Question for photographers here using mobile phone cameras

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
GIMP is an excellent program which has significantly improved in the last few years and is still free. Works also both on Linux and Windows too.

Here's it on Linux with kernel 6.0.9 and you can see the interface is identical to Windows.

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Seems a pity though while the lenses etc of mobile phone cameras have also significantly improved - the software to deal with using a tiny lens on a small body with minimal aperture control has failed to keep pace. Most things now seem geared to people taking "Home Movies".

Other people's Holiday videos and family movies I'm afraid I find one of the biggest bores on the planet. And I'm sure I'm not alone in that view even if people are too embarrased to say it.


Cheers
jimbo

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Like GIMP, Krita is free open source also. It's kind of funny that you bring up GIMP for Linux, as the origin of Krita can actually be traced to GIMP and Linux: History | Krita

Hi there
@barman58 thanks for that info ==always appreciate that.

@badrobot I also have the samsung S21 Ultra -- however if you look at the 2nd example from the ist pic (the block of flats or whatever) in your corrections it seems that the width at the top of the building in the L>R direction is wider at the top than at the bottom so while correcting a bit for the Vertical (in the Z direction - assuming a classical X,Y,Z plane) it introduces a Left to right defect.

As for the leaning tower of Pisa - that's not a problem since you are "correcting" a standard pic with no "Z" axis distortion so it's easily achieved by a simple rotational correction. If the tower was leaning AWAY from you while directly lin front of it --i.e backwards leaning rather than left to right while looking at it it would be much harder to correct.

The problem with vertical correction is when you say are looking straight at a picture you need to correct the "Z" dimension

The direction I mean because it's a difficult concept to grasp is to imagine you are directly facing a Politician and you want to throw an egg at him / her. The direction of travel of the egg is the perspective that needs to be corrected. Pan and Tilt / shift lenses were (and are) used for this purpose by many pro archtectural photographers.

Cheers
jimbo

As a photographer, the easiest way to combat distortion in architectural images (or other genres, where it is often less of an issue), is to simply step back so you can hold the camera level - of course this is not always possible due to physical constraints, even when it is possible to increase the distance you may need to use a Telephoto Lens to achieve a frame filling image, and this will introduce Depth distortion, this is why the old Tilt Shift lenses were developed and are still used either physically or virtually in post production. Of course there is also distortion that needs to be controlled if you are taking the image from an angle rather than "Head on" to the subject building, although the human brain can cope with this as it is not unnatural

jimbo45 said:

Hi there
@barman58 thanks for that info ==always appreciate that.

@badrobot I also have the samsung S21 Ultra -- however if you look at the 2nd example from the ist pic (the block of flats or whatever) in your corrections it seems that the width at the top of the building in the L>R direction is wider at the top than at the bottom so while correcting a bit for the Vertical (in the Z direction - assuming a classical X,Y,Z plane) it introduces a Left to right defect.

As for the leaning tower of Pisa - that's not a problem since you are "correcting" a standard pic with no "Z" axis distortion so it's easily achieved by a simple rotational correction. If the tower was leaning AWAY from you while directly lin front of it --i.e backwards leaning rather than left to right while looking at it it would be much harder to correct.

The problem with vertical correction is when you say are looking straight at a picture you need to correct the "Z" dimension

The direction I mean because it's a difficult concept to grasp is to imagine you are directly facing a Politician and you want to throw an egg at him / her. The direction of travel of the egg is the perspective that needs to be corrected. Pan and Tilt / shift lenses were (and are) used for this purpose by many pro archtectural photographers.

Cheers
jimbo

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I thought we are discussing about phone photos? You can't expect too much from it. If you intend to have a professional quality photos, you are using the wrong tool.
The Z adjustment is somewhat irrelevant but you can eyeball it. There is no way you can correct the Z axis the way you have it in mind. It all depends on your distance from the subject.
My example is not perfect because it is just a quick demonstration on how you can adjust the verticals and what app is available to use based on your original post.

badrobot said:

I thought we are discussing about phone photos? You can't expect too much from it. If you intend to have a professional quality photos, you are using the wrong tool.
The Z adjustment is somewhat irrelevant but you can eyeball it. There is no way you can correct the Z axis the way you have it in mind. It all depends on your distance from the subject.
My example is not perfect because it is just a quick demonstration on how you can adjust the verticals and what app is available to use based on your original post.

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Hi there
@badrobot
I appreciate the suggestion -- wasn't trying "dissing the comment" of course but just pointing out with some of the newer resolution of Mobile phone camera lenses how the software hasn't kept pace with the massive improvement in the hardware.

Pan and tilt I know is almost impossible or even actually impossible to replicate on a mobile phone camera -- it's hard enough even on a decent SLR with the appropriate lenses. I find using the rare but pro FD->EOS Canon adapter on a pro Canon DSLR is the only way to create this unless you can use a DSLR back (digital back) on a Film camera -- rather out of my budget though !!!.



It takes work as you essentially have to use manual settings on the DSLR - or you can use Aperture priority -- you have to account for a 1.25X stop adjustment though.

This has genuine optics etc in it -- very rare now -- don't waste time with the cheap imitations especially those with no optics in them.

Cheers

jimbo

badrobot said:

You can't expect too much from it. If you intend to have a professional quality photos, you are using the wrong tool.

