In this episode, How Technology In Cameras Helps Us To Take Photos. And also some more thoughts on the last episode, How Is Artificial Intelligence Used In Photography? Will AI Ever Replace Me?
Hi and welcome to Episode 144 of the Photography Explained podcast. I’m your host Rick, and in each episode I will try to explain one photographic to you in plain English, in less than 27 minutes (ish), without the irrelevant details. What I tell you is based on my lifetime of photographic experience. And not Google. OK – lots of research in this one, again.
First – here is the answery bit
Technology in cameras in 2022 helps us photographers to take better, higher quality, sharper photos. The technology helps us to take these photos in more challenging conditions than ever before. Technology has made cameras quicker, smaller, lighter and quieter. Technology in cameras has made it easier for photographers of all abilities to take photos using advanced techniques once available to pro photographers only.
Technology in cameras has closed the gap between consumer and pro photographers.
And technology in cameras has of course transformed mobile phone technology into what it is today.
You can listen to the episode here
Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!
Right then, plenty to get stuck into in this one.
That was my answer – but before the talky bit I want to give you some examples. Technology in cameras is a vast subject. How do I break this down and make sense of it?
Simple – I have done some research, and will quickly go through some examples of technology in cameras, some of this I already knew about, some of this is completely new to me!
I will be brief, because there is quite a lot of good stuff. I had to remove some things from my list as I am not ready for an hour long episode yet! And I am sure you are not either.
Camera Size
Cameras are getting smaller. And there is more and more tech packed into them. Is this a good thing? Well, like with a lot of things in photography, it just depends.
The rule of thumb back in film days was the larger the film size the higher quality of the photos. And then when we swapped camera film for a digital sensor the same applied. That is why we still have full frame and medium format cameras.
But tech has closed the gap meaning that cameras with smaller sensors can compete with their bigger rivals.
I use a micro four thirds camera for my travel photography work, and a Canon 6D for my architectural, construction and real estate photography work.
And I prefer the handling of my Canon 6D if I am honest, as I am a bit clumsy and it suits me better. My Olympus is smaller, but not that much smaller to be honest with the lens that I use. But with the tech in the camera it can take photos that stand next to those from the Canon 6D.
So tech has helped make cameras smaller, and will make things smaller still in the future, but there are still optics and handling to remember.
Image stabilisation
Some of the new Canon mirrorless cameras give an amazing 8 stops of in body image stabilisation. IBIS for short, though I can manage to say the actual 4 words with no trouble. Most of the time….
What does this mean?
Well, if you were going to take a photo with a shutter speed of 1/60th second handheld, you can now take a photo with an 8 stop shift in exposure. Let’s work this out.
- 1 stop – 1/30th second
- 2 stops – 1/15th second
- 3 stops – 1/8th second
- 4 stops – ¼ second
- 5 stops – ½ second
- 6 stops – 1 second
- 7 stops – 2 seconds
- 8 stops – 4 seconds
Yes, you can take photos with a 4 second exposure hand held. Is this the end for the tripod?
4 seconds, which is quite literally amazing. 4 seconds – really?
What this really means is that the tech will help us to get sharper photos in normal conditions, and also allows us to take photos handheld with longer focal length lenses, or with longer shutter speeds.
Either way the tech is helping us. And helping us in a pretty big way.
8 stops – it is just bonkers.
Electronic viewfinder
My Canon 6D has an optical viewfinder. I actually look though the camera lens using a mirror box and other clever optical stuff. Ditch the mirror though and you have a mirrorless camera. Yep, that is what a mirrorless camera is. And with a mirrorless camera the viewfinder is digital.
Why is this important?
Simple. With my Olympus EM5 I can look at the photo that I have just taken in my viewfinder, which is amazing.
Speed
Cameras are getting faster. I mean here in terms of the time taken to make calculations, exposure, focussing, and of course the number of frames per second.
What is the fastest camera? Well there is one that takes 70 trillion photos per second. Yes, really.
But for conventional cameras, well let’s take the Nikon Z9. It can do 20, 30, even 120 frames per second, depending on the settings that you choose.
Now let’s take that lowest number. 20 frames per second. Just think what you can do with that?
For me? Well I take erm one photo at a time so I am ok thank you very much.
