Gadgetory

the cameras on our phones have improved significantly over the last several years and it's not much of a compromise now for a smartphone camera to be the only camera a person might own as phones improve and replace point-and-shoot cameras our discussion of smartphone cameras should also improve we're looking to review phones more like we would review standalone cameras so if you're unfamiliar with some of the photography terms we use to describe camera performance here's a primer to explain some of those terms buckle up folks we have a lot of ground to cover and if you get lost or you want to hear a specific topic again there's a handy list of shortcuts to individual terms in the video description below JPEG versus raw think about CDs versus mp3s a raw file is just that the raw data which comes off of the camera sensor without any processing a JPEG is a compressed file camera software makes a number of adjustments to brightness and color then squishes out any information you might not need JPEG files are easier to share RAW files because they have more information are better for editing typically though a raw file has more information technically making it a higher-quality file it usually isn't the most attractive photo we can share until we edit it exposure when we talk about exposure we're talking about how bright or how dark an image the camera produces if an image is overexposed it's too bright if it's underexposed it's too dark exposure can often be adjusted before taking a shot usually through some kind of slider like this one on the iPhone but it directly relates to shutter speed and ISO using this slider is a shortcut for quickly adjusting shutter speed and ISO but it's not as precise often when a photo is too bright we call this loss clipping we have clipped the information in the highlights here metering how does a camera decide how bright or how dark an image should be that comes down to metering some phones let you change how the camera will prioritize light matrix metering will scan the entire frame and try to balance dark and bright sections center balanced metering does exactly what the name suggests focusing on the middle of your frame and spot metering take its cue from where you focus there are pros and cons to different metering modes but generally matrix will provide a nice safety net for your whole frame while spot metering will tell your camera to expose for the specific subject you're focusing on saturation saturation describes how vibrant or how dull the color of a photo is this is often a result of the editing involved in processing a raw file to create a JPEG too much color information can also cause us to lose detail though too little color will only produce a black and white image we won't lose clarity by removing the color from a photo white balance this one is a little bit tricky a lot of smartphone reviewers misinterpret white balance differences as a camera having accurate or inaccurate color but what is accuracy here let's say we have white objects lit by yellow light is it more accurate to capture the lighting conditions or the object color there's no right answer say you're taking concert photos do you care more about accurate skin tone or capturing the crazy mood of purple lights on stage some cameras will prioritize lighting conditions and some cameras try to find the true white of your subject but the best cameras will let you adjust the white balance to capture the scene how you see it shutter speed one way we can control brightness is by changing the shutter speed smartphone cameras usually don't have a real mechanical shutter but we still use a similar measurement for how long the sensor will soak up light the longer the shutter speed the brighter the image the shorter the shutter speed the darker your image will be of course this has a secondary effect holding the shutter open longer means your images will be more susceptible to blur from handshake or from your subject moving a shorter shutter speed is better for capturing movement and producing a crisp image ISO ISO represents the camera's sensitivity to light the higher the ISO the more sensitive the sensor will be and your image will get brighter lowering the ISO reduces sensitivity and makes your image darker why not use a higher ISO all the time well have you ever turned up speakers without playing any audio and heard a hiss or a hump the same thing happens with cameras a higher ISO will be brighter but it will also produce a noisier or grainier image sensor size the physical size of the camera sensor will affect your photo and video output larger sensors have more surface area which makes it a bit easier to capture light they'll also produce a softer background blur which we'll talk about more in just a bit the compromise is a larger sensor requires a larger lens which can mean a bigger camera module or bulge on the back of the phone at the time this video was shot the iPhone 6s was the only flagship phone still produced with a 1/3 inch sensor Android and Windows Phone flagships have largely moved up to sensors between one over two point six to one over 2.3 inches on the diagonal as that's cumbersome to say those sensors will sometimes lazily be described as half-inch sensors though that's obviously not completely accurate aperture the aperture is sometimes referred to as an iris because it works like the iris of your eye when we talk about aperture we're describing the size of the hole which lets light land on the camera sensor the bigger the hole the better that camera will be it's soaking up available light a larger aperture also helps soften the backgrounds of your photos aperture is referenced as n F number F 2.0 F 1.8 this is actually a fraction though and represents F / 2.0 or F / 1.8 so the smaller that F number is the larger your aperture will be now most phones have a fixed aperture meaning the aperture cannot be adjusted by the user depth of field depth of field references how much of your frame will be in focus literally how deep into the field of your photo will object still retain clarity our phone sensors are so small that even with a really wide aperture of F 2 will still have a really long depth of field this means that when we focus on a subject quite a bit of the space behind the subject and in front of the subject will still be in focus and identifiable for phones depth of field blur is most noticeable when focusing close up on your subject and keeping your background as far away as possible phones with larger sensors and larger apertures will do a better job of blurring the background behind your subject that sensor size is more important than aperture as an extreme example comparing an LG ten with a one over two point six inch sensor and an F 1.8 aperture will produce similar background blur to a DSLR with an aperture around f10 bouquet while depth of field describes how close your background will blur behind your subject the term bouquet describes how attractive that blur will be this is entirely subjective every lens will handle light and clarity in a unique way some camera lenses will delicately blur the background looking like a watercolor painting