The Shift Toward Niche Camera Markets

Hello everyone and welcome to the P SC Photography Podcast. How about that, eh? We've done 19 shows as the camera creations podcasts and now through some jiggery pokery and realignment of this, that and the other, we're gonna call it the PSC photography podcast and open up the door to um photographs taken with phones or cameras or video record ers or cinematic movie recorders or whatever anything that can basically make an image and we're saying, yeah, okay, bring it in, we'll discuss it and it can be part of the group . Um one of the reasons is that it will expand the um the the breadth of the topics we can talk about on the show, make the podcast last longer and have uh a greater kind of interest for more people and we will take in um whatever is in the PSC camera creations Miwi group, whatever is in PSC Photos um group, which uh incidentally remains um a competition feeder for photo of the month there. Um but also there's another little group called PSE Videos, which not many people know about, but we can pull them all in together um and talk about imag ing in this new PSC photography podcast. The other change is that I've ditched the um makeshift uh website which was on the back of my domain and we've included this now in the main PSC feed RSS . So don't be surprised if you don't see any more podcasts uh popping up in the camera creations feed because you'll see them in the main PSC feed. Bit confusing I know. If you d if you're not interested in photography, well firstly you won't be hearing me say this, but secondly um,, you know, you you can just ignore the PSC photography podcast and just skip to the main PSC ones. It's all a bit of a mess, frankly. Um but I'm trying to think about how to level it out. Um and the the the the um phoneshow chat dot uk will um form the basic uh website for PSC photography and PSC camera creations. I told you it was confusing and it is. We're on show twenty though and the first of these new ones and it's May the seventh and as a um opening um theme for our new look podcast we have decided to throw in something about phones. My best photo taken on with a phone with a phone on a phone. And I'm joined today by a larger team than normal, Ed House, Chris Clayton, Joe Hickey, Charlie Winston and Ian Bundy. So all together now, hello . Hello .. Hello Hello. Well done. So um just a quick one then to say that the MiWee group is intact, the camera creations one, you can still go and use that and we will feed into stuff from there. Um Ahmed B ars jumped in and said just finished listening to the last podcast. Great show as always. Thanks for critiquing critiquing my cat shot. Good constructive feedback. Mohan Molly Goda also says great show again, enjoy the critiquing. All valid points made on my Kingfisher pick, and it's motivated me to go back to the raw and see if I have a better option. So I'm glad that those two um worked out well and I think generally the critiquing thing worked really well as well. So obviously people like to do a bit of sending in of photographs Yeah I thought it was a really good show. It was one of my one of my favourite ones, maybe selfishly, just it's nice to get feedback and and you don't often always get that much feedback in the in the forum. Do you sometimes um I think the um uh sorry to Chris and uh Ron for making them look at spiders. I'll try and find something a bit less uh a bit less um creepy crawly next time. It was only very small though. Um again the the groin photo again, I at the top of the the wooden block basically with the stones and sand on it. That was I've I've gone back and I've had a look and ro not quite sure that cutting off the corners really does it for me, but uh again it was all really good. I've I've tried it, maybe I'll I'll try it again. Um That was the one with with like a tree trunk. Yeah, exactly, yeah. They they're big big solid uh big solid sort of lumps on uh on the Suffolk Coast. Um uh I'm not in terms of the um the sort of the I was just picking up on one thing you you said um last time, Chris, the the AI side of things. I'm I'm generally anti AI in art, so I'm sort of I'm on the on the side of I'd I'd rather not see it anywhere near anything artistic. Um wider use I'm wavering on a little bit as it has been been useful for me too in some things. But I I do worry about the sort of general trend of of using these things in art because I don't think it really um I think it's it's overwriting some of the the sort of the human part of art and and that art is supposed to be a human endeav our and I don't think really when you start using when you start using AI on it, I don't think that really retains it. I think there's maybe some people do do very specific things with it and that's maybe okay but I don't think it's the same as just moving some sliders on on you know, you can edit an image in Photoshop or whatever your equivalent is. But I I don't think using AI is the same thing. That brings us to the the hot topic of the day in fact, because in the groups in Mi We we've been talking about um Pete Warner's photograph that he took um of a ship leaving Southampton docks. Um and he uh th the the the question came up is because he he he had it cartoonified. Um now he's taken a photograph of the ship with his phone um and he has inside his phone said to um uh Gemini in this case, um an assistant, um, cartoonify this photograph. Um and he thought that was okay because the rules of the PSC photo group say that that's all right as long as it's on the phone. However, the issue here is that perhaps it's a bit different because when you use an AI in such a way, firstly, it takes it off of the phone and does it somewhere else. So it's not actually on the phone. The question is, if he'd taken this photograph of the ship and just used s um snap what's it? What's it called? Snap um Snapseed? Yeah, Snap seed. If he' justd said to Snapseed cartoonify this, perhaps that would have been all right. But the the broader question is for the group and I put a poll up in the Miwi group now to get everyone's opinion on it, is whether that's okay or not. And I know that um Chris you've got some strong feelings about this one way. Um and perhaps you'd like to lead us through that. Um I think the issue for me is a misunderstanding of what it what h appens when you send an image to Gemini. So if you open Gemini and upload an image, regardless of what you ask it to do, any edit that is made, it will reconstruct the entire image from scratch using AI and the image you uploaded is nothing more than a reference image for the AI to uh learn from and to reconstruct. So obviously the example we've got here is quite an extreme one so it's more obvious that every pixel on that image is AI constructed but even if you just took a a snapshot of a a person or a a flower and just said, you know, change a small for instance, if there's a person you just said add glasses to this person, it wouldn't just construct a few pixels to render the glasses on a person. The entire image, every pixel, is AI. The resolution will be changed, the bit depth will be ch anged, file format obviously is going to be a JPEG, but it's going to be way more compressed than the original if you're uploading a full quality. It it's AI from the whole image is an AI generation from the point that you send it into Gemini. For me it's totally different than uh if you're in Lightroom or Photoshop and you select a few pixels and you just uh AI remove them, I think that's fine because you know the the image i for the most part is still captured on the camera. But regardless I'm not saying Pete didn't go and take a photo of a boat, I'm just saying that once that image is sent to Gemini that that is that's not a photograph anymore. The output is completely AI generated. It's not a photograph. It's an AI concoction. I don't really think that it would count as a photograph in any way. Interesting. Interestingly he posted the original photograph as well and the back of the boat on the the back of the ship is on the original is missing and the AI has made it all in i in the frame, hasn't it? Yeah. I mean that's what AI does. It's just like a it's a bit erratic sometimes. Sometimes it's good and it's does a better job than others, but regardless of how good or bad the job is, it's not a f original photograph that the whole image is an AI generation. That's my issue with it really. Any other thoughts, anyone? I think at what point do we say okay this is AI, because you could do a little bit of AI on an image. Does that qualify it as being AI? Or is there like a scale at which point your image is all of AI? Is it fifty percent AI, five percent AI, you know, that must be a it's a hundred percent. Yes, I agree with you, it is a hundred percent AI. But at what point do you determine that so if I make an image in Photoshop and I use ninety five percent AI with uh generative fill, is that acceptable? Is that okay? Versus one that's m completely made with uh AI . I think more for me, the point I was just trying to get across is what's happening when someone does upload an image to Gemini. I think people don't realise that the output is AI . They don't know. I mean that's that was evident in the Mi We conversation that people didn't realise that the