Digital camera not suitable for Alamy

[Mark Scheuern]

Apple's iPhone camera specs are terribly confusing. Even deliberately misleading, IMO.

 

Also true that software does most of the heavy lifting for phone photography. I like this Marques Brownlee video on how things have not necessarily gotten better:

What is Happening with the iPhone Camera?

[Harry Harrison]

36 minutes ago, Mark Scheuern said:

I like this Marques Brownlee video on how things have not necessarily gotten better:

What is Happening with the iPhone Camera?

Wow, that was really interesting, thanks. Another thing that occurred to me is that of course all these phone cameras are fixed aperture, certainly the Iphones are anyway. So this means that the depth of field is, in terms of optics, baked in. I haven't tried to work out what the effective apertures are on these small sensors but of course I know that you are able to dial in degrees of background focus blur with something like the Apple 'Portrait' effect. I wonder actually if the processing is also by default trying to do the opposite, persuading what 'it' considers to be important parts of the image to be sharper than they might otherwise be.  When I looked at the image that the OP provided there's a sort of weirdness about it in that I found it hard to work out where the actual plane of focus was, the grass in the very immediate foreground in some ways appeared sharper than anything else.

[Michael Ventura]

26 minutes ago, Harry Harrison said:

Wow, that was really interesting, thanks. Another thing that occurred to me is that of course all these phone cameras are fixed aperture, certainly the Iphones are anyway. So this means that the depth of field is, in terms of optics, baked in. I haven't tried to work out what the effective apertures are on these small sensors but of course I know that you are able to dial in degrees of background focus blur with something like the Apple 'Portrait' effect. I wonder actually if the processing is also by default trying to do the opposite, persuading what 'it' considers to be important parts of the image to be sharper than they might otherwise be.  When I looked at the image that the OP provided there's a sort of weirdness about it in that I found it hard to work out where the actual plane of focus was, the grass in the very immediate foreground in some ways appeared sharper than anything else.

 

Well you can get the effect of shallow depth of field, with the iPhone, when shooting in "Portrait" mode.   Also you can emulate a shallow depth of field in post processing.

[geogphotos]

Phones are not cameras. 

[M.Chapman]

3 hours ago, Mark Scheuern said:

Apple's iPhone camera specs are terribly confusing. Even deliberately misleading, IMO.

 

Also true that software does most of the heavy lifting for phone photography. I like this Marques Brownlee video on how things have not necessarily gotten better:

What is Happening with the iPhone Camera?

 

Interesting video… I expected iPhone jpgs might be highly processed but I assumed AppleProRAW files contained raw sensor data. But it seems Apple Pro RAW files may not be classic “raw” files at all, but are linear DNGs produced after some processing. Apple say "Apple ProRAW combines the information of a standard RAW format along with iPhone image processing” here.  Mmm.. that being said, I still liked the results I saw when downloading some of those iPhone 15 Pro Raw files and processing in LR.

 

So I just asked ChatGPT if Apple Pro RAW files contain raw sensor data and got this reply;

 

Yes, iPhone Pro RAW files contain unprocessed sensor data captured by the camera's image sensor. This means that the data is not compressed or processed in any way, giving photographers more flexibility and control over editing and fine-tuning their images in post-production.

 

Mark

Edited June 16 by M.Chapman

[Gervais Montacute]

The only time  phone might become a camera is if Leica or Fuji decide to make them.

[Mark Scheuern]

6 minutes ago, Gervais Montacute said:

The only time  phone might become a camera is if Leica or Fuji decide to make them.

 

There actually is a Leica phone. But apparently a re-branded Sharp phone with some Leica tweaks, and available only in Japan. There's also the just-released Leica Lux iPhone app, which has gotten somewhat less than glowing reviews. 

[M.Chapman]

This article explains Apple Pro RAW in more detail https://petapixel.com/2020/12/21/understanding-apple-proraw/

 

Mark

[Rebecca Ore]

25 minutes ago, Mark Scheuern said:

 

There actually is a Leica phone. But apparently a re-branded Sharp phone with some Leica tweaks, and available only in Japan. There's also the just-released Leica Lux iPhone app, which has gotten somewhat less than glowing reviews. 

 

Leica and Hasselblad aren't what they used to be, Leica, even more than Hasselblad, licenses the name. 

