i mean, size constraints, sure. But camera bumps ONLY get bigger, and more unreasonable. Remember the iphone 6? little itty bitty nub. That’s not the case anymore.
apple? (Idk, i dont care tbh) recently unveiled the incredible technology known as “two mirrors” in order to abuse the dimensions of an iphone to get a longer focal length.
Even then, surely you could just put a bigger, higher resolution sensor on it, and then use digital zooming instead. That way it at least pretends to have features. Even then why bother adding more features, it’s a phone, all it’s going to do is be a nuisance at family gatherings. Because for some reason people HAVE to take pictures of everything.
Smaller sensors pick up less and less light, forcing to bump iso. Limiting low light photography or dealing with very grainy low contrast images. Higher megapixel sensors exacerbate the problem because smaller pixels get less area of light
I think it’s a size constraint. Bigger sensors also require larger lenses. In regular DSLR world a micro four thirds sensor, the sensor size is half the size of a traditional full frame sensor. The lenses are also half the size of a fullframe camera’s lenses and require far less glass and weight.
We can fit 3 smaller sensors with three smaller lenses in a smartphone. Trying to make any of those sensors bigger will require more space than a phone can provide.
Because we have to have smaller sensors, digital zoom reduces fidelity of images. Having multiple lenses optimized for various focal points mitigated this issue
I’m no expert just a hobbyist take my word with a grain of salt lol
If they could save money by doing everything with one camera and lens, don’t you think they would?
People want better pictures. The only solution engineers could figure out was to put more camera modules. Why do you care how it’s done? One bump or ten, the phone is already thicker.
phone companies have been known to make stupid decisions before. Apple uses glass on the back of their phones, even though it breaks incredibly easy. Up until more recent models the back glass was incredibly aggressively bonded to the back chassis of the phone, making it basically impossible to replace.
If i had to guess, it’s the cheapest way, to get “more” features and “quality” out of a phone. Like a gimmick. I’m almost certain it’s possible to just put in a better camera sensor, they’ve been doing that on every model for decades. Chances are they just took the easy route, since it adds a unique feature, that has never been seen before, and makes it easily marketable. And besides, for people like me who barely use the camera, paying for upwards of 5 cameras, when i only use 2. More than likely 1, is completely useless to me. I’d be more inclined to pay for a single better camera, than multiple cameras i probably wont use.
Digital cameras were a multi billion dollar business before smartphones existed. Over 100 million digital cameras were sold each and every year.
I’m almost certain it’s possible to just put in a better camera sensor
You are absolutely wrong. Look at the physical size of digital cameras. Lenses have physical limitations. Higher density sensors are diffraction limited. That is you can’t make the sensor pixel element smaller because it is smaller than the wavelength of light. Cameras don’t look like this https://spuelbeck.net/canon-ef-300mm-f28/ just for fun. It’s physically necessary for the lens to be that large.
since it adds a unique feature,
It takes a better picture. Calling a better picture a gimmick is like calling a faster CPU a gimmick. Some people want better photos.
Ranting about cameras you don’t use is like ranting about CPU cores you don’t use. I don’t game on my phone, where’s my phone without a GPU??? Stupid GPU gimmick.
idk i think a design choice is a pretty objective feature. Preference and liking it? Pretty subjective, sure. That still doesn’t change that.
it might take a better picture, it depends on how you define better. More versatile camera? Sure. Better? Eh, idk. And besides, pretty much every phone ever these days has some sort of built it AI processing done on the photos, because apparently thats a thing now. Even then it doesn’t stop you from taking a worse photo, because you literally have different cameras, for different things, you can just straight up use the wrong camera now. As well as other cool feature like visual artifacting due to camera switching, because it turns out when you put two cameras in two different places, they’re in two different places, and can’t exactly behave in an interchangeable manner.
I guess you could “fix” those issues in software, but thats another story entirely.
idk people have different opinions for gimmicks apparently. I just think having more than one camera is stupid, i’d rather have one decent camera, and a better/cheaper phone otherwise. I barely use it’s camera as is.
it’s a little fundamentally different to having a lot of cpu cores, or a gpu. Or a faster cpu because for some reason you also threw that in there. A faster cpu is generally advantageous as pretty much every piece of software has some amount of sequential code base in it. The only place it wouldn’t make sense is somewhere you quite literally cannot use that processing power. Like a router. Those run on such light hardware you would be wasting entire cycles on the cpu before it can even start another process.
