Smartphones, and the result of extended usage on them.

[Rob C]

I was having a chat this morning with an ex-photographer, and he raised the point about how durable tiny sensors are or are not.

His observation was that, over time, photographs from these devices begin to look less sharp. It wasn’t about comparisons of cellphones with traditional cameras, but simply a comparison of early photos using a particular cellphone, and those from the very same cellphone a few years later on.

I found that an interesting observation on his part, because I have been having similar doubts about the fidelity of my own cellphone. I get the impression that recent snaps look less crisp than older ones. I only sharpen a lot when I want to ‘distress’ a shot, as in my Daidochromes, where the idea is to depart reality and cross into mild fantasy. For most normal purposes, it seems to me that sharpening is hardly required at all.

I was wondering if anybody else has felt this odd sensation, or even if there is a broader reality out there, where all digital camera sensors lose their quality, and the news simply hasn’t reached me. I do lead a very quiet life… ;-)

[degrub]

finger oil and detritus more likely cause.

[Rob C]

Yes, I could see this being a cause, but not in my case, as I clean the lenses before making the snaps. The trouble is, there's not a way for me to be sure whether or not the 'less crisp' impression is real, or just in my imagination.

I suppose that the only route open to me is to run a series of tests, but that's not going to happen because I know I'd find it too boring half-way through any testing. And of course, the tests themselves wouldn't be conclusive because there'd be no way to make them using the cellphone as a new unit again, to provide the 'new' comparitor (nice neologism to fill a gap that shouldn't exist!).

Perhaps this is all a September affliction, brought on by new iPhone release expectations brought to their peak each year at this time. So far, the only big expectation that seems likely to be certain is a hike in prices. Telefonica has already been offering deals on the existing iPhone 17, but intentionally buying old doesn't strike me as making much sense, as it's the photo side of the new 'phone that has been getting all the pre-release hype and photography is the only reason I'd be interested in a new cellphone.

There are also rumours of new cameras on the way, and if Nikon comes out with something really small, much smaller and lighter than my old D200, perhaps that might make more sense because I have a stack of good lenses doing nothing... sadly, I suppose that a smaller camera would mean an even smaller viewfinder; the D200 - and also the dead D700 - both have accessory magnifier lenses fitted to the viewfinders, and those made a world of difference with both bodies. The Nikon Z 50 II seems to fill some of those requirements, but afaik has neither a sensor shaker to remove dust, nor even any form of stabilization. The price is right, as it comes below the current iPhone 17 Pro.

[Chris Kern]

I was having a chat this morning with an ex-photographer, and he raised the point about how durable tiny sensors are or are not.

His observation was that, over time, photographs from these devices begin to look less sharp. It wasn’t about comparisons of cellphones with traditional cameras, but simply a comparison of early photos using a particular cellphone, and those from the very same cellphone a few years later on.

I'm no expert on smartphone light sensors, or smartphone electronics in general, but my experience is that after microprocessing devices survive an "infant mortality" period of a few months, they rarely degrade functionally until they fail completely—if they ever do fail completely.

My guess is that if this phenomenon can be proved empirically, it's the software (firmware) that's to blame.  Smartphone image-processing software tends to involve very aggressive noise reduction, regardless of the ambient light, to compensate for the small sensor size—and, as everybody on this forum undoubtedly is aware, the penalty for noise reduction is typically a loss of edge acuity.  And when the smartphone's post-processing software employs generative AI, it replaces visual elements in the raw image with supposedly improved data generated by a neural network, either for purposes of noise reduction or to eliminate other deficiencies in the image capture; these techniques get more powerful as the software is updated and I wouldn't be surprised if some of them sacrifice edges within the image in order to provide other improvements (or, should I say, "improvements").

There's a special wrinkle for generic smartphones—basically all of them except Apple iPhones (Apple manufactures the hardware and provides all the software)—because the manufacturer (Samsung, etc.) needs to code an "abstraction layer" to provide a connection between its hardware and the interface offered by the Android operating system, which is a specialized version of a more general open-source operating system (Linux).  The creation of this layer may be split between the manufacturer of the chipset that powers the smartphone (e.g., Qualcomm) and the manufacturer of the smartphone proper, which makes the software design challenge even more complex.  (I'm under the impression Samsung is the only manufacturer of both a generic phone and its chipset.  But Samsung still has to write code to make its hardware work with the Android operating system.)

So as software is upgraded over time, there may be regressions in some of its features, either because of deliberate design trade-offs or inadvertence.  I've definitely seen that happen in other contexts.