To start off, I’d like to share a personal industrial design project from a while ago: a concept of what a semi-pro camera system for smartphones might look like
To start off, I’d like to share a personal industrial design project from a while ago: a concept of what a semi-pro camera system for smartphones might look like
Intended mainly as a thought experiment — I tried to come up with a seamless and easy to use system with various accessories, like lenses, filters and blinds, that wouldn’t feel clunky.
I have always wanted something like this! The processor in our phones are far more powerful than any camera, so why not use it. Same with the screen. And I want all images geotagged, something a phone has built in. And importantly, I want my images on my phone for sharing. Just need a little bigger sensor and a way to attach lenses. I always thought the old Nikon 1 system would make a great starting point.
Cameras have low processing power because they don't require all that much. The issue is the physics of light severely limiting what a sensor small enough to fit in a smartphone can do. A small sensor requires either fewer pixels, smaller pixels, or both.
Fewer pixels = lower resolution = worse image quality.
Smaller pixels = less light gathered = worse image quality and far worse low light performance.
While something like this could be made, it would be very expensive, and there is no possible way it could come close to the image quality of even an entry-level DSLR or mirrorless camera. Even the best lens in the world can't make up for a bad sensor. Smartphones can use their higher processing power to try to hide it with HDR and absurdly bad faked depth of field, but it will always look noticeably worse compared to the same photo taken on even a very old, low-end APS-C or full frame camera.
Smartphone cameras definitely fill a big niche in photography, but unless there's an incredible breakthrough in sensor technology, their physical limitations will always prevent them from being good enough for widespread professional use.
I agree. Which is why I want a moderate sized sensor in a format that can attach to my phone. Small enough the lenses are easy to carry, but multiple times larger than what will fit in a phone.
Also, much of the amazing things phones are able to pull off with absurdly small sensors is because of processing. My iPhone has a special chip just for image processing. Many things can be done in software. My DSLR’s are slow, clunky, and the software rarely changes much post purchase.
My use case would be travel. Phone cameras today are terrible anywhere you need a telephoto lens. But I also rarely want to carry a full dslr (I own several). And, I want to easily share photos as I take them. Today I use my phone and leave my big cameras at home. There are many times I don’t even bother getting it out of my pocket because I know taking the photo I could easily take with my SLR would be impossible.
Sony and Olympus have had interchangeable lens systems that attach to smartphones.
Look up Olympus Air.
Yeah, and arguably those systems were clunky to use, barely had any quality improvements over the native cameras, awkward to attach/detach and never really caught on.
This in part is why I made the project — it’s a thought experiment on how to make such a product more seamless and user-friendly. So I guess sorry if it came across as presenting a completely new idea, it wasn’t intended as such. It’s an attempt to revise an unsuccessful idea considering more modern solutions.