Full disclosure: I have a penchant for quirky, cheap toy cameras. I love the low-fi quality and weird anomalies that cheap plastic lenses produce. I was an early adopter of ‘Lomography’ and have a growing collection of oddball cameras. Most of my ‘toy’ cameras use film, and as such, the increasing cost of film and processing taints the fun factor.

So I was delighted when the Camp Snap camera appeared on my Instagram feed and I snapped it up (see AP’s full review here). Think disposable camera but with a digital sensor instead of a roll of film. It is a delightfully simple camera that I was instantly seduced into purchasing for around $60 (£47).

Green grins – Ben loves his lo-fi Camp Snap

Camp Snap: not just for kids

The Camp Snap is a very easy-to-use camera designed for kids on holiday camps with the idea that they can remain ‘present’ without distraction by screens. So there is no screen.

There’s very little to the camera, in fact – a shutter release that doubles as the on-off button and a flash setting, which has three options: on, off and auto.

Images can only be viewed after connecting the camera to a computer via a USB-C cable, which also doubles as the charging socket. The micro SD card is accessible, but you’ll need a small screwdriver.

In sunnier climes with great light, the Camp Snap comes into its own

Besides that, a simple LED counter lets you know how many photos you’ve taken. The viewfinder isn’t much to write home about, and once I had a sense of its field of view, I didn’t use it, preferring an element of educated guesswork.

The plastic lens has a field of view equivalent to about 35mm, which is perfect for me as that’s more or less the only focal length I use anyway.

To be honest, it’s not just kids that could do with remaining photographically ‘present’ without the distraction of screens, so this camera is perfect for most adults, too. Me included.

I’ve taken Camp Snap on a couple of recent international trips and had a great experience. Being free of the shackles of settings, menus, modes, and all the other bells and whistles associated with modern digital cameras was a liberating experience.

Retro subjects suit the lo-fi vibe particularly well

Being in the moment and embracing looking without being encumbered by technology is a beautiful experience. The toy-ness of the camera makes me behave less preciously about my image-making, too, and this is also a refreshing way to connect with the world photographically.

This mindful way of connecting with the world is important to me, and I sense is an approach that’s gaining popularity. The image quality is predictably poor when stacked up against a serious camera.

Better than you’d think

I made this little comparison below with my medium-format Fujifilm GFX 50R. As you would expect, the image quality from the much more expensive Fujifilm camera is far superior, even more so when you zoom in, so the comparison is a bit silly, albeit interesting.

I use the comparison in my workshops and talks to make the point that the act of looking, seeing and noticing, a sense of composition, design and an appreciation of light, along with storytelling, are all more important factors than the kit when it comes to making images. These two images below are essentially the same and make that point.

With the Fujifilm GFX 50R

With the Camp Snap

The JPEGs out of the CampSnap are reasonable, perhaps marginally better than you expect. They generally have a lovely lo-fi vibe, which holds an allure for me. I run them through Adobe Camera Raw to tweak the tones and contrast and typically leave the colour as I found it.

I add a decent dose of grain, preferring the film-esque look to the jpg artefacts and digital noise, particularly noticeable in low-light photos made with the Camp Snap. There is a lag with the shutter, so the timing is a honed art that requires a decent amount of anticipation.

Various locations around the world were photographed with the Camp Snap. Looking for scenes that work, such as high-contrast situations with strong shadows, rich colour and a subject matter that suits the low-fi aesthetic.

It’s safe to say this is not a camera for action photography or any other activity which requires a quick response. That doesn’t matter, though, and this limitation also adds to the joy of using the Camp Snap camera and further encourages a ‘mindful’ attitude.

I’ve had the good fortune to travel a lot this year and encounter lots of lovely low raking light, rich contrast, long shadows, and an ethereal glow. The Camp Snap performs better in these conditions and produces some lovely colours.

I became a little obsessed with using the Camp Snap to capture my shadow, and for this, it worked a treat. The LED flash is pretty rubbish and can produce odd colours, but these, too, can be embraced once you free yourself from any hang-ups around quality.

Shadow self-portraits shot with the Camp Snap in the low, raking winter in various port towns worldwide.

Camp Snap: embrace the odd

With this camera you need to accept and celebrate its intrinsic rubbishness. If you have a creative instinct, can embrace happenstance, are not overly precious, and feed off the spirit of creative adventures, this is just the camera for you.

I don’t quite dare to leave all my cameras at home for big trips. I couldn’t, as I rely on them to make my living. However, I’m increasingly slinging my Camp Snap in my daily backpack and love using it on mundane trips to the supermarket.

It makes a great conversation piece with fellow creatives and comes in a bunch of swanky, stylish colours to choose from. Mine is green. This is a camera that a creative image-maker of any age can embrace and love.