More cpu cores is also generally advantageous, especially in the modern era where people play games, and games like more cores now, or if you edit video, like i do, more cores is objectively more helpful, even if you dont use them 90% of the time. Or even if you just want more multitasking capability. A server for instance really likes cores because it can run a lot of different processes simultaneously. Some servers benefit from high single core freq for instance, i know mine does.
gpus are generally beneficial, i certainly wouldn’t buy a gaming phone to use as a phone for what i do, though apparently they have massive batteries so that would likely outweigh that con? Though phone hardware is another beef i have entirely, that’s a different story.
gpus are similarly useful, considering that they’re a general purpose computing tool, much like cpu, though for different calculations. As opposed to a 3x optical zoom lensed camera. Which is kind of neat ig, i barely take pictures with my phone though. I dont really know why i would want 4 other cameras. Just seems like a waste of money for me.
A choice of material to make a phone feel better is subjective. A better camera is capable of resolving details that another camera cannot. That’s objective. Whereas one person might like the feel of glass while another doesn’t. A lens that matches the distance where you need to resolve detail gives you a better image.
Even then it doesn’t stop you from taking a worse photo
Using a tool wrong is completely irrelevant to whether one tool is capable of giving better results.
A faster cpu is generally advantageous as pretty much every piece of software
My phone from 3 years ago was fast enough. I’m not writing/compiling code on my phone.
edit video,
You edit video on your phone? But you claimed you don’t care about the camera quality and barely even use it.
A choice of material to make a phone feel better is subjective. A better camera is capable of resolving details that another camera cannot.
a material choice preference is subjective, the manufacturer using a specific material over another one is an objective state of that product, though it’s also fair to argue that it was an objectively bad choice, on a product that is quite literally, known for breaking, all the time. Except now its TWICE as likely to break as it was before. On paper a better camera is objectively better. But on paper the users preference of what they want something to do is also objective. I don’t care that X product, can do Y feature if i am literally never going to touch it. Regardless of whether or not it is objectively better or worse, it is quite literally, an objective waste of time and money on my end.
Using a tool wrong is completely irrelevant to whether one tool is capable of giving better results.
This would be why they make actual cameras, that you can take actually bad photos with, but also allow you to take actually good photos with. On a product that has a feature for “convenience” there is a point where that convenience becomes more of a hassle, and then i or other consumers stop caring about it.
You edit video on your phone? But you claimed you don’t care about the camera quality and barely even use it.
when did i ever say i do that with my phone? I’m writing these comments from a computer, as evidenced by the fact that i am on lemmy, the statistical likelihood that i am a computer enthusiast is significantly higher.
My phone from 3 years ago was fast enough. I’m not writing/compiling code on my phone.
Remember the part where i mentioned my server? Yeah that’s a computer. You remember the other example i mentioned where faster cpu doesn’t make sense, a router? You wanna know whats equivalent to that? My phone. Also the part where i said “generally” that doesnt apply to everything.
And even then i don’t edit real footage, i edited mostly screen recorded footage. I have edited at least one video though. The video res is high enough, and the frame rate is decent. It looks fine. (that was on my shitbox android with one camera) If i wanted anything more than that, i would buy an actual camera, which would get me better image quality, and better workflows as well. Even then dankpods, a creator known for recording on an iphone, has recently gotten completely fed up with using an iphone to record (it’s almost like they’re not very good at what they’re trying to be)
that statement also implies you dont use that phone anymore, fun fact, my phone is uh. 7 years old now. It’s not particularly fast, which is the fault of android. But it does exist, and mostly works (again the fault of android).
