• Dec. 13, 2023, 10:21 a.m.

    I have two pixel 8 pro's coming for DW and I. She's a little reluctant to leave the iOS sphere. I am happy to do so. I said, my iPhone 13 will be my last iPhone. I am holding to it. We have been using iPhones since the 4s with a little stint in between with the windows mobile devices (which I loved). Got the 6s, 8, 11, and now the 13. Nothing has been really new or WOW for us. It's the same regurgitated phone with little things done to make it "ALL NEW".

    With the pixel 8 pro, we get great AI features for everyday life like call screening, recorder summarize (awesome for DW's long droning on meetings she has to take minutes for), and a host of other awesomeness. The option to make our home screens, icons, etc look the way WE want is a nice feature too. I am artsy and creative so I like switching up the look of things frequently. On iPhone, You have to jump through 11 rings of hell to do it and it takes HOURS as well. One flick of a button on the Pixel (or any android device), you have a fresh new phone look to keep you wanting to use it.

    There are alot of other reasons as well, like better interoperability with our computers, tablet etc as well.

  • Dec. 13, 2023, 10:24 a.m.

    I would take Maxtech videos with a huge grain of salt. The pixel 7 pro has a much better zoom camera than the 14 pro max. I think they got too close to the gecko or focused on something else. They are apple fanboys to the nth degree and will do anything to make apple come out on top however they can. NOT a great video to use for an unbiased view.

  • Feb. 16, 2024, 11:25 p.m.

    Well, I got two pixel 8 pros for my wife and I, I am waiting for the s23 ultra to drop in price on the refurb market and I will be adding one of those to the stable. Thirdly, I have removed all apple devices save for my iPad which I just bought out of the stable. We are done with the locked down ways of apple and their shenanigans.

  • Feb. 17, 2024, 11:26 a.m.

    I agree. I don't like the Apple walled garden. I want to put stuff where I want to, not where Apple insists.

    I have an Android phone (OnePlus 8) - android does two things that Apple can't.

    When I enter my house, the phone connects to the Wifi - that triggers a phone call to my service provider to divert all calls to my house phone. That way, I can pick up calls no matter where in the house I am (we have 7 phones scattered around the house).

    The other thing is that anytime I get a text, it automatically forward that on as an email. Which helps with 2FA when the bank wants to text me a number and I am at the other end of the house on my PC trying to log in.

    IOS can't do either of those (or if it can, I have no idea how).

    As for cameras (the original discussion), no - I don't use my smartphone as a camera if I can help it. It's great for 'snaps', but I prefer something that looks like a camera and feels like a camera.

  • Feb. 17, 2024, 12:14 p.m.

    I use the cameras on our phones quite a bit, as a convenience when we are travelling. The images are quite good for blogging, insta stuff and what not. They fall apart when you use them for other things. But for our content creation they can work fine. I have a gimbal, camera grip etc for them. So we have one setup in a gimbal and the other in the grip. We use them in a run and gun setup.
    When I want to take serious images. Nothing beats real cameras. NOTHING.

  • June 25, 2024, 11:29 a.m.

    I am going to circle around this statement. Since learning my Pixel 8 pro and using it for a few months now. I can say this statement is completely wrong. My son graduated high school this past week. My brother's son also graduated at the same time. He was using a Canon T3 to take his photos, and my wife and I were using our Pixel 8 Pros. Our photos were better outside, inside, in the dark gymnasium etc. We compared images from the Gym and mine were bright, clear and sharp, his were either extremely dark, poorly autofocused, or if he used the flash the subject was blown out and overexposed and the rest of the scene was black.

    With our phones in 50mp mode, they produced WAY BETTER photos than the Canon. It surprised the crap out of me. Pixel peep my photos they retain sharpness, detail etc without any of the watercolor effect so prominent in phone photography from other brands. I was blown away. My iPhone 13 was pure junk when it came to imaging other than for instabook stuff.

    Here is one shot from inside the gym. No flash, etc. The only lighting was the string lights throughout the gym.

    PXL_20240620_223853358.MP.jpg

    PXL_20240620_223853358.MP.jpg

    JPG, 5.6 MB, uploaded by pointnshootpro on June 25, 2024.

  • Members 746 posts
    July 1, 2024, 8:24 a.m.

    You're not seriously comparing a 13 year old 12MP DSLR with the latest & greatest technological whizz bang hand held computer are you? What lens was on the T3 by the way?

    In saying that, even if the phone photos were a bit better than a dedicated camera, I'd still use the camera anyway. I take photos for enjoyment, not measurabating, and there's absolutely, totally and completely none to be had, when using a phone to try and take pictures with. For me.

