditions where you don't want to risk destroying your phone, e.g. in water, caving, etc. But that's gotta be something like 5% of the size of the original market.
Both iPhone and iPhone 4S have great cameras, but I have recently tested 4S camera vs Sprints Epic Touch 4G(Samsung Galaxy S 2) and couldnt find discernible quality differences that would make iPhone 4S stand out.
Furthermore I loved the fact that Samsung's Camera software allows you to specify the ISO and focus mode(spot/center/etc) whereas neither Camera+ nor iPhones Camera app provides for ISO manipulation(I dont recall if Camera+ allows specifying focus modes) -- this could be a limitation of iOS SDK.
I wish they had used a mini tripod to minimize blurriness. It also doesn't sound like they were able to use Camera+ on the earlier models, therefore the shots had different settings. The photos for the models pre-iphone 4 aren't really comparable then, though I appreciate the effort.
Not true, as per the scientific method you only want to test typically along one dimension (in this case sensor quality).
If the cameras are subject a random motion which causes blur greater than the blur caused by low-light conditions then the results are meaningless as the random motion is independent of the variable being tested.
I disagree because you want to test photographs from a human holding it, not a tripod holding it. Perhaps you could take dozens of shots with each phone and compare.
suivix nailed it. Photography is not one dimensional. A great photograph with a camera phone must be handheld. Suivix's point about taking a great number of photos then comparing the results with a huge sample then making a quantitative assessment would be the only correct way to test it.
This post wasn't about the quality of the sensor it was about the quality of the photograph.
Increasing the number of photographs would definitely make this more significant (as increasing the sample size in any experiment does).
My point is that regardless of if a 4S shot better photos, the photographer could hiccup and get a blurrier photo than they might have taken last with a 3GS. In a less extreme circumstance, they could have just exhaled instead of hiccuping, in which case no one would have noticed and the error could be incorrectly attributed to the camera.
A great photograph with a camera phone requires a certain set of parameters that can almost entirely be individually measured outside of human interaction (and randomness). If you want good handheld performance, you need a fast exposure time, which can be measured from the EXIF data of each photo. If you want high dynamic range, measure the ratio of pure white and black pixels to the rest of the image (white and black is basically over/underexposed). The only thing that would be effected by motion that I can't think of how else to measure beyond being handheld is time to good focus (outside of crazy contraptions that result in more repeatable motion, like sticking your phone in a centrifuge), but there probably exists a way to do so while avoiding the inherent non-repeatability of humans behavior.
It is relevant since movement from their hands/body can change the outcome.
With a tripod there would be no blur, but the picture quality would still shine through. The amount of noise difference in each phone's photos is very noticeable.
In an experiment all the conditions should be the same except for the variable, which in this case is the phone.
Sure this would have made for a more scientific experiment, but I still argue that such a controlled experiment is less relevant to a user's real experience with the phone because the photos wouldn't look anything like the photos one would actually take. I assume the shooter tried to maintain a consistently steady hand throughout.
The motion blur is significant because it speaks to the increased aperture/ decreased exposure time in the 4S, which are both part of the phone wouldn't you agree? On a tripod these aren't crippling to the quality of the photo like they actually are.
Actually I'm contemplating replacing my broken camera with a 4s, something that will come up more often. I do take a little tripod with me when I travel, usually to take after sunset shots. I see your point though ... I'd have preferred to see how the quality improved without the blur, but perhaps this new tech is good enough to take shots at night without flash/tripod at all?
Camera+ has solid post-processing image functionality.
You can go from 'meh' photo to 'wow!' in just a few clicks. Often, I'll show my girlfriend the before and after and she is surprised that a pleasing photo can come from something marginal. It's a fun photo app -- Instagram is great, too.
"Nothing," really? This seems like a very real-world sort of test that gives a fairly decent indication of the kind of pictures that you're likely to get in the conditions indicated. It's not scientific, and there are lots of uncontrolled variables, but it's still useful.
The only thing my 4S lacks that my point-and-shoot has is an optical zoom. Beyond that, the phone's ecosystem of photo apps plus the ability to drop photos into Facebook in seconds makes warehousing my old digital a no-brainer.