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It depends. I still own my Nikon F80 that I purchased new 22 years ago, and, even though it factually belongs in the "prosumer" product category, it's still one of the absolute finest 35mm film cameras that have ever been made. Here is a pic I made in summer of 2018. With my Huawei P30 Pro phone.

hdmi said:

It depends. I still own my Nikon F80 that I purchased new 23 years ago, and, even though it factually belongs in the "prosumer" product category, it's still one of the absolute finest 35mm film cameras that have ever been made. Here is a pic I made in summer of 2018. With my Huawei P30 Pro phone.

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Yeah I absolutely love my S21, too. But the topic is correcting architectural photos. Not resolution or crispiness of details.

badrobot said:

Yeah I absolutely love my S21, too. But the topic is correcting architectural photos. Not resolution or crispiness of details.

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To be able to correct architectural photos, all you really need is resolution and a computer.

hdmi said:

To be able to correct architectural photos, all you really need is resolution and a computer.

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No, we are discussing tilt-shift correction. The resolution is a given factor. No issue about that.

In the end, if you want quality photos, you need quality lenses and no mobile phone will ever compete with even a reasonably modestly priced camera.

cereberus said:

In the end, if you want quality photos, you need quality lenses and no mobile phone will ever compete with even a reasonably modestly priced camera.

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It is a logical statement but may not be always valid in today's camera phone technology.

Although the perspective of tall architecture can be altered one way or another, could it be better left as it is in order to convey the height, or even impressiveness, of a building?

mart44 said:

Although the perspective of tall architecture can be altered one way or another, could it be better left as it is in order to convey the height, or even impressiveness, of a building?

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For street photography yes. But for commercial architectural photography it is different.
Vertical lines are always vertical like how they were drawn.

badrobot said:

It is a logical statement but may not be always valid in today's camera phone technology.

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No phone can handle low level light conditions like a proper camera.

You need a large lens to gather light or else the lens has to remain open longer with associated camera shake.

Even my little 10xoptical zoom canon compact takes far superior pictures of the night sky.

In the end, size does matter LOL.

cereberus said:

No phone can handle low level light conditions like a proper camera.

You need a large lens to gather light or else the lens has to remain open longer with associated camera shake.

Even my little 10xoptical zoom canon compact takes far superior pictures of the night sky.

In the end, size does matter LOL.

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Technology these days rely on software to correct images as in the case of phone cameras and that is how they are able to handle low light conditions. Old DSLRs rely mostly on hardware (wide aperture, fast lens). Yeah, it is also doable on phones these days. A lot of pro photogs these days rely on their phones in places where big cameras are not allowed. But not all phones are created equal. My favorite lens is my 15-70mm f2.8. Great in low light. But I do have a 50mm f1.8 prime lens which I don't use a lot.

One thing that I have learned over my years holding a camera, the best camera is the one you have with you. these days this is likely to be a mobile phone, that is a fact of life. The image captured with a mobile phone will never be the technical equal of a traditional camera setup.

What they will do is capture the image that would not be captured with a better camera that was not present at the time.

What we can do with modern software is correct what flaws we are able to in what could well the only record of the point of time at that location
I have three main cameras [Plus a decent Zoom compact Always in the car] One of my cameras has a built in GPS that is added to the metadata of each shot I take ,The other two do not have the facility so I use my phone to take an image from each of the locations I photograph so I can manually add the location data in post process.

The reason I do this is so other photographers can find out where any image was captured to capture their own image of the location

The reason for this thread is to help a Member here @jimbo45 to correct some imperfections in specialist images taken with a Mobile Phone. I see images taken with pro cameras that have the same issues and they are often also corrected using the same techniques used to correct the phone images

There is no argument that you will, (at least at present), get better quality results from a DSLR or Decent Compact Camera than with a phone, however it is also true that given the same restrictions to location the same errors can be found in images from all sources

badrobot said:

No, we are discussing tilt-shift correction.

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...And that can be achieved with a computer.

hdmi said:

...And that can be achieved with a computer.

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The computer is also a given. The OP is asking for an app or software.

HI and thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread .

Great that there are some keen photographers around. I must admit I also have @barman58 idea of always keeping a pocket sized compact canon zoom camera in my car -- it can take better pics any day than my S21 Ultra samsung phone -- however I have to agree 100% that the best camera is the one you have -- and for things like accidents / other unexpected events you can't beat the immediacy of a mobile phone and get stuff out on to the internet / police / ambulance, world tv etc if required -- as some footage coming from Iran etc shows.

I still think my all round favourite is my bog standard 50mm F1.4 lens -- Zooms have their place but if you have the time then you can't really beat a prime lens whatever its focal length because using a Prime rather than a zoom makes you think when composing the shot and at wide aperture you definitely need a tripod !!!!

However if mobile phones get more people to appreciate fine photography then we all benefit. I just hope though future generations won't lose the ability to have real printed pics -- just like CD's and Vinyls are coming back instead of 100% digital music.

Anyway once again thanks to all -- I think we've done enough now on this topic.

Cheers
jimbo

I have been keen on photography in the past (evening classes etc.) but found I was missing quite a few family shots and snapshots, so switched to using a compact Canon PowerShot SX240 and now a phone as well. Easy to carry and quick to use. Software can mostly correct for any deficiencies these might introduce. Never over-edit afterwards, just enough to make the shot appear as the eyes saw the scene but the camera didn't quite reproduce.

Not a professional photographer with requirements to fulfil, so sometimes architectural shots get perspective corrected and sometimes not. I think the impression of height an uncorrected photo gives can often add to a photo.