output is a hundred percent AI. And that's actually something that Sorry, that that's something that just that put me off the Caira camera in the end totally was that it basically the output I I could I could think of lots of sort of interesting ideas of like yeah, oh you could you offer like family photos but you could uh as a as a service but you know, im have all the have them that if they want it to be done in a sci fi way or something like that, you know, could you do all that in that camera? But essentially what you got at the end of it depended on how much you paid per month with the uh with the nano banana stuff. It's basically like you can have up to a a two K image for you know f w I I don't know the pri ces anymore, but you know, a couple of pounds a month gets you a two K image, uh tenner a month gets you four K and if you pay twenty pound a month you can have an eight K image. That was you're not whatever whatever you've taken it on, whether it was a a micro four thirds camera or a smartphone, what you get out of it at the end is not the image you put in. I think it's different to like generative fill, which I think is more what you were suggesting, Charlie, is like if you've got a subject in the middle and you fill that with , you know, uh dark moody light then I think that's that's still probably gonna be in something like Photoshop. It's it's a good thing the problem is is that as Chris raised, many people don't seem to realise that they're completely it's not the same image, it's a completely different image. As Chris said, each pixel is changed to like an AI fake pixel, the resolution is changed. Whereas I think there's legitimate use cases for using AI. So in my case in Photoshop, I'll do a long exposure with light trails, and then I do generative fill over the light trails. They're still the same light trails, but I put generative fill over them to make fake light trails, and then what I do is I reduce the opacity of the fake AI gener ative fill light trails to enhance my original light trails. So I would do that quite a lot. So it's still AI, but it's still my photo. It's not like a fake photo. I'm just using AI to enhance the original image. I think that's how AI should be used. Yeah, and and that that that 's almost no different in in my view with to things like the the AI, you know um well they've whether they're actually AI or whether they're whether it's just because that's a good thing to market, but all the noise Well that's the thing with with mobile photography, the machines are doing uh loads of stuff like that anyway, aren't they? So that like the bokeh is fake on a lot of of these phones, um, because the hardware is just not capable of doing it. Um so yeah, AI has always been there in mobile photogra phy. W what I would say about that Joe though is that the portrait modes , um, they're augmenting existing pixels. The blur is they're blurring pixels that you've captured. Uh same as if you go into like if I add a motion blur effect to a C or something, it's it's blurring pixels that I've captured. So the pixels that are blurred are are the ones that I captured. But obviously when you send a an image to Gemini then the whole image, you know, is is getting uh generated. So just augmenting existing ones. I agree. I mean what one one thing we could say is is using a photo editing tool that has AI features is different to using an AI, which is Gemini, it is an AI um app. It's purely AI. Um so maybe we'll make a r uh a rule around what editing apps are. Well it's ironic really because now the the more uh authentic image is going to be uh preserved by editing through Photoshop uh on a desktop than it is by um editing it on a phone through Gemini. Mm-hmm. Or any other or any other device. Ian, any thoughts on this whole topic? Yeah, I it's I think it's a tricky one. I mean I just to to add to this, I had a play with this, so I took one of my images of a car and put it into chat GPT to um give me some some ideas around how you would put a design into this or make this slightly different. And as Chris mentioned, it completely recreated the image, um , which was was horrible. So I I I think I'm with you that again there there's a lot to what you can add within Photoshop and Lightroom to an edit to to maybe create a new image um from from from something from you but as opposed to getting just Chat GPT or or Gemini to create something, I don't think it it is there's there's nothing of you in it, is there really? There's no no no uh intent from you in the image at all, even if it is a a pretty image that uh like of a boat and stuff. But yeah, I I I think it's probably a step too far to be honest. The other argument as well Ted is if you think about it that cartoony fying something isn't really a photo. Um and I think Chris could agree like um what was that shot where you sort of made a silhouette of London um basically made a piece of art. I always, you know, when I post them I say, you know, digital art. Which is fine. And it's fantastic art as well. I love it. And I like what Pete Warner's done but it's not um for the competition of PSC photos, it's not uh right for that group. I I think the AI group would be great for that. Um and s what's like people producing AI art in there would be good to see. But it doesn't um hold place in PSC photos for me. We've got a poll going. I agree, yeah. I agree with Joe, sorry Ted. Um I think the problem with um the the ship transformed into a cartoon is it's a bit like a like a digital ship of thesis, which is a thought experiment that says that, you know, is an object the same object after you change all of its original components over time? I think that's kind of what we're looking at. And that's really the the problem with this digital AI gem generation, that it's not the same image that you put in. That's that's like triggers um uh broomstick isn't it? He's had the same one in OnlyFalls and Orsies for years. Um Ed, you had your hand up there. Yeah, I was something I've been doing a lot of um reading into um over the last sort of week or so since the Find X nine uh Ultra I almost said pro there, but there's so many so many of them. The Find X9 Ul Ultra came out and um I was looking at GSM Arena's review of this. I noticed the basically their their twenty six odd megapixel pictures didn't really look any better than I'd seen from any of the other honor or um And I looked into this and actually since the Snapdragon H N2 , the the sort of the pi imaging pipelines have been draw redrawing technol So if you're taking pictures of it's it's really obvious in brickwork and greenery. Um if you compare it to something like the um the Sony exper i phones. It's really obvious when there's a a proper digital camera type pipeline behind it because the the textures actually get drawn properly. Um and I so you it's it's becomes hard to separate what is a uh y uh if they're merging multiple frames and then going that looks like grass, grass should look like this, that looks like brickwork, the brickwork should look like this. It makes it a very hard sort of uh line to cross as well is the what's actually taking a photo. Yeah this is a good point because like the Samsung moonshots is a fake moon isn't it? That's the a good example there as well. And and actually leading on to it, I was comparing my the Poco X three NFC I'm using right now with a um with the Pixel seven A and side by side I noticed the um the depth of field was different. Um taking a picture of a static model just to to see what the difference was. Um because the two in theory, they've got identical sensors, um, identical resolutions, same aperture, should be exactly the same. And I noticed the depth of field was totally different on the um pixel. And what it turns out is part of their imaging pipeline analyses the whole scene and says that's the subject, this should be sharp, and then recreate the the sort of the image from what it's what it's getting from those multiple shots which I didn't realise it was doing. It's almost like im focus stacking but with you having no input, it just goes that's the that's the subject, I want them sharp. On that note, cameras are using AI for autofocus now, aren't they? So um yeah, it's hitting cameras now. Okay. Okay. The imaging pipeline is that the same as when you would shoot in RAW or Pro Mode on those phones? Yes. Yeah, I believe so. It's I I'll I'll I'll double I have got the RAWOs somewhere so I'll double check, maybe I'll pop it in the group as a little comparison um when I've uh when I've run them I'll I'll run them through a you know converter just to take them from from DNG to to JPEG so I can put them on Mi We, but yeah, they're I I think it's exactly the same in both. The um the Poco being six years old and and much lower horsepower has um just taken a a single shot with a single depth of field. And it's really obvious when you when you see it. Well that's not un uncommon, I'm sure, uh in my scepticism of the Pro RAW has which is sort of deteriorated on the iPhone into this over processed mess that it's become. Um people think that's a raw image, the Pro RAW iPhone output, but it's not. It's as heavily processed and exposure stacked and deep fusioned as their JPEGs are. Yeah . Yeah, the the deep fusion actually is is is is basically