Image sensors
Image sensors are getting better but not necessarily bigger. Tech is bridging the gap between sensor size and image quality. Well look what you can get with a phone, which has a tiny sensor.
Sure bigger is in theory better, but are we at the point where, with everything else going on, that sensor size is irrelevant? If we are not there now we are not far off surely.
Megapixels
Megapixels used to be a biggy. The more megapixels the better. 1 megapixel is 1 million pixels by the way. What is a pixel? Well there are many definitions, but this is the one that I use. Pixels are the little things that make up a photo.
I know, it’s not a great definition but it is one of those things that I do not need to understand. My Canon 6D, an old camera these days, is a 20 mega pixel camera. That means it has 20 million pixels. Do I need to know what they are? No, there are 20 million of them. And I cannot see them. So no I am good with that.
Going back to the Nikon Z9, that has, erm, 45million pixels. Double my Canon 6D but not as many more as I was expecting. See the race for more pixels is over. Other factors have come into play meaning that more pixels is no longer better.
Image quality
Well general image quality improves when you put all the bits of tech together. Looking at the advances in what quality of photos that you can get with a phone tells us all we need to know.
And you can apply that to cameras, but not quite as much as with phones as they were starting from a much more advanced position.
But tech is helping us to get higher quality images, which is a good thing of course.
And it is helping more of us to get higher quality photos, closing the gap between pros and amateurs.
And this applies to video quality too.
Now some camera specific stuff.
Autofocus
My Canon 6D has 11 focus points, and I manually select the one that I want to use. The Canon EOS R3 has 4,779 selectable AF Points. In case you misheard me, yes, four thousand, seven hundred and seventy nine selectable AF points. And you can put these anywhere you want them.
I am glad I am sat down for this. But here is more. Much more.
Eye Control AF
Yes, really. Sticking with the Canon EOS R3, you can select an AF point by looking at it. Press the shutter release button halfway and focus is selected of what you are looking at. Not only focus, but continuous tracking of the subject too.
And it can, using and I quote here “deep learning AI”, recognise people, animals and motorsport vehicles. And more to follow I have no doubt.
Eye Detection (Canon)
Let’s keep going with this. The Canon R3 can detect a humans eye. If their eyes are not visible then priority is given to the face.
Why stop there? It can do the same for animals, and even birds in flight.
Where will this ever end?
I am going to stop there. I need to come back to this next week, I am sorry there is just too much to this.
I want to talk about these things which were on my list for this episode.
- Focus bracketing
- Post focus simulation
- In camera HDR
- JPEG Presets
- High Resolution Modes
- Processing in camera
- Wireless live streaming
- In camera forgery proof technology
- Lens coatings
- Editing
- AI stuff
- Phone technology
- Image processing – I need to come onto that. That will be one for yet another episode.
So lots more for next episode.
The talky bit
Blimey. Tech is amazing. And amazing tech helps us to take more amazing photos. I know that I am not at the cutting edge of some of this stuff, but I do use an advanced technique to get my photos.
OK, I use one focus point selected manually, and that is fine. And this is the point that I want to make.
We don’t need to get too worked up about all this stuff, we don’t have to use all the tech all the time. We need to use the tech when it will help us. Do I need eye detection AF? No I do not. But others do. And it is amazing.
And I fully get the fact that tech that is being developed now is fantastic, and will be used by all of us at some point in the future. See, I am not an early adopter and that is fine, but I value the advances in tech as I know that they will trickle down to all of us in one form or another.
Think F1 – you don’t need an F1 car, Ok I wouldn’t say no but not sure where I would put the shopping, but I am sure that many of us are benefitting from advances in that tech which can now be found in conventional cars. Talking of cars, my car can go faster than 100 miles an hour, but I have never done this myself. So what is the point of that? But it will tell me if I have drifted above 75 miles an hour. In my car there is tech that I never use, and there is tech that helps me.
Don’t dismiss tech, use it when it will help you. Use it to make stuff easier, quicker, better.
But remember this – photography is drawing with light. Photography is not all about getting 30 frames per second. Now I have been thinking about that. 30 frames per second. On a shoot I might take 30 photos in a 2 hour session! Just saying.