Further reading:

• Best compact cameras
• Vintage digital cameras you should actually buy
• Read our Camp Snap camera review

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk

The post Why everyone should try this $60 camera appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

When I first started using Photoshop seriously in 2005, Photoshop CS2 was the current version of the software which was launched that same year. It was a huge upgrade from Photoshop 7.

The CS2 version of Photoshop (and Creative Suite CS2) marked a turning point with the launch of Adobe Bridge, which as digital asset management software, provided a place where you could organise, view, rate and open raw files in Adobe Camera Raw, and other file types in Photoshop with ease.

It was essentially an early version of the Library Module in Lightroom. Adobe Camera Raw had been introduced with Photoshop CS1 back in 2003, and was finally complemented by a great way to view and manage photos – meaning Bridge was a huge and welcome upgrade.

Multiple images can be opened in ACR and settings can be synced

You may have noticed that I’ve talked about what Bridge can do in the past tense, and that’s not an accident: I don’t know any photographers who still use the software.

I also can’t recall any photographers in the last 10 years who have told me that they still use Adobe Camera Raw, whereas many amateur photographers I’ve met have told me that they only use Lightroom and have no need for Photoshop, despite subscribing to the Photography Plan, which includes Photoshop.

So, it’s this, alongside my own desertion of Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw that got me thinking, are Adobe Camera Raw and Bridge effectively dead and, ultimately, pointless these days?

There will, without a doubt, be some photographers out there using these software options, the law of averages dictates this. But I’m convinced that the numbers are already low in the grand scheme of things and continually dwindling.

Bridge allows you to view multiple images and view detail with a digital loupe rather than fully zooming in

Going back to my early Photoshop days, having Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw provided a great workflow at the time. And I have to confess that even when Lightroom 1.0 was released in 2007, I didn’t make the switch to Lightroom until the second version, where features improved a little and made it a more worthwhile alternative. That was back in 2008, and since then I, like most photographers, have enjoyed the fluid workflow provided by Lightroom and continually improved features delivered with software updates.

Lightroom provides multiple viewing options in the Library Module

This certainly doesn’t mean that Bridge and ACR were obsolete for photographers at this point; they remained useful up until the time when Photoshop and Lightroom became available subscription only.

Before the arrival of Creative Cloud (after CS6), Lightroom and Photoshop were available separately, so continuing to use Bridge and ACR made perfect financial sense because you essentially had all of the same tools available to you and the same image processing engine. The main difference is the workflow and the layout of controls in ACR compared to Lightroom.

It was only when Lightroom and Photoshop became available subscription only that everything changed because although you were still getting Bridge within the Photography Plan, and continue to do so, Lightroom is undoubtedly better than Bridge and ACR.

There’s no getting away from the fact that for photographers, Lightroom provides the most streamlined workflow, simply down to the fact that the Library and Develop Modules provide both image management of multiple file types and raw processing in a single interface.

You can even process other file types, such as JPEGs, TIFFs and PSDs in the Develop module. Processed raw files can be exported from Lightroom quickly and easily into other formats, with the ability to open them directly in Photoshop, and/or you can open processed raw files in Photoshop where they can then be saved in another format, or open several raw files as Layers among other options. You can do this between Bridge, ACR and Photoshop, but some processes can be clunky and far from intuitive.

With a single user interface, Lightroom provides a more fluid workflow than Bridge and Adobe Camera Raw although both approaches essentially do the same thing

From my point of view, it’s this streamlined workflow and that you’re already paying for Lightroom which make it the far superior option. Bridge and ACR once offered the only option, then an alternative money-saving option, but now they’re pretty much obsolete for the vast majority of photographers.

That doesn’t mean it’s completely dead in the water though, because for designers and even photographers working across multiple Adobe Creative Cloud apps such as InDesign and Illustrator etc., Bridge still provides a simple solution for managing image assets.

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography-related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk

Related reading:

• Best Free Adobe Lightroom Presets
• How to edit photos – guide to Adobe Photoshop Elements 2024
• Adobe Photoshop and Premiere Elements 2024 get more AI tools
• Best subscription-free photo editing software

Follow AP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

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Will we ever be able to stop talking about megapixels and start talking about photography? Probably not. And yet this fixation with megapixels will often distract us from things that actually matter and sometimes lead us into buying things we don’t need.

Megapixels used to be very important, when compact cameras had 4MP (if you were lucky), DSLRs had 6MP and digital imaging was still its infancy. You could make a big A4/letter size print at home and still see the pixels, or at least the point where the resolution ran out.

I’ve still got my old Nikon D50 with its 6MP sensor. That’s when megapixels were actually very important indeed.