just doing computational photography on the RORA from from what I've read over the last week. It's there's no way of getting around getting away from it apart from I think it's Halide still got their processes. Halide and um yeah, Light Lightroom has like proper raw images and I can understand why you do need computational stuff. Uh because when you don't use it uh in anything other than the the sort of stellar light you just get a noisy mess. So I I I'm not saying there's no place for a bit of uh computational processing but I think it's getting a bit out of hand at this point. Stella Light, that sounds like a beer. Um The um what I was gonna say was that in the Mi Wee group, the f the um P S sorry, the the um PSC photos at Mi We Group. I did post a poll earlier today and I'm uh it's gonna stay up for three days, but it looks to at the moment as if um fifty percent of the respondents are saying no, don't allow AI here. So um as long as we can clearly define um what that means so that we can say to people that are consider ing putting up um a photo like Pete has. Um or sorry, an image like Pete has, um, then that everyone can be clear about what's acceptable and uh and what's not. I think that that we here probably, um particularly you, Chris, if you can, um, come together um after that poll's finished and put some wording together so that it can be clear to people in the group um what to do and what not to do. Is that okay? Yeah, sure. And I just wanna stress that I'm not having a go at Pete or anything. I don't definitely wanna uh don't wanna feel like we're picking on him. No no it was just uh an image that kind of provides the the catalyst. Yeah, the interesting point of this. And Pete's a lovely bloke and he'll be more interested in this conversation himself than everyone else anyway. So um he'll be absolutely fine with it. So no problem at all. And we encourage it in just in a different group, I think. Yeah, yeah, to too right, too right. Okay, so let's move on to um my best photo taken with a phone, the theme of tonight's show. And we've got a whole bunch of photographs in the um PSC photography shared album on Google um on on Google Photos. So um I guess it's a question of everyone picking one out and having a look at there's so many here that we could be just here all night. So um perhaps take it in turns to pick one and we can um have a look at it. Um um where should we start? Ian, you pick one first . This is the it's supposed to be your favourite one taken of course. No no yours. The idea of the theme for this show was to um say this is the best picture I ever took with a phone as opposed to a camera. Okay. Um b I I think it's it also combines the sort of the the the emotion with it as well. Um I have one that I took uh ten years ago um on the iPhone 6s Plus um in Bali of uh of the sunset. And I I think it was probably my first um proper photograph taken on on a phone. Um and it so it's still sort of um to me it it still looks okay today. The the the one thing I did when I looked back at it, um I I have listed another photograph which is more sort of colourful and that was the one I thought I took on the phone, but I actually took that on a on a camera, so that was a bit of a cheat. Um but yeah, I I think for me um So the one of the sunset so the one we're looking at is the one with the boat in the middle in the in the middle distance and the the clouds and the red uh because people looking at the album just need to know which one it is really. Yeah, the one of the boat was taken with an iPhone, um six S. Uh the the other one I I took was with a very small point and shoot, um Samsung NX 3 I think. Um the the really interesting thing is that the it straight from the camera, so these have only of have basically just gone into Google photos ten years ago and haven't been molested by uh Lightroom or anything like that or even Snapseed. So um I think that makes a difference. Again, I I don't know if as as phones have got better and the cameras have got better, I don't know if they've they've gradually got worse. Um but yeah, for for me that's m that's my favourite because it's the has the memory there but also I was pretty happy with what I actually got out of a of a phone. Mm-hmm. Okay. So thoughts on that one, um, everyone. Do jump in and and feed back to Ian I really like that one. That's uh that makes me now re m now miss my iPhone six S Plus. That was the last time I thought I liked the iPhone colours. So I was I I rue the day I I I sh I smashed mine and I I should have just got it fixed instead of getting saying no . Mm-hmm That's really nice. And like the balance, the way you've just got the boat, boat is slightly off-center to the left . It just works. It's just like almost deliberate enough to be to not look like it should have been in the centre. It's just far enough off. Mm-hmm. And it's a really nice balance. Anyone else? I really like it. And I think there's something kind of authentic about these I think me and Ian have got kind of similar kind of timeline in terms of phones and cameras and w about this sort of time when you're taking phone photos as something really sort of rewarding, probably more than ever. Um as we get more cynical, you kind of forget how kind of rewarding, gratifying it was just to get a really nice image sort of banging camera all done and it's kind of nice to see an unprocessed or just a really nice scene like this so that I can see why these sort of images kind of push you forward to keep going .. Cool And it does make you think if you if you do need this brand new Ultra X9 Pro or the the Lychone when we were producing these sort of things ten years ago . Um with a with an iPhone with s much smaller sensors and a single camera rather than l multiple cameras on the on the phone itself. But I don't know if we're um we're getting lazy or or w we're losing maybe a little bit of the the creativity that we we had back in the day. But I'm for the day when you could put a phone down and it didn't wobble all over the place. There must have been a lot of competition for you though, Ian, in s in selecting your favourite photograph because we've seen quite a lot of your photographs of your Formula One stuff and some of them have been just stunning. But this one is your favourite so it it must have that special edge for you . Yeah I I I think um you you've got to feel something to a photograph and it was just that um the sunsets in Bali were were amazing. So whenever you go back and look at that photograph you bring back memories and I think that's having a connection. Um I probably see that with a lot of Chris's photos as well, that you have that memory you're Sure. Okay. Um Chris, you can go next. Your the ph the best photograph with a phone you ever took? Uh well similar to Ian, and not to disregard your brief uh too much said. I don't know if it's the best, but it's probably the most pivotal um photo I've taken on a phone and for me um this all sh this should be the very first image in the album. It's off for the uh West Pier in Brighton at sunset. Um so it's quite a kind of a contrasty blue and orange scene. Um so this was taken I was gonna check the metadata now, iPhone 13 Pro Max. Um so this has come a few years into me really sort of getting into photography um on the phone which was kind of spearheaded by my listening to you and Steve for years and then I was desperate to get a photo of the week and I was just sort of taking really crappy photos that gradually got better and I was getting a few photos of the weeks. And then I got kind of really, really into photography and just on the phone and uh I got the iPhone twelve and then the iPhone 13 Pro Max I use for this and I came across an app called um even longer which I don't think many people will be that familiar with but it's um it's like a long ex ex posure um it captures long exposures through frame averaging, so it's kind of capturing one image repeatedly and then merging them together to create the illusion of a long exposure. Um so f this image was so important for me because it was kind of the the first time I was really out there, you know, dedicated photography with intent, I had a my tripod, I had my phone at attached to a tripod, you know, at sunset, which probably looked a bit sad, but I was out there and um I set this long exposure up uh for quite a long time. I I think the metadata Chris, the the sequence of photographs in this album are not great. Um so it probably best if we describe what it is. Is it is this the one with the three yellow boys in the water? No, it's the it's the West Pier, which is like the burnt out shell of a pier . Is everyone clear about which one it is? I can't see It's yeah. Right at the bottom. Oh okay. So the what right, okay. The one with um the it's right in the the centre of frame, yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. With the pier right in the centre. Yep, okay, I've got it. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I was out there at sunset and I this is a five minute exposure so I sort of and I had no phone to play with 'cause it was taking the image so I just had to stand there and wait for five minutes. Um yeah, so and I got this image home and I was just like God smokes that I was able to catch this with a phone. Um it I've got a few problems with it now looking back at it, but at the time I absolutely loved it. Um and it kind of was a turning point where I just was out going um anywhere I could to get long exposures. I put a couple more in this group as well that that I really like. And um this kind of led me into the whole photography thing where I am now with the proper cameras and and doing a lot of the long exposure stuff that I do now. So for me that was kind of a really pivotal image and it was like a turning point. Very nice, yeah. Any thoughts, anyone? I actually remember um that period where you you was taking quite a lot of uh long exposure shots with your iPhone, it was really, really good stuff he's put a post in. Yeah, that just's wanted to add that. Mm-hmm. I think the uh the iPhone thirteen Pro Max I maintain is probably the the best kind of uh middle ground of processing and uh camera that the iPhone's ever done. I think once it went to the fourteen they started getting a bit heavy handed with the processing. So thirteen Pro Max had a good battery as well, which was photography . It was a beast phone, yeah. Mm. Very good. Okay, Charlie, what was your favourite shot? Uh my one I think the one I took in Hong Kong of uh the skyscrapers with um the poster of the woman . Um so that I took on the S twenty five Ultra and I actually had all my lenses with me but not the uh one thirty five Sony G Mas ter because I just sold it. So and I was like climbing up a hill. So I needed something lightweight to take the photo and I just packed all my gear away. I didn't really want to uh unpack it just for this one shot. So I just whipped out my phone and just took that photo. So this is this this is lots and lots of buildings and right in the middle of the frame is uh a female on yeah okay uh a woman on the side so I wanted a shot with like a lot of compression. And I think the longest lens I had was the um 24-70 G Master 2. And uh it just wasn't enough. So I think I did this one at I think uh 5x zoom and it just came out wonderfully it was really good it was a bright sunny day um the edit I did was minimal uh just made it a bit more contrasty um played about on the colour wheel. And yeah, I was just really happy with that. I think it's usually with a phone. I appreciate the photos more when I really want to make use of the phone, you know, not going out specially with a lens just to get one shot, which is what I usually do, which is a bit sad in a way, 'cause I could just use my phone and that's what I did here and it just worked out perfectly. Um so yeah, I'm just really happy with that. My short. Any thoughts, anyone? Yeah. Charlie I I've got a question. So I I really love it. It's an epic shot. Thanks. How do you think it would have been different if you'd have taken it on a camera. What would have been different what would be seen differently to this? Would it be just compression, more popping of the billboard or yeah so I did take it with my with my camera with the twenty-four to seventy, but it didn' t have enough reach uh and in post I would have had to crop it in. I think I did crop it in and it it just even though I've got more megapixels to play with it didn't come out well. And with the Samsung camera and as Chris was discussing with I think the Pro Raw on the iPhone, you get this terrible sharpening, like uh just over the top processing, it's horrendous. And I was fortunate enough not to get that with I think there's a cutoff limit with the Samsung. If you go over like 5X, then the processing starts to kick in. You know, when you go 10X or 20X, it's just looks horrendous. But here I was quite lucky and it just the colours came out well. But with the camera um I wasn't getting the compression I wanted because obviously there's a lot of buildings there and it just didn't look right and I was getting too much of the framing around the the the harbour which I didn't want. I didn't want any water. I just wanted the skyscrapers and then the like a portrait of the the woman in the poster . Did you um sorry to just keep on, but did you go out with the intention of getting this shot or was this you were up and you you saw it or Yeah, funny enough this was just uh just complete luck really. I I went there to try and get a view of the harbour and a picture of the skyscrapers which is very different to this. You know if you Google Hong Kong you get the the classic Hong Kong harbour. That's what I was trying to get in the daytime, those kind of images with the rolling hills in the background and when I got my shots I wasn't actually that happy with the shots I got. They just there was a lot of haze in the sky and it just didn't come out well and I thought oh if I had a longer lens I could do compression and then get the shot I wanted without a haze of the clouds. So I was feeling a bit annoyed about not getting the shot I wanted. And as I was walking back, I just saw this poster and I was I was on Logan Road where Victoria Peak is. Um I don't know if anyone knows it, but it's actually free to go up there. Otherwise you've got to go through the tourist trap and like go in the complex and pay to get the same picture. So I just saw that and took out my phone and I was there for maybe a minute just snapping photos on my phone and you know, that was the one I really enjoyed. That's the one I liked the most. Very nice, okay. Cool. Um Ed , the best photograph you ever took on a mobile phone. This is this has been a difficult one for me 'cause I I s I sort of I've gradually as I've gotten more into cameras I've lost interest in phones. I just found especially once we lost the you know, the shutter buttons and the and the decent well then then the decent controls that the Lumi ers had, I s I stopped really enjoying it so I had to go go back a long way. I think the the the the favourite one for me is is goes right back to the No cia N eight uh sunset I took um from a pub called the Ramsholl Arms. I don't know if Ian's been to that one. It's on the Suffolk Coast. Um but it and I just remember being sort of blown away at the time with just how much it had captured. Yes it you know, nowadays it'd probably look at and look be looked at and think, well that's not you know, that's blown out where the sun is and the the shadows don't have that much detail in them but it it just captured the scene exactly as it was to my eyes. So and that was the f I remember the first time I was like, Wow, you know, this this this phone camera can really do something. So this is the one that's looking out across the water with the sun coming down the middle and an umbrella in the kind of middle right, yeah? Yeah, and you can just about see there's a there's like a couple um just just very softly lit by the sunset. Yeah. Um and and you can very very darkly see adnums written on the b umbrella and stuff. There's still details there, it's just dark 'cause it was dark. It's uh it's it and that's how it how it should have been and the sort of the the very um like feathery clouds in the sky . I was just really impressed with all that detail and um it was really hard to think of anything else that that I was that pleased with to be honest. So that was the N Nokia N eight? Yep. Yep, all the way back in twenty twelve. Okay. Um that this um poses the question of what the problem is with mobile photography to a to a certain degree. It's gone to HoDR heavy. 'Cause I think this is a wonderful image. But a modern smartphone would have had the whole uh foreground would have been really bright and you'd see the couple and and yeah and it wouldn't have the same impact . Hmm. Yeah. I think that's why people like Xiaomi quite a lot, 'cause they ha try and have this more of this type of look out of the camera . Hmm, is it the like or authentic or something. Yeah. Yeah. I I have found um Ted's very kindly lent me a pair of old uh of the Xperia Mark IVs and I've been playing with those cameras and I I do just find that having a shutter button Um Ed, you say that you don't like shooting with a phone and you prefer like a real camera. Is that because um the the phones as we discussed previously, they're more over sharpened and as Joe said, you know, there there's more processing and more light in in a picture now. So you prefer the old older phones where you get this more this more original image where it where nothing's overprocessed? Possibly, yeah. I hadn't really thought of it from that way. I was thinking of it purely from the ergonomics, because it's that thing uh to me I think it's if my finger's on a shutter button, I'm feeling like I've got a camera there. Do you know what I mean? But then again you don't always have a phone. But actually when you go out, but you always have a phone on you. But the well I I say that I tend to carry one pretty much everywhere. I I must get so many looks that I just ignore . I I normally have one in my bag at work somewhere. I'll try and fit something in. Micro four thirds doesn't take up that much ro om. But um but yeah, I I I I had you know, you you've got a good point there and uh it's probably also because I'm just not enjoying the output so much, but I was really impressed with um the Experior 5 for in particular, the um the the little two and a half times camera which um matches sixty millimeter equivalent