 

This is a Leica, still functional in the early 2000s, making pictures about forty or fifty years after being made, one shutter overhaul before I bought it.  Possibly still making pictures.  The lens was even older, overhauled once when I owned it.   Phone batteries die in around three to four years and not all of them can be replaced.   I scanned some of this camera's photos on a Epson flat-bed scanner, and some passed QC and are up on Alamy (none licensed yet).

 

Once you can't replace a phone's battery (my helper and I paid $40 for a new battery for the Huawei phone I sold him with a three month warranty), you don't have a phone camera.  I tend to buy phones under $300 and sell them on or give them away at three years.  Sony batteries for the a6000 are still available..

 

Phones simply aren't this pretty. 

[Michael Ventura]

1 hour ago, geogphotos said:

Phones are not cameras. 

My iPhone 14 Pro Max is a better camera than it is a phone 😬

[Mark Scheuern]

27 minutes ago, Rebecca Ore said:

 

Leica and Hasselblad aren't what they used to be, Leica, even more than Hasselblad, licenses the name. 

 

This is a Leica, still functional in the early 2000s, making pictures about forty or fifty years after being made, one shutter overhaul before I bought it.  Possibly still making pictures.  The lens was even older, overhauled once when I owned it.   Phone batteries die in around three to four years and not all of them can be replaced.   I scanned some of this camera's photos on a Epson flat-bed scanner, and some passed QC and are up on Alamy (none licensed yet).

 

Once you can't replace a phone's battery (my helper and I paid $40 for a new battery for the Huawei phone I sold him with a three month warranty), you don't have a phone camera.  I tend to buy phones under $300 and sell them on or give them away at three years.  Sony batteries for the a6000 are still available..

 

Phones simply aren't this pretty. 

That is a beauty! I have a IIIf, a Q2 Monochrom, and an M10. Love them all! Leica putting their name on things not Leica, not so much. 

[Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg]

There is phone-camera with 1 inch sensor that

has NOT been mentioned in this thread AFAICT:

"The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a 1-inch sensor that is 50 megapixels."

am interested in hearing why it is not as good as any Alamy-approved camera...

[sb photos]

33 minutes ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

There is phone-camera with 1 inch sensor that

has NOT been mentioned in this thread AFAICT:

"The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a 1-inch sensor that is 50 megapixels."

am interested in hearing why it is not as good as any Alamy-approved camera...

 

You would likely need to find and read a trusted review that would judge its images at 100% and if suitable for stock, not just low res social media shots. One recent review I saw mentioned 'However, the camera / lens does not have enough depth of field which causes a major problem with focus even at its f/4.', could be the lens design is compromised to fit into a phone body. Only time will tell.

[Harry Harrison]

4 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

Well you can get the effect of shallow depth of field, with the iPhone, when shooting in "Portrait" mode. 

Thanks Michael, but that's actually what I said, my conjecture is that 'they' might also be (over) sharpening the image in areas that would naturally be slightly out of focus because of the depth of field.

Edited June 16 by Harry Harrison

[Phil Robinson]

"I have a Nikon D850"

 

Use the Nikon D850.

[Phil Robinson]

3 hours ago, Jeffrey Isaac Greenberg said:

There is phone-camera with 1 inch sensor that

has NOT been mentioned in this thread AFAICT:

"The Xiaomi 14 Ultra has a 1-inch sensor that is 50 megapixels."

am interested in hearing why it is not as good as any Alamy-approved camera...

 

The lens?

[M.Chapman]

13 minutes ago, Phil Robinson said:

 

The lens?

Leica...

 

Mark

[Betty LaRue]

11 hours ago, Michael Ventura said:

My iPhone 14 Pro Max is a better camera than it is a phone 😬

Agreed, Michael. I have the 15 Pro Max.  I still can’t figure out why mine quits ringing when I pick it up sometimes. I find myself afraid to touch it when someone calls me. About 1 in 5 calls I have to immediately call them back. My 12 pro max didn’t do that but had other quirks. It placed calls to other people after I hung up talking to someone. I’d hang up quickly, but inevitably the person would call me back & I’d simply say, sorry, it was a butt call rather than try to explain my phone had a life independent of me.