  • Members 4193 posts
    July 1, 2024, 9:56 a.m.

    That just tells me he wasn't using his camera correctly for whatever reason.

    So what?

    Again, he most likely didn't know how to correctly balance the flash exposure with the ambient exposure because there is no reason for the subject to be overexposed and the rest of the scene to be black if the two exposures are balanced correctly.

    They probably were but it seems to me it wasn't a "fair fight" because with smartphone cameras you are lead by the hand into producing a nice looking photo.

    With a "real camera" in anything but full auto mode you need at least a basic understanding of the basics of exposure and what does and does not affect it to get the best quality raw data from which either the camera or photographer eventually output a jpeg.

    Your image has a reddish colour cast on my screen suggesting the white balance is not set correctly. Therefore the image quality is poor imo.

    Smartphones are nothing more than a convenience when I have no other option.

    I have far more flexibility in maximising the quality of the raw data using a "real camera".

    When I see professional photographers turning up to weddings with just a smartphone in their hand then I will consider taking them seriously for important photography.

  • Members 26 posts
    July 3, 2024, 4:16 p.m.

    Come on Dan, it's a snapshot. Quit being so picky.
    More about the moment than the quality.
    That is exactly what phones are about.
    I have over 2 million views of my snaps on Google Maps. Over 90% with my pixels, currently a 6.
    Every image with over 10,000 views was a phone pic, sans 1.

  • Members 4193 posts
    July 4, 2024, 12:16 a.m.

    The photos from the Canon might also have been just snapshots by someone who wasn't aware of how to correctly balance the flash exposure with the ambient exposure.

    I was explaining in the part of my post you didn’t quote why the comparison between the 2 cameras might not have been a fair comparison.

  • Members 36 posts
    July 9, 2024, 11:48 a.m.

    I currently have a Google Pixel 7a and I never like to rely on a smartphone for my photography because I don't like the ergonomics of a phone camera, I don't like the fact you can't see the screen in very bright sunlight and I just don't like the overall quality from a camera phone. The Pixel 7a I only use for selfie's of my wife and myself occasionally and the potrait mode on the Pixel 7a is very very good. For posting on social media it's fine but if I take a landscape photo or some architecture, I would always wish I had my proper camera with me

  • Members 655 posts
    July 9, 2024, 9:09 p.m.

    Here's an OOC jpg from a Canon 20D, which is older than the T3, upsampled to 9 MP like the photo you posted, and had noise filtering, sharpening, and curve adjustments:

    20051016 -- 7438.jpg

    So, as impressive as smartphones are with their cutting tech sensors, insanely good processing, and, on occasion, with their multi-exposure image stacking, for a single exposure processed outside the camera, I would say that even "ancient" dedicated APS-C cameras still have a rather significant edge in raw IQ.

    But, if you're comparing an OOC jpg from an older dedicated camera with a smartphone photo that's had god only knows how much cutting-edge processing and/or made from multiple stacked photos, then, sure, a smartphone can come out on top.

    20051016 -- 7438.jpg

    JPG, 9.5 MB, uploaded by GreatBustard on July 9, 2024.

  • Nov. 6, 2024, 9:26 p.m.

    Sure, it's a good photograph. Turn the lights off until there are just a few little lights on and take the same photo.

  • Members 537 posts
    Nov. 8, 2024, 2:44 p.m.

    A tuna shot by a 6MP Samsung Skyrocket SGH-I727, 12 yrs ago:
    kronometric.org/phot/manor/cactus%20pear%20orig.jpg

    The flower:
    kronometric.org/phot/manor/cactusFlower.jpg

  • Members 537 posts
    Nov. 8, 2024, 7:56 p.m.

    With all due respect, buried in the "etc" above there does appear to be some image distortion which makes the subjects look a little odd to my eye. I have no idea why ...

  • Nov. 8, 2024, 9:35 p.m.

    Short focal length (24mm eq), which results in wideangle perspective 'distortion'. Nowadays people are used to that, half of mobile images look this way :)
    Look at this image from distance say 5cm (I know, you can't; it also depends on image size) and there's no distortion visible.

  • Members 4193 posts
    Nov. 8, 2024, 9:38 p.m.

    Not everyone is used to the distortion.

    Many, including me, find it distracting and detracts from most images.

    I still see the distortion in that image when viewed at larger distances.

  • Members 537 posts
    Nov. 8, 2024, 9:59 p.m.

    Thanks, I wondered about that.

  • Members 537 posts
    Nov. 9, 2024, 7:52 p.m.

    Thanks. Found this:

    aaronhertzmann.com/2024/06/10/perspective-distortions.html

    The Section on 'marginal distortion' was interesting, I thought.