Other The iPhone 15 2X telephoto scam

[motrek]

I think you are confused, a zoom lens is a lens which can represent multiple focal lengths
an optical telephoto either has a proper zoom lens or a different lens > ff 50mm

anything else is digital - it is indeed very simple

No, digital zoom has a definition, and what Apple is doing does not meet that definition.

What Apple is doing is not optical zoom and it's also not digital zoom. I know that's causing peoples' heads to explode here but all it means is that people should probably come up with a different term for what they're doing.

 

[V42]

…from Wikipedia…

Why would you think Wikipedia is somehow the ultimate source of all knowledge? It’s simply a collection of articles generally written by citizen “experts” who express their personal understanding of a specific topic. Occasionally you get true experts and with the open source nature of the review process, generally accurate information. But nothing guarantees it’s always correct and should never be treated as gospel. It may be a good place to start, but always look for other sources of corroborating information.

 

[motrek]

why do you hang on this upscaling? this is not part of the digital zoom and just sometimes applied afterwards.

Nonsense. As I explained earlier, it's digital ZOOM. It's magnification. If you're not upsampling, then where's the magnification?

When you ZOOM in on something on your computer, does that mean a black rectangle appears around the thing and it doesn't get any bigger?

If you're watching CSI and David Caruso says "zoom in on that thing!" does he mean "keep that thing the same size and just delete everything else in the picture!"

If there's no upsampling, how is zoom any different from cropping? Do you think Adobe should change the name of their crop tool in Photoshop to "zoom"?

The fact that digital zoom requires upsampling is so painfully obvious that I'm shocked that there's anybody on earth who doesn't intuitively understand it.

from Wikipedia: "Some camera firmwares store lossily digitally zoomed images with accordingly reduced dimensions (width and height) rather than upscaling it to the original raster resolution. "
...

Great, then they must do the upsampling when the image is read off the camera. Because again, no upsampling = no digital zoom.

 

[maerz001]

Nonsense. As I explained earlier, it's digital ZOOM. It's magnification. If you're not upsampling, then where's the magnification?

When you ZOOM in on something on your computer, does that mean a black rectangle appears around the thing and it doesn't get any bigger?

If you're watching CSI and David Caruso says "zoom in on that thing!" does he mean "keep that thing the same size and just delete everything else in the picture!"

If there's no upsampling, how is zoom any different from cropping? Do you think Adobe should change the name of their crop tool in Photoshop to "zoom"?

The fact that digital zoom requires upsampling is so painfully obvious that I'm shocked that there's anybody on earth who doesn't intuitively understand it.


Great, then they must do the upsampling when the image is read off the camera. Because again, no upsampling = no digital zoom.

Nonsense.

You don’t have to upscale the picture stored per se. Can be but it's not a must.

As i said earlier what apple does here is a crop.

And when u show the picture on the display „fit to screen“ does the magic.

But put your digital definition where you want. Fact is that this thing going on has nothing to do with an optical zoom or telephoto process.

Apple just chose the 2x because we where used to 12MP. But there is no optical reason given by the lens or sensor to not use any different x-factor. This is all software and cos of that a digital process.

 

[motrek]

Nonsense.

You don’t have to upscale the picture stored per se. Can be but it's not a must.

As i said earlier what apple does here is a crop.

So you're not even trying to argue that it's digital zoom. Awesome.

And when u show the picture on the display „fit to screen“ does the magic.

Ah, this old theory. If you do digital zoom on your screen, that means Apple did digital zoom in their camera. Ridiculous.

But put your digital definition where you want. Fact is that this thing going on has nothing to do with an optical zoom or telephoto process.

Neither would having a second 2x camera assembly.

Apple just chose the 2x because we where used to 12MP. But there is no optical reason given by the lens or sensor to not use any different x-factor. This is all software and cos of that a digital process.

I'm on board with calling it a digital process but that doesn't mean it's digital zoom.

 

[maerz001]

Neither would having a second 2x camera assembly.


I'm on board with calling it a digital process but that doesn't mean it's digital zoom.

Now we are coming together.
This whole thread just exists cos apple says they are doing a optical 2x. But its just digital

 

[motrek]

Now we are coming together.
This whole thread just exists cos apple says they are doing a optical 2x. But its just digital

But before, their zoom wasn't optical either. It was just using a different camera. That's also not optical zoom.

But the effect is the same as optical zoom. So they call it optical.

Just like the effect of this new zoom is also the same as optical zoom. Hence, optical.

If you thought what they were doing before could be called optical, then this new thing is also optical.

I have been calling it the "practical equivalent" of optical.

