Do a phone replace the camera jobs nowadays?
by Fattah Sakuldee
It is not a quite long story why I come up with this topic for my very first article on this site. Actually I have just got a very tiny vintage camera named Paxette II and fell impressed with it. It is a considerably old style small camera such that even an skinny Asian's hand like mine can cover all the camera body. This make me wonder whether it is possible a smallest full-manual camera in the world. Of course, via a little research, it's defeated by the famous Rollei 35 whose thickness is smaller even though slightly the same in other dimensions. This is expected since, instead of focal plane one, the Paxette operated with leaf shutter making the camera a bit ridiculously long. However, I have another question so far, how far the smallest of the camera could actually be?
I am one of the post-cold-war generation who experienced many changes in 135 camera form and, if I am not mistaken, one of the old era goals is to reduce the size and mass of the gear. My first memory about small camera is when I saw the Rollei 35 advertisement in the tracking magazine which told me that the small camera will allow you to keep the scene of some kind of Alpine's landscape while it doesn't annoy you for its size. There are several other ways to avoid the size problem like using other formats like half-frame in Olympus pen series, 8mm, 16mm or 110 in spy cameras, but developing the full frame small camera was ever a practical challenge in early development. Two main tasks are the mechanism and material and the other concern is optics. The first problem in early development is the mechanism which is rarely maintained the same operation when one try to compact it a small space. The race of such optimization on mechanical design is end up in 70's where many kind of smallest cameras were introduced. The change in material from brass, aluminum to magnesium alloy or hight quality plastics did also some helps in this task. And finally, the replacement of electrical circuit to the physical mechanics play the main role. I have ever see the unwrapping version of Nikon F3 shutter circuit in the magazine as well.
After the community had passed to the digital age, a smaller than 135 image size become more advantageous. The same quality of image on the old 135 film can be done nearly perfect by an index-finger size image sensor, and, no discuss about the size of the camera anymore. It seems that the challenge was end. However, another problem which is considered unavoidable stay still; that is the optics. Even though the size can be shrunk into the hand area the optic control is further difficult. The major factor is the optical character of light, namely no one could reduce the wave length or the frequency of light and of course the ray will behave differently when it's constrained in different chamber spaces. For instance, one may know that the depth of field of the image produced from the tiny lens will be too thick. The shallow of the out-of-image-plane components in the photo can only be produced by the summation of non-identical images that are allowed if there are spared lateral space of the lens. Such the areas are not available when one use the small lens (or small aperture). Another example is flare producing, that is an alternative gimmick some photographers used to seasoning their photos. Such phenomena can occur by several internal reflections in the lens. Again, the lack of adequate space in the lens will give you no desired flair.
Today, the built-in camera in a mobile phone is kind of popular and recently in the race this era. While the conventional camera is seemingly stuck with technology since the appearance of mirrorless camera, the development in the builtin phone camera is still in challenge. The size of such camera is extremely tiny compared to the conventional one. Due to the physical matter discuss above, it's still suffered from the optic problem whereas there might be some phone users desire something like a thin DOF and lense flair. Hence the manufacturer compete to produce the unique effect of the conventional camera. To me, like many photographers, I still belief that the development cannot overcome the conventional camera. Anyway, such attempt to make the builtin phone camera to mimic the convention camera is interesting to me. Recently, I am wondering that I see the layout of multi camera on the back of a cellphone in the advertisement. That reminds me something similar to what I've ever seen when I was young.
by Fattah Sakuldee
It is not a quite long story why I come up with this topic for my very first article on this site. Actually I have just got a very tiny vintage camera named Paxette II and fell impressed with it. It is a considerably old style small camera such that even an skinny Asian's hand like mine can cover all the camera body. This make me wonder whether it is possible a smallest full-manual camera in the world. Of course, via a little research, it's defeated by the famous Rollei 35 whose thickness is smaller even though slightly the same in other dimensions. This is expected since, instead of focal plane one, the Paxette operated with leaf shutter making the camera a bit ridiculously long. However, I have another question so far, how far the smallest of the camera could actually be?
I am one of the post-cold-war generation who experienced many changes in 135 camera form and, if I am not mistaken, one of the old era goals is to reduce the size and mass of the gear. My first memory about small camera is when I saw the Rollei 35 advertisement in the tracking magazine which told me that the small camera will allow you to keep the scene of some kind of Alpine's landscape while it doesn't annoy you for its size. There are several other ways to avoid the size problem like using other formats like half-frame in Olympus pen series, 8mm, 16mm or 110 in spy cameras, but developing the full frame small camera was ever a practical challenge in early development. Two main tasks are the mechanism and material and the other concern is optics. The first problem in early development is the mechanism which is rarely maintained the same operation when one try to compact it a small space. The race of such optimization on mechanical design is end up in 70's where many kind of smallest cameras were introduced. The change in material from brass, aluminum to magnesium alloy or hight quality plastics did also some helps in this task. And finally, the replacement of electrical circuit to the physical mechanics play the main role. I have ever see the unwrapping version of Nikon F3 shutter circuit in the magazine as well.
After the community had passed to the digital age, a smaller than 135 image size become more advantageous. The same quality of image on the old 135 film can be done nearly perfect by an index-finger size image sensor, and, no discuss about the size of the camera anymore. It seems that the challenge was end. However, another problem which is considered unavoidable stay still; that is the optics. Even though the size can be shrunk into the hand area the optic control is further difficult. The major factor is the optical character of light, namely no one could reduce the wave length or the frequency of light and of course the ray will behave differently when it's constrained in different chamber spaces. For instance, one may know that the depth of field of the image produced from the tiny lens will be too thick. The shallow of the out-of-image-plane components in the photo can only be produced by the summation of non-identical images that are allowed if there are spared lateral space of the lens. Such the areas are not available when one use the small lens (or small aperture). Another example is flare producing, that is an alternative gimmick some photographers used to seasoning their photos. Such phenomena can occur by several internal reflections in the lens. Again, the lack of adequate space in the lens will give you no desired flair.
Today, the built-in camera in a mobile phone is kind of popular and recently in the race this era. While the conventional camera is seemingly stuck with technology since the appearance of mirrorless camera, the development in the builtin phone camera is still in challenge. The size of such camera is extremely tiny compared to the conventional one. Due to the physical matter discuss above, it's still suffered from the optic problem whereas there might be some phone users desire something like a thin DOF and lense flair. Hence the manufacturer compete to produce the unique effect of the conventional camera. To me, like many photographers, I still belief that the development cannot overcome the conventional camera. Anyway, such attempt to make the builtin phone camera to mimic the convention camera is interesting to me. Recently, I am wondering that I see the layout of multi camera on the back of a cellphone in the advertisement. That reminds me something similar to what I've ever seen when I was young.
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