some lenses will produce buzzy or edgy qualities in the areas of your frame which are out of focus but ultimately whatever might be considered attractive bouquet is up to each individual photographer to decide for themselves focal length focal length describes the field of view as it compares to old-school 35 millimeter film cameras and that equivalents is measured in millimeters the lower that number is the wider the field of view the higher that number is the narrower the field of view so the Lumia 950 with a 26 millimeter equivalent lens will have a slightly wider field of view than the iPhone 6s which has a twenty nine millimeter equivalent lens like aperture most phones cannot change the focal length changing the focal length requires a zoom lens like the one found on Samsung K phones and the Asus zenfone zoom even though the Lumia 1020 has a great zoom feature the focal length of that lens does not change the field of view derived by the focal length measurement should not be confused with the camera sensors aspect ratio aspect ratio aspect ratio is literally the shape of the photo or video your camera produces the two most common smartphone aspect ratios are four by three and sixteen by nine these two numbers relate to each other to create the shape of the rectangle four by three is a more square-ish frame it's almost as tall as it is wide sixteen by nine is almost twice as long as it is tall regardless if your frame is more wide screen or squarish you can still have a wider or narrower focal length a four by three frame with a really wide lens will contain more of a scene than a sixteen by nine frame with a narrower focal length HDR HDR stands for high dynamic range and has more with how your phone processes an image rather than how your phone captures an image an HDR photo is usually created by taking a series of pictures and changing the exposure on each photo this allows the camera to see more detail and shadows and in highlights then those individual images are merged to create one photo where detail in all areas of the frame is visible this effect can be used as a handy safety net in challenging lighting conditions or it can be used to create a more dramatic image though usually this processing will exaggerate the color of your scene and it can be a tricky setting to use if your subject is moving video all of the previous terms we've defined for photos also apply to video some are a bit more rare than others like shutter speed the time this video was produced only the LG v10 came with a stock camera app which allowed users to adjust the shutter speed of video but other settings like exposure ISO and white balance are commonly included on camera apps first we should tackle resolution abbreviations like HD and UHD often confuse the discussion and it's just easier to talk about the actual resolution of the video file width by height most video files are now sixteen by nine to better match the majority of TVs and computer monitors HD resolutions are 1280 by 720 and 1920 by 1080 where we get terms like 720p and 1080p moving up to qHD this stands for quad HD and it's four times the resolution of 720p which is 2560 by 1440 up from there we get UHD or ultra HD which is four times the resolution of 1080p and that's 3840 by 2160 UHD is also sometimes called 4k even though it doesn't really reach 4000 pixels across frame rate as videos are a series of individual still frames which are strung together to create movement many phones now allow us to control how many frames per second our cameras shoot the basic acceptable quality for smooth video is around 30 frames per second and a few cameras will let us shoot 24 frames per second which a lot of people feel has a more cinematic look as film was projected at 24 frames per second high-end cameras now allow users to shoot 1080p video at 60 frames per second creating an almost unnaturally smooth look to movement in your video beyond 60 frames per second we sometimes have options for 120 frames per second and 240 frames per second video options these are often of a lower quality in a lower resolution per individual frame but the intense frame rate is handy for creating slow-motion video if you capture 120 frames every second but play back those frames at 30 frames per second you'll slow down the playback speed to 1/4 real-time bitrate another primary aspect of discussing video is the bitrate bitrate describes how much information per second is saved and its measured in megabits per second the higher the bit rate the better the video quality will be a higher bitrate will also take up more storage space on your phone the LG v10 and some third-party camera apps will give users the ability to change the bitrate when shooting 2160p video at a 30 megabit per second bitrate each minute of video will take up around 230 megabytes of space jumping to a 64 megabit per second bit rate means each minute of video will use up around 460 megabytes of storage optical image stabilization versus electronic image stabilization lastly there's a bit of a misnomer about image stabilization when it comes to video there are two ways to stabilize video optical image stabilization or oh is involves moving the lens the optics to adjust for handshake or movement electronic image stabilization sometimes called ie is digital is or software is crops the field of view and compensates for movement by wiggling that crop around this buffer zone now some phones can use both optical and software stabilization at the same time but usually only when shooting 1080p video at 30 frames per second take the Galaxy Note 4 for example when shooting 2160p video we see the image stabilization option is grayed out the Galaxy Note 4 will still use the hardware lens optical image stabilization but is not capable of processing a high resolution video while also cropping the frame and using electronic image stabilization if a phone has optical image stabilization it's pretty much always on so even though the setting might be grayed out the video will still benefit from Hardware stabilization and that's about as good a place to wrap up as we'll get obviously this video is not meant to be taken as a definitive resource just as a starter whole books can be written about each individual topic we've covered and students spend semesters in school studying these topics hopefully this stands as a resource to help remove some of the confusion some people face when discussing aspects of any camera smartphone point-and-shoot or DSLR and there are tons of excellent resources available to expand this conversation for smartphone photographers there might even be some books available COFF COFF shameless plug cough-cough to help you get better shots with your phone we're hoping to raise the bar on how smartphone cameras are reviewed and if you'd like to see more in-depth camera discussions give these videos a like and a share they take quite a bit more work than your average phone review and we can't continue producing them without your support for pocket now I'm camera snob Juan Carlos bag now you can chat me up on Twitter and Instagram is some gadget guy and I will catch you all on the next video