focal length matches exactly a lens I've got on micro four Hertz and uh an old uh a NICOR um lens I've got from the APSC. Um DSL. With having a um a viewfinder is obviously better, but you're it's always a balance between convenience, isn't it, with a phone, versus having you know the ergonomics and the and the proper view. Definitely. And Sony having that having that Sony I I was first shocked at how sharp that that two and a half X camera is. But also then having sort of that caught my interest, I then started looking at the actual pictures and their their processing is so much more natural. So I think it's I think that's maybe something uh I need to play around with a bit more and see just how much uh just how much that that brings back the enjoyment. It's hard to separate it from the ergonomics as well though, because it's on that phone. Yeah. Talking about processing again, and I think Chris will be able to help me out here, with the Lightroom app on on um my Samsung and presumably on iPhone as well, it removes the sharpening from the camera on the phone. So if you wanted to shoot on your phone without the horrible processing, you can do that just using the Lightroom app. That's quite good. Don't know Chris might be able to expand on that, but it it's really good if you just want like a default view from your camera. It's taking a genuine raw image from the sensor, but as I said before, that is fine in in good conditions, but as soon as you get in anything slightly lower light, then you're gonna be faced with like ISO through the roof and a really, really noisy image where exposure stacking does make a bit more sense. Um what would be nice is if you could kind of uh augment what processing is done in terms of exposure stacking and sharpening and noise reduction. I'd probably just take the exposure stacking and um leave everything else. But um yeah, you can get raw images but the sensors are so small in the Samsungs and the iPhones that um you'd need to be going up to the one inch Chinese phones I think to make it really worthwhile to get a a a genuine raw image out of it. Mm I've often found that I I don't tend to want to process my phone phone pictures 'cause again it's that I use the phone for the convenience, not because uh not because I've I've got any intent for it I suppose. So I don't I don't tend to think that way. But that that has been I've I've had my position knocked by the experience, shall we say ? I'm question ing my reasoning again now. Okay . Um Joe, let's go to Joe next and um Yeah, you might have to refresh because I've added some in there. Again I'd say they're not going to say they're my best, um but a phone that I was quite fond of is the X one hundred Ultra, my only Ultra phone I've I've had. Um and you can see the the merry go round um it was going very very fast this was on auto mode and you see the shot of the man that I've took um and where he was like the telephotos really captured it really well and the shutter speed was good. This was on auto, like you'd think that'd be an absolute mess on the phone. Um but it's come out quite well. Uh I thought, at least, if that's what you guys think . It's a great photo. I really like that . Thank you. Well I I mean I was I was a bit in shock that he actually nailed it. I c I didn't expect it to to be able to do it on the phone. So we're we're talking about the guy the the the the one with the guy's head in the middle are ? Yeah, looking like confused. Yeah. Okay. Um you can see where I put I put the wider shot just to show you where whereabouts he would be situated in there and how far away I was. Yeah. Um and yeah, it's it's come out really well. And I'm quite I really do like taking photos of people taking photos. So um the London Eye one there of someone, my friend taking a shot, um I I think it d it got the exposure really well there as well . Cool. Okay, nice one. Um and the BlackBerry, I like the BlackBerry. Yeah, I again I was in really impressed with the the detail and and the the um bokeh and like the natural bokeh. The the phone really performed really well with that. Again this is auto, like um uh I'm very lazy, I'd never really go on the map pro modes on phones. Um and I I was really quite impressed by it. This is all all X one hundred Ultra these . Yeah yeah. Um Ed you you like your macro. Any thoughts on that BlackBerry He's had to step out for a second. No, no, sorry I'm I'm back now. He's back . Um no it's really good, isn't it? Very looks very uh sort of clean without too much you know, interference. So maybe uh maybe there's something else I can look at for for slightly better uh slightly more natural pictures. That looks really good. A Vivo X one hundred Ultra um the that that that brown stuff just towards the top of it is very sharp, isn't it? Very nice . That's I'll have to try and uh try and come up with something correct. Oh we won't have blackberries for months yet, will we? So I can't I can't do a blackberry, but Okay , go and do a test. The one that I wanted to throw in the pot was my um snooker picture which I which sees the light of day every now and again. I took this on a well it t it tells me it was a Nokia eight, but I think it was a Nokia eight Sorocco personally. Um the phone that I really loved. And I I just re there's a couple of things I don't particularly like about my snooker shot, which is that um the front red ball is not round. Um so the wide angle has just that that is just not round enough for me. It's made a slightly egg shape. And the other thing is that um I don't particularly like the fact that you can see stuff um in the black round the the the back of the table. On reflection I think that it might be better if it was completely black back there. Now I know that you guys would easily be able to manage to do that using um Photoshop or whatever tools. Um but I'd have no idea where to start frankly. Um but I but uh laying those two things aside, I just really like the the juxtaposi ju juxtaposition of the bulls, the colours, the the the texture of the cloth um and I just thought it was a really nice picture and I enjoyed taking it. Um any thoughts on that anyone? I've been around long enough to remember this I think the f the first time. And it's one of my favourites. It's one of the favourites in this whole album. I love it so much and uh the snooker cue it makes the image 'cause you've got the perfect leading line and you've got what I love the most where there's no overlapping balls, you know, crossing paths. They're all separated. They all kind of form a triangle towards the back corner. Uh I agree though, if you brought those shadows down at the end it would add a bit more contrast, but as you said that'd be easily done. So I think did was you actually playing Snooker or did you just go there to take pictures? No no, this was during a game I was playing. No, I I really like it 'cause I like Snooker as well and I often use the queue to sort of try and line up shots I'm rubbish at sneaker though. I just think the colours are nice as well. And and if you look at the the um as you you tend to get with um snooker photographs, the ref the the reflection, the the shining of the l the lights above the table coming down on the the balls at different angles. I just I I like the whole kind of way in which that worked. Um so is there anything I can do to make my near red ball not egg shaped Not really, but I wouldn't want to anyway. I think I I like it. It kind of adds to the the kind of the leading lines from the corners. Yeah. I like the um the different texture on the cloth as well, like the darker and lighter areas all the way across the whole table. Mm-hmm Cool. Okay, thanks very much for that bit of feedback. So um right, where are we going to go from here? We've done that bit, we've done that bit. Um Ed Ed, you put some notes in the um recording notes here. Did we cover this while you went along or is there something still to say from there? Yeah, we did, I think. Okay. So Chris, um you did the next bit . Um same question to you. Um do is that covered now or do we need to visit? Okay. And Ian, one more bit for you. Did you cover that in yours? Yeah, I I I think so. I I think it was a similar sort of journey that Chris took from sort of phone photography into going into uh cameras but I I I still think there's a a place for for mobile because it's with you all the time and you can experiment with it. So um yeah. What can I pick up one thing you uh Ian said if that's okay where he said that um things really took off with the introduction to Pro RAW. Uh that was exactly my experience. I remember I got the iPhone 12 pretty much specifically for Pro RAW, because that was kind of revolutionary where it was um stacking raw images giving you a lot of uh leeway in the edit. Um and it it was a massive difference um at the time. It really did make a huge difference in terms of how you could edit the images. So I think Apple really sort of hit gold with Pro Raw and they kind of started to ruin it in the last few iterations. But yeah, that was a big deal for me as well. Right. Okay. Um we did invite members of the group to put their photographs in the album and I think the only one outside of us to have done that is probably as he scans through to check um uh Chad Dixon who's who's