But by the time we got to 12MP, this was far less of a problem, and let’s not forget that we’re now in an age of digital image consumption where we look at images on a screen, not in a print. A 12MP camera can produce horizontal images roughly equivalent to 4K in width, so a 12MP image will completely fill the full width of a 4K monitor or TV without magnification.

So have our resolution needs actually diminished? At what point is enough, well, enough?

Megapixels vs sensor size

Numbers sell like nothing else, whether it’s in marketing brainstorming sessions, ad campaigns, camera stores, or social media quarrels.

Megapixels have remained a marketing mainstay long after they ceased to be the most important measure of camera quality. They are used especially creatively by smartphone makers selling phones with 48MP or 108MP sensors, for example, that are ‘pixel-binned’ down to 12MP for regular use. The new Samsung S23 Ultra has a 200MP sensor, pixel-binning the output down to 50MP or 12.5MP, depending on the settings.

The new Samsung S23 Ultra has 200MP – or 12.5MP, depending on how you look at it.

Pixel binning is grouping the output from a bunch of photosites into one pixel in order to get a usable level of dynamic range and noise control.

Some smartphones can be used at their full 48+MP advertised resolution in the right circumstances (bright light) but the noise control and dynamic range are the first things to suffer. It does at least mean you can get phones that shoot 8K video even though regular stills are 12MP, but you really wouldn’t want to shoot stills at the ‘full’ resolution.

The fact is that sensor size and megapixels go together. More megapixels only truly deliver on their promise with a bigger sensor. No device today has too few megapixels, but there are plenty with sensors that are just too small for good quality.

Megapixels and video don’t mix

Too many megapixels can be a bad thing for video because makers have to figure out what to do with the extra pixels. It is an issue.

A 24MP sensor, for example, will have a horizontal resolution of around 6,000 pixels, but if you want to capture 4K UHD video (3840 pixels) the camera either has to crop the image to a smaller frame size, ‘oversample’ the full sensor data and handle a much larger processing overhead, or use ‘line skipping’ or ‘pixel binning’. Some cameras do two or more of these depending on your selected frame rate or compression settings.

The Sony A7 IV has 30MP, which is great for stills, but means it has to oversample full-width 4K video and use crop mode for 60fps capture.

The best hybrid cameras, of course, can shoot 6K or 8K video that matches the sensor resolution, but that produces massive video files that are difficult to store and edit and almost certainly larger than you will need.

There is a large mismatch between current mirrorless camera sensor resolutions and common video resolutions. This is why ‘native 4K’ cameras like the 12MP Sony A7S III work so well for video.

Where next for megapixels?

Of course, 12MP is old hat. Today, 24MP is the new baseline, 30MP is better and many photographers aspire to 40-60MP cameras for their outright resolving power.

But then how many times can you actually use that kind of resolution? For giant exhibition prints, perhaps, or especially demanding commercial clients… or is it just for pixel peeping?

This 4K Benq monitor is probably the highest resolution digital device any of us will use for image consumption any time soon, and it only needs a 12MP image to fill its full width. An iPad is closer to 6MP.

We are perhaps moving into a post-resolution age, where our consumption is shifting from print to digital and we don’t need the megapixels we once did. We might want them, but we don’t need them.

We all want more detail, but are we running out of ways to use it?

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk. 

Related articles:

• How much resolution do you actually NEED?
• Opinion: You don’t need the best camera to take good photos
• What is pixel binning? Smartphone sensor technology explained
• Will AI replace photographers?

Follow AP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

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As such this camera is already part of history. Not only that, but it’s also using the OM-1 name from the film SLR from the 70s.

OM Digital Solutions, the company who were setup following the sale of the imaging (and audio) division, created OM System and threw everything possible at the new Olympus OM-1. Designed as a “wow” camera, it certainly lived up to that promise for many people – but not all.

Micro Four Thirds sensor size

Of course, there will always be those who demand a full-frame sensor, but then, in the same sentence they complain about the size and weight of the camera and lenses.

If you want a truly smaller camera system, then you have to go for a smaller sensor, and that’s where the Micro Four Thirds system comes in. Unfortunately, we can’t ignore the laws of physics, and a larger sensor requires a larger camera body, and larger lenses.

With one sensor size, all the lenses are designed to be “just right”. You get a wide range of compact lenses, and a huge choice of Micro Four Thirds lenses, as literally the world’s first mirrorless camera system, which has been going since 2008. In terms of digital cameras system years, this is like an eternity!

Speed and performance

So, all that put to one side, the OM-1 offers an ultra-fast stacked BSI CMOS sensor, allowing for frame rates up to 120fps for stills photography, 4K video recording, and an IP53 weather-rating.