“, i barely take pictures with my phone though.”
little fun fact, i have more accidental screenshots taken than actual real photos taken on my phone in the last 6 months. I literally don’t use the camera LOL.
presumably by the fact that you mentioned code writing, you are also not a chronic phone user, like myself. So im intrigued as to why you would even consider me using a phone to do anything significant. Especially considering that i am sitting here, writing comments, about why i hate phones.
i mean, size constraints, sure. But camera bumps ONLY get bigger, and more unreasonable. Remember the iphone 6? little itty bitty nub. That’s not the case anymore.
apple? (Idk, i dont care tbh) recently unveiled the incredible technology known as “two mirrors” in order to abuse the dimensions of an iphone to get a longer focal length.
Even then, surely you could just put a bigger, higher resolution sensor on it, and then use digital zooming instead. That way it at least pretends to have features. Even then why bother adding more features, it’s a phone, all it’s going to do is be a nuisance at family gatherings. Because for some reason people HAVE to take pictures of everything.
Smaller sensors pick up less and less light, forcing to bump iso. Limiting low light photography or dealing with very grainy low contrast images. Higher megapixel sensors exacerbate the problem because smaller pixels get less area of light
which would be why i would argue to just min max on the one camera. Overall a better camera, maybe not as versatile, but meh.
I think it’s a size constraint. Bigger sensors also require larger lenses. In regular DSLR world a micro four thirds sensor, the sensor size is half the size of a traditional full frame sensor. The lenses are also half the size of a fullframe camera’s lenses and require far less glass and weight.
We can fit 3 smaller sensors with three smaller lenses in a smartphone. Trying to make any of those sensors bigger will require more space than a phone can provide.
Because we have to have smaller sensors, digital zoom reduces fidelity of images. Having multiple lenses optimized for various focal points mitigated this issue
I’m no expert just a hobbyist take my word with a grain of salt lol
I think the laws of optics starts to conflict with this
maybe? I still feel like there just has to be a better solution than “hey lets just add more camera”
If they could save money by doing everything with one camera and lens, don’t you think they would?
People want better pictures. The only solution engineers could figure out was to put more camera modules. Why do you care how it’s done? One bump or ten, the phone is already thicker.
phone companies have been known to make stupid decisions before. Apple uses glass on the back of their phones, even though it breaks incredibly easy. Up until more recent models the back glass was incredibly aggressively bonded to the back chassis of the phone, making it basically impossible to replace.
If i had to guess, it’s the cheapest way, to get “more” features and “quality” out of a phone. Like a gimmick. I’m almost certain it’s possible to just put in a better camera sensor, they’ve been doing that on every model for decades. Chances are they just took the easy route, since it adds a unique feature, that has never been seen before, and makes it easily marketable. And besides, for people like me who barely use the camera, paying for upwards of 5 cameras, when i only use 2. More than likely 1, is completely useless to me. I’d be more inclined to pay for a single better camera, than multiple cameras i probably wont use.
Glass back is a subjective feature.
Digital cameras were a multi billion dollar business before smartphones existed. Over 100 million digital cameras were sold each and every year.
You are absolutely wrong. Look at the physical size of digital cameras. Lenses have physical limitations. Higher density sensors are diffraction limited. That is you can’t make the sensor pixel element smaller because it is smaller than the wavelength of light. Cameras don’t look like this https://spuelbeck.net/canon-ef-300mm-f28/ just for fun. It’s physically necessary for the lens to be that large.
It takes a better picture. Calling a better picture a gimmick is like calling a faster CPU a gimmick. Some people want better photos.
Ranting about cameras you don’t use is like ranting about CPU cores you don’t use. I don’t game on my phone, where’s my phone without a GPU??? Stupid GPU gimmick.
idk i think a design choice is a pretty objective feature. Preference and liking it? Pretty subjective, sure. That still doesn’t change that.
it might take a better picture, it depends on how you define better. More versatile camera? Sure. Better? Eh, idk. And besides, pretty much every phone ever these days has some sort of built it AI processing done on the photos, because apparently thats a thing now. Even then it doesn’t stop you from taking a worse photo, because you literally have different cameras, for different things, you can just straight up use the wrong camera now. As well as other cool feature like visual artifacting due to camera switching, because it turns out when you put two cameras in two different places, they’re in two different places, and can’t exactly behave in an interchangeable manner.
