2021 smartphone camera, picture taking contest

[ssfc72]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp4nWm59esI

an interesting smartphone camera picture taking contest.  The contest was done on the Instagram service so the pictures from the numerous smartphones of 2021, were limited by the resolution of the Instagram service.

[Jason]

I think the limitation he was saying with social media was in the compression but maybe I missed the resolution part. Instagram apparently uses the upload resolution up to 1080 pixels wide. In any case, it's an interesting test, particularly since it was blind. I was surprised the iPhone didn't win.

[Jason]

We should share some pictures in the Forum that we've taken. I know they'll be far from perfect (except for Buster's, of course) but it'd be interesting to see them.

[fox]

Sure, why not?

My understanding of the iPhone (and other high end smartphones) advantage is under specific circumstances; in particular low light and close-up. When I see the phone camera comparisons in various articles, I rarely notice the differences except in those circumstances. Mind you, they are always comparing medium - high end phones, not budget phones. My old ZTE Axon 7 mini, a budget phone, was good in every aspect except photos. The photos were OK, but my wife's iPhone 6, a year or two older, took better pictures in daylight than the Axon. That's when I switched to Samsung phones.

[Jason]

Sure, why not?

My understanding of the iPhone (and other high end smartphones) advantage is under specific circumstances; in particular low light and close-up. When I see the phone camera comparisons in various articles, I rarely notice the differences except in those circumstances. Mind you, they are always comparing medium - high end phones, not budget phones. My old ZTE Axon 7 mini, a budget phone, was good in every aspect except photos. The photos were OK, but my wife's iPhone 6, a year or two older, took better pictures in daylight than the Axon. That's when I switched to Samsung phones.

I think he was saying a Samsung phone came out on top. I find a lot of them don't really look that different but usually I take a photo and look at it at home so I don't really notice if it's missed things like the sky being washed out, for example. I do notice when I use digital zoom, the blurriness from pixelation.

But it seems like a lot of cameras have trouble at night. I think you have to have a large aperture and probably sensitive cells (not sure what they're called) to pick up the darkness. Real (non-digital) cameras have a different film for taking pictures that are darker. I think the aperture is also opened wider for a longer time. I took a photography course in college but don't remember a lot about it other than that I enjoyed it. I borrowed an SLR camera from the college and learned how to use the various settings.

I'll start a topic for sharing pictures.