 

[reflekshunmusic]

I'll quote wikipedia, since you don't seem to understand/trust me.
"Digital zoom is a method of decreasing the precise angle of view of a digital photograph or video image. It is accomplished by cropping an image down to an area with the same aspect ratio as the original, and scaling the image up to the dimensions of the original. The camera's optics are not adjusted."
The wikipedia search for "optical zoom" just sends you to "optical zoom lens". Is any lens involved here to get that zoom?

They are cropping the 48MP picture and only using a 24MP area, instead of downscaling the 48MP to 24MP as they do with the 1X. It's done digitally and not optically (they can do both things with the same input), it's a digital zoom, absolutely no doubt about this. Ask any photographer you know.
I'll add this; by their logic, if they reduced the main photo to 4.8MP, they could say they had 10X optical zoom because with their 4.8 little zoomed crops still "each output pixel corresponds to at least one sensor pixel". How convenient! And why not 100X optical zoom with 0.48MP pictures?!
If their definition of "optical" is true, they were the first people in the world to use it that way. Which to me it's like saying "my leather that comes from petrol and not from cows is just leather by my new definition of leather".


Yes but it felt more evident that it wasn't optical because they talked about the 3X real optical camera after that... not sure if they already used "optical" in the specs, think the 14 Pro isn't on their website anymore.

I think a better way to name the feature would be 'improved/enhanced digital zoom'?

 

[bandrews]

It's a crop. Which is essentially the same as a digital zoom. There is no change in focal length of the lens. You can call it what you want and Apple can do all sorts of wizardry but in the photography world it's called a crop. Much like using an apsc lens on a full frame sensor, you get an image with a narrower field of view by using a smaller area of the sensor.

Anyone arguing that this is in any way an optical zoom really doesn't understand the basics of photography.

 

[motrek]

It's a crop. Which is essentially the same as a digital zoom. ...

Digital zoom means cropping and upsampling. If there's no upsampling, where's the "zoom" part of "digital zoom"?

If you take out the upsampling, then you're left with cropping, which is a different word for a different operation. Again, the crop tool in Photoshop is called the crop tool, not the zoom tool.

Most people on this thread seem to understand this basic stuff but it's shocking to me that a small handful of people still don't.

 

[bandrews]

But before, their zoom wasn't optical either. It was just using a different camera. That's also not optical zoom.

But the effect is the same as optical zoom. So they call it optical.

Just like the effect of this new zoom is also the same as optical zoom. Hence, optical.

If you thought what they were doing before could be called optical, then this new thing is also optical.

I have been calling it the "practical equivalent" of optical.

No - the different iPhone lenses have set focal lengths which project the focused beams of light onto the whole effective area of the sensor.

Using different lenses is, in terms of physics the same as using a zoom lens - like switching between an 18mm prime lens and a 50mm prime lens on a proper camera will be the same as zooming a zoom lens from the wide 18mm end to the tight 50mm end. With the new cameras the lens isn't changing focal length (or 35mm equivalent focal length which is what is usually quoted). However much computer trickery is going on, the image in one of the 15's "telephoto" shots will only be using data from part of the image.

 

[bandrews]

Digital zoom means cropping and upsampling. If there's no upsampling, where's the "zoom" part of "digital zoom"?

If you take out the upsampling, then you're left with cropping, which is a different word for a different operation. Again, the crop tool in Photoshop is called the crop tool, not the zoom tool.

Most people on this thread seem to understand this basic stuff but it's shocking to me that a small handful of people still don't.

Buddy, I've done plenty of photography in my years to know what I'm talking about. Digital zoom vs crop is semantics. Lens focal lengths and optical zooms are physics. The camera might be doing something different to the in camera processing in crop vs digital zoom but you are still only using data from part of the sensor.

 

[motrek]

Buddy, I've done plenty of photography in my years to know what I'm talking about. Digital zoom vs crop is semantics. Lens focal lengths and optical zooms are physics. The camera might be doing something different to the in camera processing in crop vs digital zoom but you are still only using data from part of the sensor.

Of course you're only using data from part of the sensor. Duh. That doesn't mean that the data is being zoomed, i.e., upsampled.

And it's also no different from having an entirely different camera assembly with a smaller sensor. You would call that "optical zoom" even though it's physically basically identical. (What's the difference between using a smaller sensor vs. using part of a larger sensor?)

 

[bandrews]

Of course you're only using data from part of the sensor. Duh. That doesn't mean that the data is being zoomed, i.e., upsampled.

And it's also no different from having an entirely different camera assembly with a smaller sensor. You would call that "optical zoom" even though it's physically basically identical. (What's the difference between using a smaller sensor vs. using part of a larger sensor?)

