Photo comparison

[wellinghall]

These (originally three, but now with a fourth added, because I accidentally repeated the first one twice instead of putting up two different ones) photos are of the same place, at the same time (well, only moments apart), using three different cameras; DSLR, film, and phone (ETA: not necessarily in that order). I'd be interested in your thoughts on how they compare.








ETA:


ETA: The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the fourth is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

Comments

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

*Any* thoughts, comments, and opinions welcome!

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

I know nothing about photography whatsoever, but I think the picture from the cameraphone is not as pretty: The colours look kind of washed out, and the contours are sort of blurred?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comments. Others have pointed out that I accidentally put up one photo twice; I have now edited the post to add the other one that I should have put up, and to say that the photos are not necessarily in the order DSLR, film, and phone.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the fourth is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[fallingtowers.livejournal.com]

Heh. That is odd -- apparently, I'm so used to seeing digital photos that the film version struck me as the least nice one. I have no idea why. I don't really have an eye for professional pictures, so that might actually be all that there is to my first reaction...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

All opinions were (and still are) welcome, whatever eye they come from :-)

[findabair.livejournal.com]

So the two first are dSLR and film respectively? They're surprisingly similar; I would have thought the bottom one was the film version. In general I think phone photos are rarely all that interesting without some editing. If you have a smartphone, I highly recommend VSCO Cam for the purpose!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Hello! It's not often we see you here :-)

Thank you for your comments. Others have pointed out that I accidentally put up one photo twice; I have now edited the post to add the other one that I should have put up, and to say that the photos are not necessarily in the order DSLR, film, and phone.

And thanks for the recommendation!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the third is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[findabair.livejournal.com]

Heh - I was right about the film version then :)

Something that struck me about the composition, if you're interested in that sort of thing as well - I would have loved to see a portrait format version with the road to the right in the image leading the eye inwards, flanked by the gorgeous pink/white/green bushes to the left.

And I do read my LJ friends page frequently, but usually on my phone, where commenting is a hassle, so I end up commenting much less than I both want and should :)

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I am interested in composition - thank you very much for your comments. And I quite understand the difficulties of commenting via phone!

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

Well, only you can tell which is closest to what you saw yourself. But I'm impressed with how similar they are in quality, given that one would expect DSLR and film to be much better than a phone camera.

To my eyes, the first difference one notices between them is the colour. The green of the tree to the right of the large tree top left is very different, and doesn't look quite right, in the bottom photo. But I suspect that if one saw that photo on its own it would look quite OK.

The bottom photo doesn't have even focus throughout (I'm not a photographer, so my terminology may be wrong). What I mean is that the white-flowered bush in the front looks out of focus, and so do the shrubs immediately behind it, while the trees in the background look in focus. Is that something to do with depth of field? (you can tell I don't know what I'm talking about, but you did ask...). In the top photo, everything looks sharp and focused, even though they're at different differences from the camera.

I have to admit I can't see much difference between the top and the middle photos.

There -- hope that's of some use!

Which type of phone was it? -- I read good things of the iPhone's camera, and my out-of-date model certainly seems to take good snaps!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comments. Others have pointed out that I accidentally put up one photo twice; I have now edited the post to add the other one that I should have put up, and to say that the photos are not necessarily in the order DSLR, film, and phone.

The phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 - and I also hear good things of the iPhone's camera.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the fourth is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

The middle one seems to cope better with the big tree in the back (the one with a dead branch touching its top) - you can see the leaves and trunk aren't in the same plane.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comments. Others have pointed out that I accidentally put up one photo twice; I have now edited the post to add the other one that I should have put up, and to say that the photos are not necessarily in the order DSLR, film, and phone.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the third is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[muuranker.livejournal.com]

Thanks - so the new 3 is the old 2 (and thus the film)?

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I have left the old 1, 2, 3 as they were, and added a new 4. 1 and 2 are the phone, 3 is film, 4 (not 3, as in my previous comment) is DSLR.