OM System OM-1. Photo: Andy Westlake

Computational photography features include LiveND, Hi-res multi-shot in-camera (for up to 80MP images), Focus stacking, plus the impressive live bulb / live composite and live time modes that let you see your exposure develop as you’re taking it. This is a real game changer if you’re interested in night photography, and for astrophotography you have Starry Sky AF.

Auto-focus offers AI subject detection giving you the choice of motorsports (cars, motorcycles), airplanes (including helicopters), trains (of all types), birds, and animals – specifically cats and dogs. Plus, you get some impressively high-speed shooting which includes continuous AF at up to 50fps (with the right lenses), or 120fps with fixed AF.

The menus are finally improved, and there’s a high-resolution electronic viewfinder, with 5.76M dots.

But look beyond the technical prowess of this camera, and simply look at it as one of the most rugged and weather-sealed cameras available, thanks to an IP53 rating, with one of the biggest lens ranges available, and you have a camera that I’d happily take with me knowing I have everything I need from a camera.

Anything that makes it easier for me to take a camera with me when I travel or am out on a day trip is going to be the camera I choose to take with me.

Using the OM System OM-5, photo: Jeremy Waller

The OM System OM-5

This is where the OM System OM-5 comes in, if you don’t need the ultra-high-speed from the OM-1, and want an even smaller camera system, then the OM-5 also offers a weather sealed camera body.

You’ll also appreciate the lower price, along with computational photography features that are (mostly) unknown outside the world of Olympus/OM-System cameras, including LiveND, high-res multi-shot, live-time modes, Starry Sky AF, and more.

The OM-5 also makes for a great 4K video camera, with unlimited video recording, and some of the best in-body image stabilisation out there. With a fully articulated screen, and red record outline, this could make for a great vlogging camera, particularly if you want something that will cope with the wet and grey weather we have in winter months.

In fact, the OM System OM-5 is one of the cheapest weather-sealed cameras available.

And sure, it may not have the newer sensor from the OM-1, but it still delivers the same beautiful colour reproduction, and excellent JPEG output, we’ve come to love on Olympus/OM System cameras.

If you’re not a fan of Olympus or OM System, then you can also choose a Panasonic Lumix G camera, giving you even more choice of cameras, all capable of taking advantage of the huge range of Micro Four Thirds lenses.

One more thing… community

Another thing that really stands out in the Micro Four Thirds world, is the community. Whether that’s dedicated Facebook groups for Micro Four Thirds, amusingly titled “Micro Four Nerds“, or specific manufacturers Facebook pages from OM System (with direct support from the company), there are friendly, welcoming, and helpful groups out there.

Plus, there’s a number of great YouTube channels dedicated to Micro Four Thirds as well, including Red35, MicroFourNerds, That Micro 43 Guy, Eli Farnhill, and more, where you can learn more about the cameras and lenses, as well as catch some of the love for the system shared.

• Read the full OM System Olympus OM-1 review
• Read the full OM System OM-5 review
• Find the best Olympus cameras available

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk

Follow AP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube. 

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As a camera journalist the latest and greatest kit rests in my hands regularly. I’m not going to lie, getting to use these cameras and lenses for reviews and features is such a fun part of what I do.

But before you ask, no, I don’t get to keep review samples! My own camera gear is what second-hand online platforms describe as ‘heavily used’ (and yes, it was hard to give the new Hasselblad X2D 100C back).

If you follow the latest camera news and reviews, you’ll equally be exposed to cutting edge camera tech that you simply ‘must have’. Video recording at 8K and 45MP pictures in a single camera, anyone? What about 120fps continuous shooting?

When you’re read up on the latest kit or have experienced it hands-on, it’s so easy to cast a sorry look over your own camera bag. Those that act impulsively in that moment with their wallet have what we call GAS. And no that’s not a mild bout of stomach discomfort but a sinister angle of consumerism; Gear Acquisition Syndrome.

Put simply, GAS is a want vs need. It is that internal monologue asserting I need that kit. If you fight that inner voice long enough, justification enters the narrative. I’ll make better pictures. My camera isn’t good enough anymore.

Sure, you could improve the technical quality of your photos by splashing out on the next best camera, that high-powered studio light or expanding your lens arsenal.

But here’s the problem – GAS is a rabbit hole because there will always be a ‘better’ kit available than what’s in your bag. Technology evolves, kit gets updated. You scratch that itch, and soon enough it pops up again.

Now it would be ludicrous to suggest never buying new camera kit. From time to time, it breaks and need replacing. We might even branch out in new photographic genres like wildlife and sports and suddenly a telephoto lens feels like a must.