I guess you could “fix” those issues in software, but thats another story entirely.
idk people have different opinions for gimmicks apparently. I just think having more than one camera is stupid, i’d rather have one decent camera, and a better/cheaper phone otherwise. I barely use it’s camera as is.
it’s a little fundamentally different to having a lot of cpu cores, or a gpu. Or a faster cpu because for some reason you also threw that in there. A faster cpu is generally advantageous as pretty much every piece of software has some amount of sequential code base in it. The only place it wouldn’t make sense is somewhere you quite literally cannot use that processing power. Like a router. Those run on such light hardware you would be wasting entire cycles on the cpu before it can even start another process.
More cpu cores is also generally advantageous, especially in the modern era where people play games, and games like more cores now, or if you edit video, like i do, more cores is objectively more helpful, even if you dont use them 90% of the time. Or even if you just want more multitasking capability. A server for instance really likes cores because it can run a lot of different processes simultaneously. Some servers benefit from high single core freq for instance, i know mine does.
gpus are generally beneficial, i certainly wouldn’t buy a gaming phone to use as a phone for what i do, though apparently they have massive batteries so that would likely outweigh that con? Though phone hardware is another beef i have entirely, that’s a different story.
gpus are similarly useful, considering that they’re a general purpose computing tool, much like cpu, though for different calculations. As opposed to a 3x optical zoom lensed camera. Which is kind of neat ig, i barely take pictures with my phone though. I dont really know why i would want 4 other cameras. Just seems like a waste of money for me.
A choice of material to make a phone feel better is subjective. A better camera is capable of resolving details that another camera cannot. That’s objective. Whereas one person might like the feel of glass while another doesn’t. A lens that matches the distance where you need to resolve detail gives you a better image.
Using a tool wrong is completely irrelevant to whether one tool is capable of giving better results.
My phone from 3 years ago was fast enough. I’m not writing/compiling code on my phone.
You edit video on your phone? But you claimed you don’t care about the camera quality and barely even use it.
“, i barely take pictures with my phone though.”
a material choice preference is subjective, the manufacturer using a specific material over another one is an objective state of that product, though it’s also fair to argue that it was an objectively bad choice, on a product that is quite literally, known for breaking, all the time. Except now its TWICE as likely to break as it was before. On paper a better camera is objectively better. But on paper the users preference of what they want something to do is also objective. I don’t care that X product, can do Y feature if i am literally never going to touch it. Regardless of whether or not it is objectively better or worse, it is quite literally, an objective waste of time and money on my end.
This would be why they make actual cameras, that you can take actually bad photos with, but also allow you to take actually good photos with. On a product that has a feature for “convenience” there is a point where that convenience becomes more of a hassle, and then i or other consumers stop caring about it.
when did i ever say i do that with my phone? I’m writing these comments from a computer, as evidenced by the fact that i am on lemmy, the statistical likelihood that i am a computer enthusiast is significantly higher.
Remember the part where i mentioned my server? Yeah that’s a computer. You remember the other example i mentioned where faster cpu doesn’t make sense, a router? You wanna know whats equivalent to that? My phone. Also the part where i said “generally” that doesnt apply to everything.
And even then i don’t edit real footage, i edited mostly screen recorded footage. I have edited at least one video though. The video res is high enough, and the frame rate is decent. It looks fine. (that was on my shitbox android with one camera) If i wanted anything more than that, i would buy an actual camera, which would get me better image quality, and better workflows as well. Even then dankpods, a creator known for recording on an iphone, has recently gotten completely fed up with using an iphone to record (it’s almost like they’re not very good at what they’re trying to be)
that statement also implies you dont use that phone anymore, fun fact, my phone is uh. 7 years old now. It’s not particularly fast, which is the fault of android. But it does exist, and mostly works (again the fault of android).
little fun fact, i have more accidental screenshots taken than actual real photos taken on my phone in the last 6 months. I literally don’t use the camera LOL.
presumably by the fact that you mentioned code writing, you are also not a chronic phone user, like myself. So im intrigued as to why you would even consider me using a phone to do anything significant. Especially considering that i am sitting here, writing comments, about why i hate phones.