[gillo]

I think the top one has better depth of field, though there's not a lot to choose between it and the next. The bottom one id definitely inferior in terms of focus, colour and distortion.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comments. Others have pointed out that I accidentally put up one photo twice; I have now edited the post to add the other one that I should have put up, and to say that the photos are not necessarily in the order DSLR, film, and phone.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the fourth is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

The top one seems to me to be the clearest, and with slightly brighter colours than the other two. The third one is slightly muted - but might, actually, be the most realistic colour of all three - although only you would know as you were there.

I'm guessing they are in the order you mentioned them, and the third is the camera phone - not quite such a good lens...

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comments. Others have pointed out that I accidentally put up one photo twice; I have now edited the post to add the other one that I should have put up, and to say that the photos are not necessarily in the order DSLR, film, and phone.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the third is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[curiouswombat.livejournal.com]

Isn't that fascinating?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

I think there must have been a slip-up somewhere in upload, because the top two images seem to be byte-for-byte identical, despite the differing filenames.

$ sha1sum 201*.jpg
f4b4c6395a6b388eb3104a4ab451fe616baf5a28  201176_1000.jpg
f4b4c6395a6b388eb3104a4ab451fe616baf5a28  201451_1000.jpg

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I concur, the framing is identical, right down to the tiny person on the right.

I thought I could see a difference between them at first, then I realised it was because my laptop screen handles colour slightly differently depending on angle. :-D

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oops! Thanks for pointing this out. I have now added the other version.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Oops! Thanks for pointing this out. I have now added the other version.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the fourth is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[tree_and_leaf]

I prefer the colour balance of the film to the DSLR image, where for me the green is oversaturated. Actually, it reminds me a bit of Velvia (I think). That's a matter of taste, though.

Both are superior to the phone, which is very 'soft' and has poor depth of field for the image (it also looks like it's a bit out of focus).

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you for your comments. Others have pointed out that I accidentally put up one photo twice; I have now edited the post to add the other one that I should have put up, and to say that the photos are not necessarily in the order DSLR, film, and phone.

[tree_and_leaf]

Ooops....

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Hmm, OK, well 1 and 4 both seem to be showing a warmer colour mix than 3. If 3 is the phone or the DSLR, then I would guess the camera software is trying to compensate for the warm light to create a more balanced image and that's why it's bluer.

But if 3 is the film camera, then presumably the film you had in it is a relatively 'blue' one? I don't know about film and colour balance, except that I have this impression that it's complicated!

I don't think I can deduce anything from the focus, because with the DSLR and the film camera, that would depend how you had your lens set up, and with the phone camera, it would be the software's best guess, which can be quite good or terrible!

In conclusion, I am pretty sure you could take all three of those photos with one camera, as long as it had the right software options. :-P Maybe you did, and the 'post wrong photo, right photo' thing is all part of some complicated psychological experiment. And they ARE all out to get me!!! :-D

I like 1 (and 2!) best, because of the small composition details: you have more of the track in that one than in 3, which leads the eye off interestingly into the distance, and it shows the most of that big bare tree in the background which is a really good shape and has a lot of personality. The chap in the far left of 3 is a bit distracting, and 4 is a little too pink.

I find the bare, weedy earth bottom left of all the photos a little distracting, particularly in 4 which shows most of it, and I think moving the camera slightly right to remove that and the rather uninteresting conifer, and bring the intriguing track into the photo more would improve the composition: maybe try the rule of thirds thing and crop so that the track is about a third of the photo?

HTH!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I shall respond more fully this evening.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The first two are the phone: a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. The third is film: Fuji Velvia 50 in an Olympus XA2. And the third is the DSLR: an Olympus E-620.

[helenajust.livejournal.com]

How funny! Everyone assumed that the first two were the DSLR and film, and not only because it seemed likely given the order in your description. I think it was because they do look better, mainly because everything is in focus and the colours look better. (Just think what you could do with an iPhone!)

Of course, we still need you to tell us which more accurately reproduces the original, as you saw it.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

The fourth certainly matches how I remember seeing the original.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, it's just the sort of photo that a modern phone would do well. I know nothing about film, so can't say anything intelligent there, but I bet with the DSLR, you'd be able to catch the swallow that swooped through the photo - can't see the phone managing that!

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I don't think it could either :-)