For me though, it’s a crying shame when perfectly capable creative tools go unused, especially if the user hasn’t realised its potential or simply owns too much. If you’re exploring a new photography discipline, how about trading some of that gear to get what you need rather than buying outright?

Ricoh GR IIIx in hand, close-up. Image: Tim Coleman

Better still, could it even be possible to love the kit you already own a little more, a little longer? To rekindle that moment and excitement when you first laid hands on it? To make sure you know how to get the most out it today, because the answer to your creative problems might be in your hands already; trying new techniques, setting creative limits, delving into those menus.

Significant time passed before I truly got to grips with my Ricoh GR compact camera. I almost sold it as ‘new’, but it has gone on to become my everyday tool and the first digital camera that has truly inspired me in black and white photography!

So, the next time Gear Acquisition Syndrome rears it’s ugly head… 

Don’t judge your own camera against the latest model. The next time you look at what’s in your kit bag, imagine what you can do with it rather than what might be possible with another camera you don’t own! Right, I’m closing the web browser and off out to enjoy some landscapes with my Nikon D800…

Featured image credit: Ben Eaton via Unsplash.

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk. 

Related reading

• Looking at art will make you a better photographer
• You can now buy a DSLR for £30!
• 120fps? No thanks, I’ll stick to 5fps

Follow AP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

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Where does the value lie in your photographs? Does it lie with your own unique ‘take’ on the world and your own individual vision, or does it lie with the technical quality of your images? Most photographers would say you need both and might assume that you can have your cake and eat it, with camera gear that both release your creative instincts and produces the best possible technical quality. 

My experience is different. For me, creative instinct and ‘mood’ are highly elusive. I can be technically correct all day long. That’s not creativity, that’s a process. But ‘seeing’ images is different. This is where I find that some cameras work for me, and some don’t. And, at the end of the day, I would rather have a photograph that inspires and excites me than one that’s technically correct and boring. 

I am a scientist by training and background, but I am also obsessed with images and their visual, graphic and emotional effect. I understand everything needed to produce technical excellence, but I have become aware that this does not necessarily translate into exciting imagery. Some realisation, huh? 

So, I have become aware that my best and most satisfying images, from my perspective, have not been taken with the best equipment. Some of my favourite shots are from my iPhone, my Olympus MFT gear or my old Nikon DSLR kit. None of these is the best technically, but they have helped me ‘see’ shots in a freer, more intuitive way. 

I have a Sony A7R II which I bought because of its resolution, and I bought some excellent lenses to go with it. But persevere as I might, it just leaves me a bit cold. It’s as if its technical capabilities are a responsibility, not an advantage (and it doesn’t help that I just don’t like the way it handles). 

Photo taken with the iPhone 13 Pro Max, (C) Rod Lawton

The opposite example is my iPhone 13. Its technical quality is way, way below that of my Sony – of course it is – but I just feel creatively ‘freer’. I have nothing to live up to. I shoot what looks right, and very often it is right. Very often I will think “I wish I’d taken that with a proper camera”, but the plain fact is I wouldn’t have done because I wouldn’t have seen it in the same way. 

I have the same feeling about my Olympus kit. The MFT format has a lot of haters who will quote endless, experience-free arguments about why it’s no good, but the fact is that my Olympus OM-D E-M5 III lets me shoot ‘responsibility free’, just like my iPhone. I’ve dropped out of the rat race. I especially love the Art Filters. Yes, you could do better later in Lightroom with raw files and presets and heaven knows what else, but by then you’ve lost all the instinct and immediacy. And isn’t that what photography is about? 

One of the best cameras Rod has used, the Olympus OM-D E-M5 Mark III

Some other stupid facts. I kept using my ancient Sony A6000 purely because it had a wonderfully metallic shutter ‘clack’. I think any camera maker that doesn’t put the power switch around the shutter release has never met someone who likes to hold a camera in one hand, and I will always regret selling my Nikon D7200 because everything about it was wrong and out of date except how it felt in my hand. 

Photography is emotive, and if we let the technically obsessed take that away from us, then we’re wrong. Photography is not about logic and measurements, it’s about instinct and responses. If we forget that, then it really is the end.  

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk. 

Further reading:

• Vintage digital cameras you should actually buy
• Why Micro Four Thirds offers something no-one else can
• Jon Bentley: Pixels vs Noise – Are bigger pixels better?

Follow AP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.

The post Opinion: You don’t need the best camera to take good photos appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

Again, we start with the absolute limit on a lens’s resolution capability, which is the diffraction limit provided by the 5mm entrance pupil (aperture) diameter, that’s dictated by the slimness requirements of a phone. The angular resolution limit of 0.008° is calculated from that entrance pupil and the wavelength of the visible light.

