Something to be said about computational photography; Leica Lux App vs. DLux8

[Trapshooter]

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Just a fairly simple and non scientific test to illustrate the power of computational photography using a mobile phone. First picture taken with iPhone 16 Pro and Leica Lux app. Hard to deny the convenience of the SOOC picture from the iPhone for personal use. 

Second picture will be included in first reply below due to size limits  

 

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[Trapshooter]

Here is the photo from the DLux 8. This picture had to have a fair amount of negative exposure compensation to keep the sky from being too blown out  

 

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Edited July 21 by Trapshooter

[frame-it]

3 hours ago, Trapshooter said:

Here is the photo from the DLux 8. This picture had to have a fair amount of negative exposure compensation to keep the sky from being too blown out  

 

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so you basically shoot only jpg's & Not RAW files with all your cameras? 

[jaapv]

Sorry, but the image you show is not representative of what your camera can produce. The processing is really sub-par. Even using a minuscule JPG gets colours and contrast better in three minutes in PS. Shoot raw, use your postprocessing program properly and you will be far beyond your smartphone. 

BTW, the smartphone shot has a nasty yellow cast.

 

 

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17 minutes ago, jaapv said:

Sorry, but the image you show is not representative of what your camera can produce. The processing is really sub-par. Even using a minuscule JPG gets me here in three minutes in PS. Shoot raw, use your postprocessing program properly and you will be far beyond your smartphone. 

BTW, the smartphone shot has a nasty yellow cast.

 

 

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Jaap, did you actually glance at the image you posted here?

[jaapv]

Yep, not bad for working on a 97 kB image eh? I’ll amend my post. It is about colour and contrast, not totally absent resolution. 

[jaapv]

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At any rate, the topic begs the question, why go the convoluted route through a D-Lux and app when the camera of the phone is more than sufficient for social media use? 

[Dazzajl]

Computational Photography is great term for what phone cameras do and yes, they are getting very good at it now. The fact that they do what over 90% of people require over 90% of the time makes life very hard for camera manufacturers. Which in turn ultimately makes things more expensive for those of us that know how good the phones at getting over line but just don’t like the experience. 
 

On the flip side, I do enjoy seeing many of the pics people take with their phone that wouldn’t exist otherwise. 

[pgk]

3 minutes ago, Dazzajl said:

Computational Photography is great term for what phone cameras do and yes, they are getting very good at it now. The fact that they do what over 90% of people require over 90% of the time makes life very hard for camera manufacturers. Which in turn ultimately makes things more expensive for those of us that know how good the phones at getting over line but just don’t like the experience. 
 

On the flip side, I do enjoy seeing many of the pics people take with their phone that wouldn’t exist otherwise. 

I'm not one of those 90%, and cameras are already expensive given that they are mostly electronic and currently many are more than able to supply excellent RAW files which are very acceptable for most requirements. My mobile 'phone is a digital notebook good for snaps, which are, and have been, what most people want and have wanted since Eastman started the craze amongst the non-photographer for recording what they wanted a hard copy memory of. The mistake often made is that apparent 'good' technical 'quality equates to a 'good' photograph. Virtually ALL the images I take, and have taken over the last 40+ years, have been technical acceptable. A few have been better images than the rest. These are what I am aiming at. It is of course possible to take 'good' images on a mobile 'phone, but the constraints of the 'phone's image capture and processing algorithms probably make this more difficult than easier, and certainly they do in my experience. It depends what you want out of photography. There is no doubt that compact camera sales have been devastated by the imaging abilities of mobile phones but that was to be expected. I doubt whether higher end cameras suffer from reduced sales due to mobile phones anywhere near as much.

[Trapshooter]

9 hours ago, frame-it said:

so you basically shoot only jpg's & Not RAW files with all your cameras? 

Yes correct. I’m not a fan of spending more time in front of a computer screen editing photos. Would rather shoot and go. 

[Trapshooter]

2 hours ago, jaapv said:

Sorry, but the image you show is not representative of what your camera can produce. The processing is really sub-par. Even using a minuscule JPG gets colours and contrast better in three minutes in PS. Shoot raw, use your postprocessing program properly and you will be far beyond your smartphone. 

BTW, the smartphone shot has a nasty yellow cast.

 

 

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

2 hours ago, jaapv said:

Sorry, but the image you show is not representative of what your camera can produce. The processing is really sub-par. Even using a minuscule JPG gets colours and contrast better in three minutes in PS. Shoot raw, use your postprocessing program properly and you will be far beyond your smartphone. 

BTW, the smartphone shot has a nasty yellow cast.

 

 

I didn’t process the dlux picture. I was trying to show the difference between sooc photos. Agree about the yellow cast. 

[Trapshooter]

2 hours ago, jaapv said:

At any rate, the topic begs the question, why go the convoluted route through a D-Lux and app when the camera of the phone is more than sufficient for social media use? 

Exactly. Of course there are those that enjoy the post processing. More power to you. 

[jaapv]

Enjoy or not, it is as needed as pressing the shutter to get the most out of the camera. I am not a fan of wasting my time in front of a screen either, so I have honed my skills over the years to be skilled enough to process an image to my satisfaction in minutes at most. 

[Dazzajl]

2 hours ago, pgk said:

I'm not one of those 90%

I shouldn’t imagine anyone here is and long may we continue to enjoy the process of making a photograph as much as we appreciate the results. 
 

I agree that phones haven’t touched the market for higher end cameras but they have impacted the overall sales of the companies who make them and that lost income makes our cameras more expensive sadly. 

[LocalHero1953]

This thread should be automatically linked to whenever the topic of smartphones are mentioned here.

[jaapv]

57 minutes ago, Dazzajl said:

I shouldn’t imagine anyone here is and long may we continue to enjoy the process of making a photograph as much as we appreciate the results. 
 

I agree that phones haven’t touched the market for higher end cameras but they have impacted the overall sales of the companies who make them and that lost income makes our cameras more expensive sadly. 

Everything has its place. In general:quick and dirty social media = phone, serious photography ( with a few exceptions) = camera. 

[Viv]

Computational Photography? Include me out.

[Trapshooter]

2 hours ago, jaapv said:

Enjoy or not, it is as needed as pressing the shutter to get the most out of the camera. I am not a fan of wasting my time in front of a screen either, so I have honed my skills over the years to be skilled enough to process an image to my satisfaction in minutes at most. 

My point is that for social media or personal use a mobile devise can provide pretty good results without the need to process.  Now I am not going to print photos from the iPhone very large. 

[BernardC]

15 hours ago, Trapshooter said:

Hard to deny the convenience of the SOOC picture from the iPhone for personal use. 

That's the whole point about smartphone photography in 2025. It's optimized to create snapshot-type images with very little user intervention. That's great if you have no need for additional processing, correction, printing, etc.

YT channel Snappiness just released a video about how the smartphone look has evolved over the years. What looked normal in 2018 looks dated now, and what looks normal now will probably look dated in a few years.

That's fine for social media use, of course,  as long as you like the look from today's smartphones. Your photos will blend seamlessly into peoples' feeds.

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Hallo,

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[LocalHero1953]

The last few posters don't seem to have looked at the link I gave. It's only my opinion, of course, but I think it demonstrates that it's not the equipment that counts, but the photographer. And a good photographer can take superb photos with a smartphone. The most important factor in getting a good photograph is, as has often been said, six inches behind the viewfinder; but also perhaps 2 feet behind the LCD.