The funny thing is that this translates over to Sony Xperia smartphone cameras too. On one hand, their custom camera app's UI feels like a Sony A7 variant. On the other, basic expected computational features such as night mode are missing.
Oh, how fast is progress in the world of technology.
I remember 6 years ago when google showed some prototypes of night photo from a smartphone using long expose. Meanwhile my Galaxy Note 4 made blurry unusable mess during the 14th of july nightly event I tried it at, while my gf DLSR were clear and great. Ah ah, smartphones will never be able to do that.
How 4 years ago Night Sight blew me away with their demonstration and almost made me go pixel.
How 3 years ago Samsung added a Night mode to my S9+ through a regular update and while the photo took a whole second to take the result was usually clean and crisp compared to the noisy mess on my previous Note 4, making it actually usable for static scene or portrait shot.
How the night mode on my Note 10 was genuinely great to the point it was just another mode as long as you avoid the usual night tricks like light sources.
How my new S22 Ultra for the first time passed my "smartphone will never really be good for night event shots" by taking picture during the 14th of july fireworks the quality of which I would scientifically classify as "pretty fucking great".
And now it's just a basic expected computational feature.
Sometime we forget how much progress is being made due to how incremental they all are, but damn, and that's just one feature on a piece of glass and plastic that's insanely powerful and filled with features in my pocket.
PS: the lack of Apple mention is merely because I'm not an Apple guy, I'm sure they had the same insane path
(Edit: for those curious, it's Samsung's "AI Super-resolution" tech, which I expect works similarly to AI upscaling tech e.g in Adobe's products. The phone I'm using in this example is the Fold 4)
And I don't even have the best smartphone camera on the market right now. That prize goes to the S22 ultra which has two separate telephoto lenses (cameras?), 3x and 10x. https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/check-out-...
Yeah when you sit down and think about it, it's nuts where we are today relative to last year, five years ago, and a decade ago. Especially considering 2019 still feels like yesterday because of COVID.
Also what phone is it?
Link to shots from a techradar article [1] (note that these are lossy compressed, even the 1x has artefact, so I put them only to compare between them / the zoom levels):
1x: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/4pcFBCfWpfjjJAp7RQ7NXQ-120...
3x: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/EdzEYaf85czuW9xJNnPRwQ-120...
10x: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/vDCsCZc5EDDHyMF6sRn5UR-120...
30x: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/FWkeGcGZTopnXgfLWDbrMQ-120...
100x: https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/oGBARcTnieEBciBDn4BCEQ-120...
We can agree that the 100x shot is useless, and the 30x shot too except maybe in some specific situations, but the 10x shots are very much good. Perfect or worthy or a dedicated camera with a zoom ? No. But for every day use absolutely.
[1] https://www.techradar.com/news/we-need-to-talk-about-samsung...
https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/check-out-...
10MP F4.9 [10x, Dual Pixel AF], OIS, FOV 11°, 1/3.52”, 1.12µm
Its #4 in the graphic.
Space zoom is 10x on top of that.
I have S22 ultra and camera is even better there - 10x optical zoom properly sees much better than my eyes, so not only its great for catching kids running around moments without kids being tiny figures on each photo, but its usable ie if I want to check some remote street sign/name without walking 100m closer to read it myself.
Night cameras on top of the line phones these days sees much better than human eyes in the dark too - pics I snap during my night walks (one easy way how to clear my mind and actually do some light exercise) show so much more details than my eyes can resolve, once stopped me from falling down some nasty ravine when I saw just outlines of the terrain. All handheld in almost pitch dark.
Plus S22 ultra has this special mode it turns itself internally in when shooting moon on higher zooms (around 30x) - its more of a party trick since its just 1 subject, but within past few years it was the only time I could see (and produce in this case) literal jaw-dropping effect on folks around me. It looks nice, craters and seas in sharp details, also handheld (30x in the night, thats quite an achievement). They all rushed out with their latest xiaomis and apples just to snap the same, all ending up with small blurry white blobs and not much more.
The reason 10x shot look so great is because it uses the 50MP main AND 10MP telephoto lenses so it has enough details available to produce very clear shot.
https://www.samsung.com/uk/support/mobile-devices/check-out-...
10MP F4.9 [10x, Dual Pixel AF], OIS, FOV 11°, 1/3.52”, 1.12µm
Space zoom is 10x on top of that.
The S22 ultra has a better set of cameras, but I needed the foldy tech to have a portable tablet.
One touch removal of people and background intrusions (even goes as far as suggesting items for removal).
So, not far I imagine!
Looking back at pics from the iPhone 3GS is wild, totally different world.
The same has been said about some of the PlayStation UI’s.
In my opinion, this is more of a Sony problem and less of a camera problem. Though that may just be me!