In practice, the smallest total angle of view from such a lens is about 10° if we want to produce 1K pixel image, regardless of sensor size. This corresponds to a ‘full-frame’ focal length of 200mm, which is usefully ‘long’, but not ever going to pull in distant subjects. This limitation is given entirely by the aperture size of the lens.

So, let’s now look at two different design solutions to providing ‘200mm equivalent’ capability in a mobile phone. The first is simply to use a very small image sensor behind the lens. Pixel sizes of around 1.3 microns can produce very good results with modern technology, and a 1K sensor so equipped would end up at about 1.3mm across, which in sensor size terminology is ‘type 1/10’. The focal length needed to produce a 10° angle-of-view on such a sensor is 7.4mm, which could be fitted within the space limits available. Incidentally, this lens would have an f-number of 1.5, which is quite feasible for a well-corrected lens.

Solution two is to use a ‘periscope’ lens, in which a mirror or prism behind the front element(s) of the lens turns the rest of the lens through 90° so that it lies sideways within the phone. Notice that it does not allow for a larger entrance pupil, since its size is limited by the prism/mirror, which in turn is dictated by the slimness requirement. But the periscope design does allow a longer lens structure, so a larger sensor might be specified. Suppose a ‘type 1/2.4’ sensor, 6mm across, is to be used. To give 10° angle of view a focal length of 34mm is required, which can be packed into the periscope tube. The lens will have an f-number of 6.8.

A periscope design allows a longer lens within a slimness constraint. But there are other ways of providing a narrow angle of view, which may prove to be a better overall solution.

In optical terms, neither solution is better than the other. Both collect the same amount of light from the same angle of view, and use the same angular sampling rate. Which is better comes down to practical concerns. The small sensor may have a problem with the limited saturation capacities of its small pixels limiting the use of extended exposure times. But that might be mitigated by compositing multiple exposures. Without going through a design cycle and evaluating the results, any determination as to which would give better results would be purely speculative.

It is however likely that the small camera would be cheaper to manufacture and easier to integrate into the phone, which is possibly why periscope-style phone lenses do not seem to have caught on.

Especially considering that there is a solution that outperforms them both.

The available entrance pupil of the lens, and the resulting angular resolution, determined the pixel size of the small sensor. The sensor size was limited by the 10° angle of view. Putting the small pixels on a sensor large enough to give a ‘normal’ angle of view with the lens would provide a more flexible solution allowing both ‘telephoto’ and ‘normal’ options. Of course, such a sensor would pack in a lot of pixels, maybe 48 million of them – but that’s not uncommon these days and the marketing people might see it as an advantage.

There is another lesson from this whole discussion. If you want to capture distant subjects in high detail, then the lens needs a large entrance pupil, the larger the better. This is why big sports arenas tend to be encircled by photographers using lenses with 150mm entrance pupils.

Bob Newman is currently Professor of Computer Science at the University of Wolverhampton. He has been working with the design and development of high-technology equipment for 35 years and two of his products have won innovation awards. Bob is also a camera nut and a keen amateur photographer.

Related reading

• Which is better: glass or plastic smartphone lenses?
• What is pixel binning, smartphone sensor technology explained
• Are smaller pixels worse? Sensor technology myths explained
• In praise of Bryce Bayer and the supreme Bayer Sensor

Follow AP on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.

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There aren’t many new compact digital cameras available anymore, so when you’re buying one, you want to get the best compact camera available. At the lower end of the market, there is even less choice, particularly if you want a branded model.

Previously you could buy a new Sony Cyber-shot W800 long after it was released, but not anymore. So if you’re looking for a brand new compact camera, the options include Kodak PixPro models, like the FZ45, which even takes AA batteries, and very little else, unless you want to spend a lot more money.

The Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200, with 18 megapixels and optical 8x zoom branding. Photo Joshua Waller/AP

One budget option is the AgfaPhoto Realishot DC8200, which is a “branded” camera. However, it’s worth noting that the original Agfaphoto company simply licence the name to other companies. Agfaphoto make this abundantly clear on the back of the box.

Is it really 18 megapixels?

Back to the DC8200, it’s branded as an 18MP / 18 Megapixels camera. It’s also branded as having an “Optical 8x Zoom” which appears to be deliberately confusing, as most cameras will put the word optical in front of zoom. Other cameras will say “4x optical zoom” for example.

However, when I have tested the AgfaPhoto Realishot FC8200, I’ve been spectacularly unimpressed with the images. They are quite frankly, AWFUL. They barely look like 12MP images, let alone 18MP images.

