btar

Such wonderful pictures Pulaski, no doubt the rain helped to clear the atmosphere but I wonder what camera/phone you used?

Pulaski

Thank you, I was also very pleased with them.
All the photos were taken using my Samsung Galaxy S20 FE.

Pulaski

It's about the same for the home in Appomattox Court House, VA (a community of that name, not a court house, and about 3 miles from Appomattox, VA, IIRC), where the Civil War was formally ended. The house was dismantled to take to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893, (but I don't think it was actually assembled there ), but according to the information signs today at the home, which you can visit, in Appomattox Court House, VA the home was "reassembled" there. On speaking with one of the staff when we visited I learned that as a result of the disassembled home being left in a pile for some years, the timber structure was damaged, rotted, and eaten by termites to the extent that the original, authentic structure could not be reassembled and therefore what was actually "reassembled" was a replica.

Steerpike

It's f**ing amazing how good smartphone cameras have become! On our last trip (UK/Portugal), I left my 'good' camera at home and used my Samsung S10+ exclusively, and didn't regret it. You can still get better pictures with a bigger/dedicated camera, but the ease and convenience of the smartphone is quite compelling!

Can you elaborate on the 'S20 SE' though - I looked it up and could not find an "SE" model, only S20, S20+, S20 Ultra, S20 FE. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_Galaxy_S20 . I'm considering upgrading soon and wanted to compare camera specs.

Pulaski

My mistake, it's an FE.

I think the FE was an end-of-the-model-year special, and I picked one up heavily discounted in June 2021 long after the S21 had been launched. Having kept my S4 for many years, until it was suffering several issues, I am thinking about upgrading it next year when I have had it for three years.

Steerpike

Interesting. Based on the wiki article, the FE shares the same 'default' lens / sensor (what they call 'wide', as opposed to 'ultrawide' and 'telephoto') with the S20 and S20+. Do you do most of your shooting with the 'default', 'wide' lens? I do with mine, only occasionally using the telephoto and never using the ultrawide). The specs on the S20's 'wide' lens looks about the same as my S10+ 'wide'. (S20: 12 MP, f/1.8, 26mm (wide), 1/1.76"; S10: 12 MP, f/1.5-2.4, 26 mm (wide), 1/2.55"), though there may be sensor differences that could be significant. The S23 looks wild ... maybe it's time to upgrade! I got my S10+ in early 2020.

My g/f brought her iPhone 13 Pro Max with her; her pictures seemed comparable to mine overall. Her low-light shots looked better than mine, but her outdoor shots looked a bit 'over-processed' to my eye.

Do you leave HDR on? (or, was it on for the pictures in this thread)? I used to turn it off but it does a damn good job most of the time, so now I tend to leave it on.

Giantaxe

To the northwest of Goosenecks, there's another amazing spot - Muley Point. It's higher up from the San Juan River and at the end of a hairy dirt road that was built to a uranium mine during the Cold War. An incredible spot to camp for the night and a nice view of Monument valley in the morning:

Giantaxe

If you want remote, that place is remote... sunrise when we camped there:

Pulaski

[Sorry for the delay in replying]

You have told me vastly more than I ever knew about the camera in my phone. Although I used to be quite interested in photography, and had a Yashika SLR and several lenses, I haven't got around to transitioning to a digital SLR. I have a couple of digital point-and-shoot cameras, but like most people, got lazy about carrying it in addition to my phone.

I didn't choose this phone because of the camera, I like the Samsung brand, and beyond that about the only feature I went looking for was having a decent amount of storage, for music and pictures. I never even looked at the camera's specs.

So, what I know about the phone in my camera is restricted to [1] I know my phone has a camera, and [2] the camera has a zoom/wide angle feature, but that's about all I can tell you. I have never changed any settings, so given the image quality, I assume it's set to HD, but I'd have to go looking to even find where to look.

Little Miss P was carrying her Canon SLR during our road trip, and I am tempted to get a similar camera (at least same brand so we can share lenses) and get back to taking pictures with an SLR.

Steerpike

I would be very interested in hearing from you in a few years about how that whole process went! I was a big fan of 'film' SLRs back in my teens/early 20s. More recently, I've bought several DSLRs (and similar higher-end digital cameras) and they are all collecting dust somewhere, or palmed off on e-bay.

Have you had a chance to look at her pictures from your recent trip and compare them to yours?

One thing to be 'ready for' if you do go the DSLR route is that the images you get 'straight from the camera' can be disappointing in many instances. They will capture far more of the actual image faithfully (especially if you shoot 'raw') - everything from the darkest dark bit to the lightest light bit - but that will not look 'good' in a casual sense - it will lack contrast, 'punch', saturation, vibrancy, etc. You are 'expected' to run the image through something like Photoshop or Lightroom, and make personal judgments as to what's important. The camera is essentially saying, "here's the whole enchilada; you decide what aspect you want to focus on" (shadow detail, sky detail, skin tones, etc). You may be able to apply some default settings that will give pleasing results, but chances are the 'straight-from-the-camera' images will not be as pleasing as those from your phone - which have been processed and manipulated heavily based in part on what they know humans like to see.

Without a doubt, the final image you can potentially get from a higher end camera will far exceed what you get from the phone, but you may need to expend some non-trivial effort to get there! I have thousands of old DSLR images, and I'm good with Photoshop, but I just can't be bothered to work on them!

Pulaski

Thank you for the insight on the time and effort aspect. I will give that careful consideration before taking the plunge with a digital SLR.

philat98

What is the best way of cleaning a mobile phone lens? My phone was taking very good photos when I bought it but the quality has gone down.

Pulaski

Dunno, I haven't cleaned mine in months, probably not this year. .... When I do it's usually going to be on a clean shirt or cotton handkerchief.

Pulaski

At the risk of being criticized for taking my own thread off-topic, we've hit the road again, this time in the UK, visiting my mother for Christmas. .... I booked a Volkswagen Tiguan, "or similar". What I have been given is not at all what I was expecting. OMG! Though at least it has a manual transmission, but any thoughts, based on this post, as to what I am driving for the next 10 days?

btar

A Mercedes AMG SUV!