You can have all the best, most amazing tech ever, but if your composition is rubbish you will still have a rubbish photo. Tech helps us to take photos, but it doesn’t help us to take better composed photos. I am sure that there are some things that assist with this, but tech has not replaced the human eye, the human brain, and all that goes with these two amazing things which are still better then any tech out there.
Well I think that they are. And I am not including my brain in that of course.
Back to composition, which is what you include in a photo. Which would I put first in order of importance – composition or tech?
Composition, all day long, every day. And this will not change. Whatever the advances in tech, a rubbish composition = a rubbish photo. Doesn’t matter how sharp it is, or the fact that you took a 75 second exposure handheld hanging off the edge of a mountain in a blizzard whilst having your ankles chewed by polar bears.
If the composition is rubbish then the photo will be rubbish. And that is all anyone apart from you will care about.
And I never expected to use the phrase “having your ankles chewed by polar bears” in my podcast!
Right – talky bit over – what if I only use a phone?
If you only use a phone you are slap bang in the middle of much of the latest tech, nice and simple. And you are party to the most rapid advances in image capture tech for sure. Of course there is stuff that you can find on cameras that you cannot find on cameras in phones, but you would expect that right?
But in phones you have amazing tech for image capture and of course sharing.
So, if you only use a phone you have much of the latest tech helping you to take each and every photo. And you are benefitting from constant updates in Apps and the computational stuff that is done.
I say computational stuff as this is way beyond my levels of comprehension.
What do I do?
I use a Canon 6D. So in tech terms I am quite old school and low tech. The Canon 6D has a great, 20mega pixel camera sensor. And it has lots of other stuff built in. But that dates back to erm 2014 ish, when the Canon 6D was released.
But I take three photos and put them together in Lightroom. Quite an advanced technique, but still quite basic tech wise. But I couldn’t have done this 20 years ago.
I also use an Olympus EM5 Mk2 for my travel stuff. This camera was first released in 2015.
I use tech in my phone, and I use tech in my image processing, but I am not, and do not claim to be, at the forefront of tech.
Do I want a new camera though?
Yes I do. Oh dear….
Right, I need to quickly move on.
Some thoughts from the last episode, “How Is Artificial Intelligence Used In Photography? Will AI Ever Replace Me?”
AI is the future. Well it is the present, but in the future there will be much more of the things that we are already using and taking for granted AI wise. And that is in general terms a good thing.
Where this is not a good thing is where it replaces the need for humans.
And more scarier than that is machine learning, where things learn from what they have done.
AI will not replace me. I have been thinking about this. I came up with a great point. Now as clever as AI stuff is how will the AI thing get to a site to photograph a building? How will an AI thing, whatever it may be, meet with a client, talk to them, agree what is needed and go away and do it?
There will, as long as humans require things, always be a human element in the provision of that thing. Well for now anyway.
This is a fundamental issue that greatly reassures me. No, AI is not going to take over and run the world. (I will say that quietly in case they are listening….)
What do I use AI for?
Sky replacement.
And who knows what else?
What do you use AI for? Let me know, it would be great to hear from you and hear your thoughts on this and also todays subject.
Next episode
Photography Explained Podcast Episode 145 – What Is The Future For Retro Photography? Or Is It All In The Past? Well that was the plan. But no, this episode will have a part 2, so will be cunningly titled, erm, Photography Explained Podcast Episode 145 – How Technology In Cameras Helps Us To Take Photos (Part 2).
The retro episode is pushed back in time. Oh the irony.
And my survey is still out there
My Photography Explained Podcast survey is still on the podcast website – just a few questions that should take less than a minute to answer – just head over to Photography Explained Podcast.com/survey. And thanks for your help if you do.
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This episode was brought to you by, erm, a good old cheese and pickle sandwich and, shock news, no crisps, I know. No crisps. All washed down with a nice strong cup of tea with a drop of milk in sat in my home-made, acoustically cushioned recording emporium.
I’ve been Rick McEvoy, thanks again very much for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast (it says here), and for giving me between 20 and 30 (ish) minutes of your valuable time.
Take care, stay safe
Next episode – where was the full list from the last episode
Cheers from me Rick
OK – that was the podcast episode.
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Thank you
Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).
Cheers from me Rick