No I wouldn't call it an optical zoom. When I use my 28mm Leica Elmarit on my Leica CL instead of my M10P I say I'm using a full frame lens on a crop sensor camera to get the same field of view as a 42mm lens on a full frame camera.

Much in the same way as users of the Leica Q3 have a fixed 28mm lens and will use the 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and 90mm crops modes to get images that are equivalent to using lenses with those focal lengths but not one serious photographer would say it's optical zoom.

Anyway, I'm done. Got more important things to do with my Friday evening.

 

[motrek]

No I wouldn't call it an optical zoom. When I use my 28mm Leica Elmarit on my Leica CL instead of my M10P I say I'm using a full frame lens on a crop sensor camera to get the same field of view as a 42mm lens on a full frame camera.

Much in the same way as users of the Leica Q3 have a fixed 28mm lens and will use the 35mm, 50mm, 75mm and 90mm crops modes to get images that are equivalent to using lenses with those focal lengths but not one serious photographer would say it's optical zoom.
...

So that's digital zoom, right?

 

[Mrs. Jobs]

 

[motrek]

I agree with the guy about "7 lenses."

He lost the plot with the 48MP sensor and file bloat. Yes, the new sensor only has 12MP chroma resolution but it does have 48MP luminance resolution, so the 24MP photos ARE higher resolution than 12MP photos and not just a scam to get you to use more iCloud space.

And the effective aperture... advertising effective focal length without specifying the effective aperture is not a marketing trick. Of course a cell phone camera sensor is not going to collect as much light as a FULL FRAME SENSOR. That's obvious, everybody already understands it, but he seems to be complaining about it anyway. Weird.

Also note that, at no point in the video, does he say that Apple is doing digital zoom in any situation.

 

[darngooddesign]

…

 

[darngooddesign]

Read the whole sentence.
If that same sensor had a moving lens that allows 2X picture, using the whole frame, pictures would be better.

Only in really good light because there is no way it would be constant f1.6. I will always prefer less noise, and therefore less noise reduction, of a faster/brighter lens and 2X crop to a slower, variable focal length and no cropping; especially on small phone sensors. I have a 24MP regular camera and that resolution is fine with me.

 

[sunny5]

Literally, there are NO smartphones with a true optical zoom lens. Whenever they say it's optical zoom, it's just a digital zoom or cropping. That's all. That's the truth. Even Samsung Galaxy Ultra series with 10x optical zoom lens is actually a prime lens. At least they crop from 100 or 200mp sensor. A periscope lens? It only allows them to make a telephoto lens on a smartphone due to the focal length and it never meant for zoom lenses.

As a photographer, I know how zoom lenses work and whenever anyone including Apple and Samsung advertised about optical zoom lenses, I feel disgusted as they lied and fooled people who know nothing about cameras and photography.

Also, advertising for having multiple lenses is also false as iPhone has only 2~3 lenses while other focal lengths are just cropped from the main lens.

Fooling customers with misinformation about optical and digital zoom lens shouldn't even allowed. I'm surprised that people aren't really sue Apple or Samsung for misleading information and advertisement.

Enough is enough. They really need to stop using false information to fool customers.

 

[Splitrail]

Literally, there are NO smartphones with a true optical zoom lens. Whenever they say it's optical zoom, it's just a digital zoom or cropping. That's all. That's the truth. Even Samsung Galaxy Ultra series with 10x optical zoom lens is actually a prime lens. At least they crop from 100 or 200mp sensor. A periscope lens? It only allows them to make a telephoto lens on a smartphone due to the focal length and it never meant for zoom lenses.

As a photographer, I know how zoom lenses work and whenever anyone including Apple and Samsung advertised about optical zoom lenses, I feel disgusted as they lied and fooled people who know nothing about cameras and photography.

Also, advertising for having multiple lenses is also false as iPhone has only 2~3 lenses while other focal lengths are just cropped from the main lens.

Fooling customers with misinformation about optical and digital zoom lens shouldn't even allowed. I'm surprised that people aren't really sue Apple or Samsung for misleading information and advertisement.

Enough is enough. They really need to stop using false information to fool customers.

Being familiar with photography for 60 years, I've long suspected this.

 

[rKunda]

I can’t believe apple would use the same marketing practices all the major camera companies use!

 

[Phonzoxd]

Good to know. Ill get a 15 pro now

 

[NotApplicable]

Omg, thank you so much! I guess I need to buy an A7 IV to replace my iPhone 14 Pro, instead of an iPhone 15 Pro Max.

A little confused how I’ll keep in contact with my family and do my work on my new A7 IV, though…

 

[canadianpj]

I don't care. At all.

Can I click a button and the picture zooms in and is still clear and not all fuzzy? Yes?

Then it's a good zoom for me and however they do it is is completely, utterly, irrelevant.