put in a photograph he took with his Samsung Galaxy S twenty five FE which is a picture um a black and white picture of a a bunch of people walking up and down um some stairs, presumably at some uh London tube station, um which um I guess uh is up for critique. Um uh so uh let's have some thoughts on that one. Has everyone got that in front of them now? Any thoughts I like it. Yeah, rule the thirds . And it's I don't know w uh it's quite i interesting because all the people on the bottom left are kind of in black and all the people on the top right are in white. Yeah, there's like a triangle, isn't there? Like a a diagonal line where the top half as you said are white and then the bottom half are all wearing black. Yeah . Interesting. Um anyone else ? And also with that, the ones in black are going up and the ones in white are coming down. It's like all much planned. Chad will stand there all day to make sure that you've got the right combination of uh an interesting image though, isn't it? We're all looking at and finding patterns and and uh there's points of interest. Uh yeah. It's a good photo. I mean I I like it. What um aspect ratio is that? Sixteen by nine? No, it's wider. I think it's twenty-one by nine, five to guess. Yeah. But I think it really works for for the for the shot itself. It's it's again, it's one of those things that makes you look at it more and more and see things, which I guess is the um the the the sort of the the art of creating a great photo is that people look at it for longer than just swiping past it. So Tell a story. What I actually like is you've got like a house at the back on the right and right the the tip of the roof is just touching the line of the subway entrance which I I kind of like. And there's also a pair of eyes looking out from the top of it. Even that pattern there's a like a white fronted triangle and then a a darker fronted triangle on the other side. Photoshop and I'd actually make the other side of the building the same size as the one on the on the right and I'd make it so it it it touches the top entrance . Just so you've got symmetry. That's just me there. Mm-hmm . The only thing that catches my eye which is annoying is to see the muck on the the stairs on the right. On the white bit of stairs. Yeah. There's also interesting reflections and shadows though. So on the left you've got quite a lot of reflections going on on the wall and then on the right you've got long shadows from the sun. in that um picture. So thanks for putting that in there. Um I think that I I think I'm right in saying that's the only one. Um but do if you if you're posting photographs into the group for discussion, please put them into the shared album. If you put them in um to the shared album like Chad did there, then we know what you mean pretty much. You know you you're happy to have them discussed. But if you just put them in the group then we're not quite sure. So um the link to the shared album is on the website at phoneshowchhat dot uh uk so you can always find it there and um yeah yeah let us see what you've been shooting and we'll add it in. So now we move to the kind of um catch up, the fortnightly catch up from anyone that's been taking interesting photographs or anything that's in that photography album still that we haven't discussed. The world is your royster. Um Chris you've got quite a few that I think were um over from the week before. The the the last show, weren't they? Yeah I've got some holdovers which is lucky 'cause I haven't really done anything uh in the interim. Uh so uh but yeah a few weeks back um took a little walk to a place called Slindon Estate which is um just past Arund or . And uh it wasn't a dedicated photography trip, it was like a family you know day out, a family walk. Um and but there was some amazing bluebells there and I just had the one lens with my uh Sony camera which was a 70 to 200 which I thought might help with a bit of compression uh which turned out to be the case. So I got one kind of bluebell image that I'm really happy with. It's just kind of a vista of all the trees uh with some some light coming through. It wasn't the best time of day, middle of the day, fast light. I didn't really fancy the three o'clock uh sunrise trip on that day. So I took a similar image with the iPhone just for contrast which actually came out quite well but it's a little bit busy and a little bit more kind of fussy. Um but I think my favourite image from that trip was um the layers of countryside. I think I I I labelled it in the notes there. Um it's be it'll be obvious which one it is. It's kind of uh a row of trees and a a more orangey row of trees behind it. I think that was my favourite image 'cause it's got kind of a water water coloury kind of look to it which was fairly out camera. I just threw a preset on it. Um looks like a painting. It's is it AI? I'm not I'm not I'm not crazy about the composition, th there's a bit of foreground which I couldn't really get right to not not be so distracting. Um doesn't didn't matter how I cropped it, it kind of annoyed me a little bit. So it's not perfect, but I do I do like the the feel of the image. So I got some nice uh blue bells. I'm happy with that. Um couple of macros as well. I think that the I think that the foreground green matches the the background blue sky in terms of position in the frame, doesn't it? Yeah, that's what I was going for. Yeah. Okay. But I I don't know, I I just wasn't totally happy with it but a bit fussy like that. Um so that was that uh trip. Yeah, so I was fairly happy with it but not you know, nothing groundbreaking. And I also got the drone out for the first time in a little while, just up from by and there's uh a load of rapeseed fields. Is that is that what they're called? Rapeseed? Yeah. Bright yellow flowers. Um I've got my DJI flip uh back into the air. Um I'm getting a bit fed up with it. It's useless in anything sort of beyond a strong breeze, you get all kinds of warnings and it barely moves. I think it's got worse in that aspects but I also kinda like how sort of cheap and crap it is, you know, I just throw it in a bag and get it up and I'm not so an anxious about flying it as I was on more expensive drones. Um so I'm quite happy I got some top down views which my favourite kind of drone shots. Get some nice pat terns and nice abstracts. Um so I've put all those in the album as well and the the one I like the most is the one with the kind of the two more prominent lines coming diagonals from the left hand side. It's just a really simple image but I just find it quite pleasing. I was gonna say that. And it and it could be a a picture of a sofa or a cushion, couldn't it? Yeah, it could be anything. I kinda like that. And it maybe you know if it wasn't if it was out of context people would have to look a few times to find work out what it is. So I quite enjoyed my little my little drone flight. I had a bit of anxiety 'cause I was about uh about one and a half kilometres out at this furtherest point and I didn't realise that it was obviously a lot windier where it was than where I was so it struggled a bit but just made it back. Very good. But yeah, I I uh that's all I've done really, not too much.. Hmm Well, it's uh more than I did. Um anyone else? Any thoughts on that or any additions of your own from the the um album other stuff that's been put in there ? I I think I'm with you on the the last shot, the the drone shot. I think that's really great, the the the the the the two lines on that and also probably the uh the the first shot of the the bluebells uh say I I live around the corner from a from a wood which has bluebells and I I've I go there on a regular basis and I just can't find a composition for the life of me. So it's nice to see someone shooting something that's acceptable. Yeah, you need to find these kind of I think they're called like artificial forests or something where that are man made. They get really clean floor they don't have all the messy sort of uh branches and trees on the floor. Um but um I had to go quite a way to get this one. So I was a bit disappointed because there was a more local one that I go to. Uh but they've done some deforestation so it's really messy and I'd always gotta try and get there for sunrise but this one was just too far out and have to get up at three in the morning for a sunrise on this one. Which I'll I'm not doing. So yeah, I was quite happy with it Ian. Cheers. Okay . All right then. Um anyone else? Charlie, you've been out with your camera? Uh no, I haven't. No, unfortunately. So I haven't got any pictures to show, only the old ones that I've taken over the years with my phone. Okay . Um Ed has had to drop out of the call. He did have um something else to say about uh his five um S five D um which is similar to the camera you've got, isn't it, um Joe ? Yeah, yeah, quite similar. Yeah, but I think the D didn't the D take something away or um make it more I can't remember now. There was something they they changed about the D version, weren't there? Um mine's a I think the newer the newer phone uh newer phone, newer camera. Okay. Wise mark two. Five mark two. Right, okay. Well if we're done with those um items then we'll move into the rumors and news for a double header from Chris and Charlie by