So I purchased a second-hand DC8200, and took it apart. Inside I found the camera ribbon connecting the sensor to the main board was labelled: “CDOZ3-OV8820-MIPI(OO)”

Inside the Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200, you’ll find this key text “OV8220”. Image: Joshua Waller

The OV8820 part being important here, as this is an 8MP sensor, the OmniVision OV8820 8MP 1/3.2inch BSI CMOS sensor to be more specific. You can read the specifications of the sensor on OmniVision’s website (pdf).

So the Agfaphoto DC8200 is actually an 8MP camera, being sold as an 18MP camera. There is clearly upscaling, or interpolation going on to increase the image size. This isn’t a new thing, in fact, early digital cameras (from cheaper brands) often did this, but would normally always make it clear that it was interpolated, being mindful to let people know the actual, real resolution of the sensor.

If the resolution isn’t reported accurately, then what about the optical zoom?

Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200 EXIF information as reported in Windows. (JW/AP)

Further investigation into the images taken with the DC8200 show some interesting information in the EXIF information, with the focal length reported as “0mm”, meaning we can’t see what the lens is doing from this.

However, the 35mm focal length is shown as “43180” – 43-180mm – which, if this is accurate, would mean that the lens is most likely a 4.2x optical zoom lens. Any further zoom, would therefore be digital zoom. And, looking at the photos from the camera, this would make sense, as images taken with zoom look even worse.

Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200 packaging, note the model code and disclaimer from Agfaphoto. (JW/AP)

The Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200 offers a number of interesting clues on the back of the box, including “8x optical zoom”, and Factory Model: CDOE3. Once you search for this, you’ll find the OEM/ODM manufacturers, Holide, which list the camera as “8x optical zoom camera…” and “8.0 Mega Pixels”.

Holide / Holdie 8x optical zoom camera with 8.0 megapixels. Image: Holide.com, 20/12/2023

So, what does this all mean? Quite simply, don’t buy the Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200, and perhaps be careful when looking at other cameras from unbranded manufacturers. Agfaphoto also sell a DC5500, which gives “24MP”, but also only gives 720p video.

Other things to note about the Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200, is that the lens isn’t very wide, at 43mm equivalent, it’s nowhere near as wide as other compact cameras. The “FullHD” video is also recorded at an aspect ratio of 4:3, so you get 1440×1080 resolution videos.

Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200 in black, and the “24MP” Agfaphoto DC5500 in blue, with 8x digital zoom. Photo JW/AP

Praktica sell a very similar looking model, the Praktica Luxmedia BX-D18, but it’s worth noting that when you click through to the specifications, you can see that it has an 8MP sensor, with 18MP interpolation. This still doesn’t mean it’s going to be a better camera, but at least you can find the specifications for the sensor.

What’s in a name anyway?

Agfaphoto, as a name, is used under licence, and the DC8200 camera is actually “manufactured for and distributed by GT Company”. Kodak, similarly, is a brand name used under licence from Eastman Kodak Company, and Kodak Pixpro cameras are produced by JK Imaging Ltd. You can view the full range of Agfaphoto digital cameras on the Agfaphoto-GTC website.

This isn’t the first time companies have released cameras designed to trick or confuse buyers, with the Vivitar Vivicam 8225 offering a “2x optical zoom” that was simply digital zoom, and a zoom mechanism that moved a front plastic element, as reported by DigiCamReview, now available via the Wayback Archive.

DigiCamReview screenshot showing the Vivitar Vivicam 8225 with “2x optical zoom”

Other cameras that have incorrectly claimed to have higher megapixels than actually provided, includes the Polaroid iZone iE877, an “18 megapixel camera” with an “8x zoom” that actually contained a 5MP Sensor, and questionable optical zoom. (Source)

Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200 Sample Photos:

No zoom was used for this photo, taken with the Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200. Photo JW/AP

f/5.6 · 1/500s · ISO50

Full zoom on the Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200. Photo JW/AP. Click to view full-size.

f/5.6 · 1/500s · ISO50

Macro photo taken with the Agfaphoto Realishot DC8200. Click to view full size. Photo JW/AP

f/3.3 · 1/125s · ISO50

Perhaps if you’re looking for a compact camera, one of the best options could be to buy a second-hand compact camera instead?

Related content:

• Best compact cameras
• Best second-hand classic compact cameras
• Vintage digital cameras you should actually buy
• Do megapixels matter anymore?

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The post Do NOT buy this digital camera (Agfaphoto DC8200) appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

I bought my Nikon Coolscan 4000 ED back in 2001. I was writing motoring articles and taking pictures to illustrate them and while magazines still wanted transparencies, even then, newspapers were beginning to demand digital shots. The Coolscan allowed me to satisfy both requirements whilst also providing a backup of slides which might be lost.