I think Apple is meant to drive me crazy, sometimes. But I had a high end Android once & it had things I hated, too.

Edited June 17 by Betty LaRue

[Phil Robinson]

8 hours ago, M.Chapman said:

Leica...

 

Mark

and about 5mm across?

[M.Chapman]

Very detailed review of the Xiaomi here https://www.dxomark.com/xiaomi-14-ultra-camera-test/ including some comparisons with close competitors.

With several cameras/lenses on each phone and varying degrees of processing, meaningful comparisons are not easy.

 

Mark

Edited June 17 by M.Chapman

[M.Chapman]

1 hour ago, Phil Robinson said:

and about 5mm across?

The diameter of the lens element wouldn’t concern me as much as the limited overall thickness which, with a 1” sensor which must present major challenges (minimal space for any optical correction elements). I assume there's significant reliance on aspheric element(s) and software distortion correction. However, I’d like to assume Leica wouldn’t want their name to be associated with a poor design? 

 

Mark

Edited June 17 by M.Chapman

[Kent Johnson]

1 hour ago, M.Chapman said:

Very detailed review of the Xiaomi here https://www.dxomark.com/xiaomi-14-ultra-camera-test/ including some comparisons with close competitors.

With several cameras/lenses on each phone and varying degrees of processing, meaningful comparisons are not easy.

 

Mark

The problem with this phone camera as with my mid(?)-range Samsung is the fine detail ends up looking like a child's crayon scribble at 100% Same here on the DXO maks's 100% image, scroll to anywhere on the left. This also happens but in a very much milder way with my Fuji cameras. The effect you can see in the linked image is like a drawing. 

Edited June 17 by Kent Johnson

[Harry Harrison]

41 minutes ago, Kent Johnson said:

The problem with this phone camera as with my mid(?)-range Samsung is the fine detail ends up looking like a child's crayon scribble at 100% Same here on the DXO maks's 100% image, scroll to anywhere on the left. This also happens but in a very much milder way with my Fuji cameras. The effect you can see in the linked image is like a drawing. 

Looking at that Palm House image it seems that the lens is simply not sharp on the far left where the gardener is working and also strangely in the grass at bottom right corner to the right of the path. The processing then seems to have just smudged everything out of desperation, is that what you mean? This is indeed similar to the 'painterly' effect when older versions of Lightroom struggled with X-Trans files but for me this only ever happened when the lens was out of its comfort zone in some way and the RAW processor was having to deal with distant foliage or crops, to a much lesser degree than this as you say. For Fuji files some other RAW processors were much better than Lightroom.  I haven't seen that DXOMark review mention the lens quality though, I may have missed it. For a photographer that sort of quality fall off in good light would be a show-stopper I would have thought.

[M.Chapman]

I wonder how a downloaded ProRaw version of the Palm house image which was processed in ACR would look?

Certainly I felt the Pro RAW files I downloaded from here and processed in ACR would pass Alamy QC (once downsized to 6MP) 

Are they as good as those from a decent digital camera and lens? No. But that’s not really the question of this thread.

 

Mark

[MDM]

I’m coming to the conclusion that Alamy is right in not allowing (in reality discouraging) the use of mobile phones, even the best ones. I say discouraging rather than preventing as there is nothing to stop a contributor uploading phone images given that there is no requirement to include EXIF data except for the first submission. The fact that Alamy doesn’t QC for content means that they have to use  different rules than an agency that QC’s content and where judgment can be made on an image by image basis. 
 

Judging by the sample images I’ve seen from links posted here, there are potentially some real problems with phone image quality that remain despite the hype and marketing (as Julie said way back). Of course similar problems can occur with real cameras as well. Owning a Leica or a Fuji or a Nikon does not a photographer make. However, there is a higher probability that owners of real cameras might qualify as photographers than those who only use phones.
 

As Mark has been saying, there is no doubt that it is certainly possible to produce images that would pass Alamy QC if shot and processed with care. What is evident as with most of these threads where people post failed images is that Alamy QC actually gets it right and they certainly did here, in my opinion, despite protestations. 

I’vr learnt quite a bit from this. I won’t be racing off to get a new iPhone in September. Nothing to do with the fact that Nikon have released an amazing new mid range camera, the Z6III, today. Honest. 

 

Edited June 17 by MDM