the looks of it. So um couple of items in there. What have we got? Uh the big I guess it's not a rumour now because Sony literally today uh dropped confirmation that the new Sony A seven R six will be announced on May the thirteenth. This is the A7R lines, their flagship Steels uh camera. I've got the A7R5 like Charlie has and like Ian used to have. So we'll be throwing our cameras into the sea next week. Uh the the rumour side of it is the rumoured specs, which are kind of crazy. So um there will be a slight bump in resolution. We're at sixty one megapixels now on the A7R5 and it's gonna be sixty-seven megapixels . The the big thing here is it's fully stacked sensor, uh which is definitely unprecedented for a full frame uh with this resolution. We've got the um Sony A1 and the A12, which is 50 megapixel with a stack sensor, but this is you know obviously a lot more resolution. And to have the kind of speed that fully stack sensored will give you is is gonna be interesting. Can you can you uh very briefly for those that might not know, um explain what that means, is the fully stacked sensor . Yah, so I I don't know the physics of it completely, but the you know the the long and short of it is it means that you can take a lot more images in a shorter space of time because the readout speed is so much quicker. Um the the physics of it to, be honest, are probably beyond me. Okay . But yeah, it just means that at the moment are the A seven R five's on I think eleven frames a second. Um and now they're talking about thirty frames a second, uh full RAW, full f uh fourteen bit RAW, which is uh kinda crazy for this kind of resolution because typically the higher the resolution, the slower the readout speed because there's so much more data to capture . Um which is why a lot of the higher speed cameras are lower resolution like the um A nine three or the Cannon R one. So this will be interesting but it's not also this isn't the only big news on the camera. They're talking about a whole new body design , uh a whole new UI, which is what I'm really interested in. Um there'll be a new uh battery format which will be uh replacing I think about ten years uh history of the SZ1000 battery to say they're talking about fifty percent longer battery life. Um the the the main issue with this camera is that it's kind of gonna be better than the Sony A one two, which is their best camera, uh, for less money, although this camera's gonna cost around five thousand dollars. Um the A one two's at I think seven thous and, so um there's a few com a fuse commenters on the uh Alpha Rumor site asking why would anyone now buy the A one two for seven thousand when this camera kind of seems to be way better, way newer, and it's gonna have a whole new w UI uh for a couple of grand less. So um I was skeptical of this camera first, now I'm really, really interested, especially in the new UI because uh banging on about it for ages how old and sort of uh bedraggled these old camera UIs are. So I'm hoping they really try and push it forward and have a bit more of a kind of a phone interface, a bit more intuitive. Yeah but would you five grand on a Well no, I I haven't got five grand to drop on it, but uh um if I did I'd be more interested than than I was seeing what's coming. How much realistically we get for your body . Um I think Charlie you looked at this, didn't you didn't you see how much it you'd get from MPB when Yeah, I think for my one for the um A7R five you're looking at about I think they're offering like fifteen hundred. Yeah. Sixty Yeah. Sixty. So you're gonna you're still gonna have to find even through eI infinity or someone great market, you're still gonna be looking at another two and a half, three grand, aren't you? Yeah, no one's gonna pay that. I mean like okay, it's better than our cameras, but for what? I mean, you know, the A seven R five's incredible for low light. What are you actually paying for? Incremental improvements. I mean Yeah, it it will all be iterative. Yeah. But you still want it, don't ya? Yeah. Yeah. I mean I didn't really need to go from the A seven four to the A seven R five, but I did it anyway. But that that was uh a far less expensive upgrade than this would be. So I realised what I said when I said about selling your body could have been interpreted the wrong way. So I'm glad you guys realised. Um so we'll see next week, but also on the same day, uh another sort of confirmed rumour, if that's a thing, is that Sony are finally replacing the ancient one hundred to four hundred um with with the uh 100 to 400 fixed aperture f4.5 internal zoom lens. This lens is obviously going to be amazing, GM branded. It will be optically perfect. I wish I could afford this lens. I I had a couple of versions of the older one. I wasn't happy with it. I'd love to have a go at this one. But again, they're talking uh about five thousand dollars or more for this camera uh for this lens. So um I'll just be watching the reviews I think. Um and someone's added in, I don't know who it was, was it you Charlie or Ian? The Nikon Ruth Yeah I I think probably the the real news this week was the um the the the the coming soon the the Nikon one hundred twenty to three hundred two point eight with tele converter. Um I I could see this being probably a lot more than the the Sony camera. Um there's no prices or anything yet, but I would I would love this. What's the weight though? I I it looks pretty small. Um and if you look at the the 400th uh prime , I mean that's that's definitely serviceable, but I I don't think um I mean it's a professional lens, but with the the teleconverter built in and experiencing the 400 two point eight, it it is it's the best lens I've ever used. So I I'd imagine this being very expensive unfortunately. You should get what, um four hundred F four with the teleconverter? Yeah, yeah. Um so amazing by itself, isn't it? Yeah, because the the four hundred with the teleconverter, I think that goes to yeah, F4 and gives you five hundred and sixty mil . Um it's a really good lens but um I think it's definitely gonna be out of my league but it's interesting um say Nikon don't bring out lenses that often and something like this is where they're they've they've sort of launched the trailer for it before they've sort of given any details. So I'll be interested to see um how much it goes for and also if I got an opportunity to maybe borrow one later on this year once it's released, uh Or do you reckon it'll be a five figure price on this ? I I would th I would think so. I mean if you look at the four hundred two point e ight retail is fourteen hundred uh fourteen grand . So I I would see this being around the eight, ten grand mark I would I would assume. Um but it would be nice to try one anyway. Darle's bought houses for less than that . Very nice. Okay, start saving everyone for all that lovely gear. Charlie, you had some stuff to say about um niche cameras? Yeah, uh just an observation. There was an article, um a video actually on DP review um just talking about how photography is moving more towards uh niche cameras uh and how modern cameras are you know already better than most photographers and that the the bottleneck is is usually skill vision or creativity rather than hardware and how the industry is moving kind of in that direction of catering catering more towards kind of like digital lifestyle, nomad travel lifestyle consumerism. So you'd have like one camera for like street, one for low light, one for infrared. And I think this is really the market's way of like trying to extract more money from the customer. It's saying you can't have one really expensive camera, you have to have several um several expensive cameras really just to achieve the same the same goal which is which is sad in a way because I've kind of been trapped in in in this kind of mindset. I now I have several cameras each for a specific use case and I think the market is kind of going in that direction. That's just kind of what they were discussing and they were looking at like um the Fuji film X Pro 3, how that's a very specialised street style. I think it's a rangefinder camera. And then you have that abysmal Fuji X half camera, which is just a joke. Um that's the one with the um I think it's a portrait orientated uh backscreen or something. It it just looks terrible. The sensor is shoot landscape you've got to do portrait. Turn it out away. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, which is a joke, isn't it? Um it's outrageous. It it is, it is outrageous. And they're trying to really cater towards younger users and you weren't like this Ted who are they prefer shooting without um a viewfinder. Yeah. So they're bringing more yeah more and more cameras to the market without a viewfinder and they're kind of like you know not focusing on like the OGs, the people who have been in the game for a long time. We just want a camera that works with a viewfinder. I mean that is what the camera is about. I I don't want a camera without a viewfinder. I see that as um y you know that's something I don't want as a consumer. So it was really going into depth how camera brands are trying to attract new audiences, younger audiences through this kind of hybrid photo video user camera, which is ironic 'cause you could just use your phone if that's what you wanted, you know, photo and video. You wouldn't buy a video camera, would you? You just use a phone. But this is what they're trying to do with their marketing and um AI wasn't really mentioned, but I do think um AI in the use of this is my own thought, I think using AI to create predictive composition would be a good idea to garner greater support for new users into the camera market. What I mean when I say that is like actually having the screen give you predictive guidance of the, you know, leading lines, diagonals, um, rule of odds, th these kind of things that newbies wouldn't understand, having that just pop up in real time on the rear view screen or the viewfinder, I think that would be really a really good use of AI. And it was just talking about these different things for building loyalty with customers of the yet to into the market . Yeah, yeah, it sounds very interesting and um I I think you're right, all those things that you just said and um the the in fact this goes a bit back to Ian y you were talking on um the PSC about unbundling um and taking apart the uh you know the the the converged everything, weren't you? And and this is kind of a similar kind of theme, isn't it ? Yeah, I I'm I'm skeptical with Charlie on this as they just want to sell you more cameras but um but following this I have been on eBay looking at ten twenties and um the the Lumi of N eight and stuff like that. If you're interested to go back to that and see what those cameras can do on those phones, they're relatively quite cheap now to to try those neat niche cameras, I think. So um but yeah you already get like niche lenses, don't you, for for like certain things. Um so yeah, they're just it is all about getting money. But you get better you get more bang for your buck, don't you, Joe, with a niche lens versus a niche camera. I mean there's only so much you could do with a niche camera. With a niche lens you get a I don't know a tilt shift or an infrared uh spectrum lens or something. Or macro lens. Yeah. You just get more money you know, more for your money's worth really. I still want to get one of them actually. Yeah, they're they're good fun and they're pretty cheap. It's a shame that um Ed's had to drop out really because he would have something to say about niche uh some of the lenses he goes after are really niche and um he's had some good results with those that macro lens particularly the I think it's a thirty millimetre um Olympus Zuko, isn't it? But um he'll correct me no doubt in the group afterwards if that's wrong but yeah so is is all this a big problem or are we just going to embrace it and move on? The AI thing you were talking about, Charlie sounds uh at first I thought you were gonna say this is terrible, but you actually said this could actually work. No, it's fantastic because you were just basically taking a process that you would learn over X amount of months or years and you're speeding it up for the user. So why wouldn't that be a good thing? I mean I think that's great. You know, if you could learn if you could process information, whether it's cameras, language, mathematics, whatever. If you can speed that up for the end user, then that's a win, I think. And I can summarise the article by you know in one sentence and I don't like this word. Vibes over image quality is now the real category when it comes to creating new cameras. So they're they're looking at different, you know, it's the experience, selling the user an experience over selling the user a product that can generate better image quality. But that's what I'm all about. I'm all about like you know creating high fidelity images. I'm not interested in the vibes or the experience what the camera can offer me. I'm more interested in the image quality. But that's the direction the market seems to be going in with this kind of experimentation with niches. It's quite good to get the younger users um onto a camera and away from phones is that like their first camera. I think that's a nice aspect of it I guess. Um but I think so but I think with a cam with with a phone I would be all for a smartphone as they are now but with an actual physical uh shutter button on the phone. Like um I think Ed mentioned the um the the new Oppo phone, the Oppo X Ultra nine that has a physical shutter button . And then so does the uh the uh iPhone seventeen Pro Max and Pro. They have like a a shutter button that has like a sp like a haptic kind of you can toggle it for the zoom or something. I think that's a great idea and I wish more smartphones had a button just d dedicated to taking photos. Yeah well it's this is a conversation for another time but phones are trying to become more like cameras uh all the time. N ifow they 're external lenses on these ultras. Um yeah be we'll have to get into that discussion another time but it'll be good. Okay. Um last shout out to Chris um and his photograph in the album of the three buildings with a giant long dinghy over the top of them, which I think is a terrific image taken with the iPhone fourteen Pro Max in December 22. Um if everyone could have a look at that and perhaps Chris you could tell us what that is, where it is and um a bit about it. That's Marina Bay Sands in Singapore . Um yeah, so this was I still only had a phone at that point, no camera, I believe. Uh and yeah, this is a long exposure made using even longer and I can find it doesn't give me the correct um metadata. But yeah, I think it was about five or six minutes. That's what I normally used to do. I used to do way too long to be honest. But it did kind of give the sky an a an ethereal look and it was taking a blue hour. Um yeah, it's probably one of my favourite images I've ever taken on the phone because it's got the orange lights and it's got the the colour contrast with the blue s water and the blue sky. Um one thing to know about even longer is an app and if if anyone's into sort of long exposures, I would highly recommend it is that it takes genuine raw images from the sensor, as we were mentioning but before, but because they're being stacked, it eradicates all noise and you get uh the cleanest image you'll ever see from a genuine raw photo. Uh it's cleaner than I get out of my Sony now, um because it's stacking so many raw images that all the noise is gone and you just get pure detail and there's no processing other than the s the frame averaging. Um so yeah, I just really like this image as well, Ted. It's uh well centered and it's got um a minimal amount of colour but just enough to pop. Very nice. Yeah, for Singapore . Um on the right hand side in the in in the album it says um one thousand one hundred and thirteen frames in three minutes and one second. Oh yes. So um Oh yeah, yeah, I just seen that, yeah. Frame averaging mode. Yeah. Right. Yeah, three minutes. Hmm. Very good. Any other anyone else want to say anything about that before we finish? I just wanted to mention a different image that I really like. Um the lady holding the umbrella on the zebra crossing. Um I love images with warm tones and cool tones in 'em. Um with the orange and the the the blue. Um and this looks like she's posing for you. It's it's brilliant. I love it. It was absolutely pissing it down when I took this. It was so wet I like I couldn't get my camera out, even though it's sort of weather proof, whatever that means, it was absolute torrential rain, so all I had uh on me was a phone to use really. Uh and the streets were empty, that's how wet it was and normally it's Tokyo, you you can't move for p people so you can s that'll tell you how how horrible the weather was. Yeah and I just she was I think she was like out there trying to sell something to people walking past the tourists but I just kind of crouched down in front of her and took this snap. And I to be honest, I didn't even see the person crossing the road behind her. That was just a lucky accident. And that's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah, it makes the image for me. I had no idea they were there until I g I got back, but yeah. Um I did um up the blues and up the oranges on either side, just to give you that contrast if if you want to know. But yeah. Yeah, it was like camera . It was uh it was exaggerated for sure. Very nice. Okay then. Thanks very much, gents. And um we'll be back in for another show as long as there's enough people to m build a quorum here on the twenty first of May. Thursday the twenty first of May. Um if you are a photographer, whether it be with a phone or camera, and you want to come on the show, join in the band and talk about um yeah, particularly as we include cam uh cameras in phones now then do give us a shout and do offer to come on. You'll be very welcome to join the the happy band here. Um so um yeah the website don't forget now is part of PSC so you'll find all the stuff about this show on um sorry uh phoneshowchhat dot UK and also in the feeds for um PSC the phone show chat in terms So do um try not to get too confused. Um give me a shout in the Mi We Group if you are confused and we'll try and point you in the right direction and uh we'll apologize for that um straight away now. But hopefully we'll be back in two weeks time and we'll see you there. Thanks for listening and uh take care everyone.