Credit: Jon Bentley

Though not cheap at just over a grand, I was thrilled by the quality, detail, colour reproduction and dynamic range of the 23MP scans produced by it. It did justice to any emulsion, whether Kodachrome, Fuji Velvia, Ilford HP5 or plain old supermarket print film, while the dust-removal capabilities of its Digital ICE (Image Correction & Enhancement) software were magical. Scanning wasn’t quick but film processors would happily supply a lo-res scan of all your shots at modest cost from which you could select a few frames per film to do yourself.

What might replace it?

I’m still using the Coolscan and it’s as good as ever. It requires a bit of driver jiggery-pokery to work with modern operating systems, and the FireWire cable means you have to consider your computer’s connectivity carefully, but I’m dreading the day it gives up. Because there’s nothing around to replace it.

Flatbed Epson scanners are all very well but they don’t quite deliver the sharpness, in my experience. I know a couple of photographers with Plustek scanners but the colour reproduction doesn’t compare, and they tell me there’s quite a bit of trial and error involved. There are also oodles of bargain basement models available but they’re probably best considered toys rather than serious tools. As for the quality of scans produced by minilabs they’re really too hit-and-miss, and you can’t rely on them as your only scanning source.

The Digital Transitions Cultural Heritage kit, which effectively takes photos of film using a PhaseOne digital back, is excellent but the huge price takes it beyond the reach of all but libraries and archives.

Nikon Coolscan 9000ED, the Nikon Coolscan 9000 ED was the top of the range medium format film scanner, and is now much sought after.

Nikon, which stopped making scanners in 2010, knows there’s an issue here and does market an attachment you can use with a macro lens to take photos of your film. But it’s uncomfortably reminiscent of those rickety, old, extension tube-based, slide-copying devices and, while the results aren’t quite as unpredictable, they are not as good as Nikon’s old scanners.

I want to be enthralled at the enchanting way in which film records the world, not depressed by the drab simulacrum most reasonably priced scanners insult our eyes with in 2022. If we could create high-quality scanners 20 years ago why is it so difficult now? Can it really be impossible to market one that’s even better, even easier to use, and even more affordable than my vintage Coolscan?

Jon Bentley is a TV producer and presenter best known for Top Gear and Channel 5’s The Gadget Show.

The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited.

Modern versions of the “film scanner” include the Lomography smartphone film scanner, and the Lomography Digitaliza film scanning kit. Let us know! What do you use to scan film? email ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk.

Related reading:

• Essential Film Holder for digitising negatives hits 20,000 sales
• How to get started in film photography – a complete guide
• How to photograph film using your DSLR or mirrorless camera

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The post Jon Bentley: Where have all the good film scanners gone? appeared first on Amateur Photographer.

While the story seems new, this practice of AI or ‘fake influencers’ has been around for a while now. Many of them have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram. As an editorial and fashion photographer, my core issue is not the effect that it’ll have on our business, as synthesised figures have been used for many, many years. In fact, those fashion houses that still use real models do so because actual people are (sadly) still cheaper to use, time-wise, than fake ones.

AI models – The real issue

I do, however, have a major issue with the effect that these fake models will have on a growing generation. I think it’s absolutely fine to follow an AI bot on Instagram as long as you know that, but most creators hide the fact that it’s an AI model. One of the most famous of those has been in use for nearly six years now and surprise, surprise, she hasn’t aged a day. The media has been worrying about unobtainable beauty standards for decades now, but this will likely be the breaking point for some.

AI imagery in photography has been an understandably hot topic for many people, but the core issue that most of us have is the betrayal we feel when we realise a cool image is actually created by AI. Finding some way to authenticate these images is going to be the key to keeping all this under control. There is even talk of authenticating raw files to confirm that they are an actual photo of an actual person, but all of this just increases the cost of using a photographer – which in turn pushes more people to use AI.

Race to the bottom

As terrifying as all this AI talk is today, the old folk among us will remember the photographic apocalypse that happened in the mid-1990s with stock imagery. Just like today, we all said this was the end of photography, but ultimately the discipline evolved – and the stock photographers all but killed themselves in their race to the bottom.

As AI becomes more mainstream, popular tools such as Chat GPT will be able to make you an AI model in mere minutes, and quite likely cost you nothing. This oversaturation will probably prove to be fatal, just like we saw with stock photography. After all, you can get incredible stock imagery today that costs you absolutely nothing and is completely rights-free. But people will always be willing to pay for something that is unique, created by a skilled photographer.

Jake Hicks is a London-based editorial and fashion photographer and a Rotolight ambassador. See jakehicksphotography.com

Related reading:

• Photographers – don’t panic about AI, make it work for you
• Can ‘Content Credentials’ be the Lie Detector that photographers need?
• Sony announces new In-Camera Authenticity technology

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