[normhead]

The thing that any camera with a small sensor can not do is shallow depth of field, along with crazy bokeh. There is some computational meddling that phones can do to blur the background in a portrait, but there are limits. For nonsense like this a much bigger sensor (at least APS-C IMHO but M4/3 fanbois may disagree) is needed, along with a large aperture lens of course.

Maybe not there yet, but well on the way.....

[HoLun]

The thing that any camera with a small sensor can not do is shallow depth of field, along with crazy bokeh. There is some computational meddling that phones can do to blur the background in a portrait, but there are limits. For nonsense like this a much bigger sensor (at least APS-C IMHO but M4/3 fanbois may disagree) is needed, along with a large aperture lens of course.

its mostly about the lens rather than the sensor, unless you are comparing the same lens on different sensors.
it all depends on subject distance, focal length and f number

CIMG1408

this is with my casio EX-10, a 1/1.7" cellphone size sensor, straight out of camera jpg

[StiffLegged]

Addendum: I think also a reason for Canon & Nikon to change their mount size is that with their new mirrorless body designs, they claimed they could offer a superior image with a new mount considering their new flange distances. A personal note, I think the size of the mount hole on the new NIKON cameras, well I think the new mount/hole size looks huge compared to the body of their camera(s)....

Michael, it's not the flange distance that's driving these new lens ranges, it's the larger diameter mount which gives lens designers more options.

[RobA_Oz]

Michael, it's not the flange distance that's driving these new lens ranges, it's the larger diameter mount which gives lens designers more options.

While that’s true, it’s interesting to note that Nikon’s new Z-mount 20mm F1.8 lens weighs 505g, while the Pentax 21mm F2.4 lens weighs 416g. The Nikon lens is a tad faster, of course, and has 14 elements in 11 groups, while the Pentax is an 11/8 design, so it seems that non-retro-focus designs aren’t necessarily simpler or lighter as they were once touted to be. The shorter registration distance means that corner rays are incident at a greater angle, which probably accounts for some of the increased complexity of the Nikon design. I’d be surprised if there was a great difference in the performance of those two, but I have no personal experience of the Nikon lens.

Longer focal-length lenses are a different matter, and I doubt that the mirrorless designs are much different to those of the DSLR mounts.

---

Last edited by RobA_Oz; 01-12-2023 at 03:29 PM.

[pres589]

f1.8 vs f2.4 is nearly a full stop. There's a whole lot of design choices that arrive at a lens of one physical size & weight vs. the next. What I would agree with without hesitation is that mirrorless vs. SLR lens designs do not seem to offer a clear advantage in lens size/weight. I think your f1.8/20 vs. f2.4/21 example bears that out.

[mlag]

It occurs to me that once Apple and other companies put the equivalent of the Apple 48MP sensor in their phones, and Apple puts them in all three cameras, the number of images taken with phones will increase even more, with people having less and less reason to buy a stand alone camera. Once they are topping the resolution of ILCs, and are better for printing large, the gig will be up. ILCs will become specialty cameras of interest only to pros and advanced amateurs.

It’s 48 mpixel on one "normal view angle like 35/50mm” lens but only 12 mpixel on both uwide and tele lenses(yes 2 teles!)...
a 6x optical zoom but combined with a 15x digital zoom (aka cropping) range,
Image stabilisation
and (indeed a very good) integrated postprocessing AI engine to hide the limitations of the lower mpixel, crop zoom etc..and improve appearance.

Sometimes your phone will be only 12 mpixel... or interpolation...even when the output is 48mpxel

Pictures are indeed very ’pleasing’, but there is a lot non controllable parameters including (a kind of mandatory Topaz like) smooth- and sharpening and gigapixel resizing process and ultrazoom emulation by interpolation of the three cameras, optical zoom(s) and cropping.

-----------
Apple camera specs Pro camera system:
48MP Main: 24 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture, second-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilization, seven‑element lens, 100% Focus*Pixels
12MP Ultra*Wide: 13 mm, ƒ/2.2 aperture and 120° field of view, six‑element lens, 100% Focus*Pixels
12MP 2x Telephoto (enabled by quad-pixel sensor): 48 mm, ƒ/1.78 aperture, second-generation sensor-shift optical image stabilization, seven‑element lens, 100% Focus*Pixels
12MP 3x Telephoto: 77 mm, ƒ/2.8 aperture, optical image stabilization, six-element lens
3x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 6x optical zoom range; digital zoom up to 15x
Sapphire crystal lens cover
Adaptive True Tone flash
Photonic Engine
Deep Fusion
Smart HDR 4
...
‐-------------
One could say they package the equivalent of pentax body and four lenses and postprocessing like topaz in a smartphone (which shows how powerfull and complex our phones are)...

Most people like the automation of these postprocessed pictures, but there all well hidden limits to the resulting image.
In some cases you will look at an image created from a interpolated mix of 12/48mp optical/cropped zoom, and smoothed by the AI graphics processor to please the human eye. Even a raw image of a phone is for that reason only half raw, it’s maybe not jpeg’ed but pre-processed anyhow. The real raw are 4 pictures of the 4 cameras before they were interpreted into one picture.

I also use my smartphone a lot, I like and indeed use smartphone pictures in fotoalbums and my travel picture collections, but still see limitations (but indeed less than in early days of phones), still see differences with my pentax.

It’s not WYSIWYG but ... what you see is processed to what you like to get.

Sometimes it is what you want, sometimes not...
And sometimes I want to know exactly what happened in postprocessing , and sometimes (most of the time?) I want just a nice picture...Apple (and stuff like topaz) is indeed very good in the last one.

Just remember that 48mp is only sometimes true..., only if you don’t zoom or only a little bit. And even then they use other cameras as secondary source for noise reduction and low light enhancement....

Otherwise one could argue as well that mirrorless K01 and gigapixel sw for upscaling produces also 48 mpixel images....

---------- Post added 12-01-23 at 16:13 ----------

The K-01 was mirrorless, so here is my question:

If the K-01 was mirrorless, then the obvious question is: Why can't they make another mirrorless camera with a digital viewfinder, that takes K lens?

I have read, and realize, that the big barrier is the flange distance, but again, it's been done before with the k-01 - so great big question mark (?)

Actually they do , it’s called live view.

[zippythezip]

Thats it, you guys have made me go dig out my "BumbleBee" and XS40 lens. Just wish I could put my Canon EVF from my M6MKII on top of it. But a K01 mkII, with EVF you bet I would buy it in a heart beat.

[hjoseph7]

I'd love a K-02 that was styled like a classic camera and tech from the GR & K-3 III so that I could more easily focus and meter through classic, adapted, and modern manual glass. If they had done that I probably wouldn't have gone looking for a mirrorless body to try and move forward with. These sorts of threads tell me that I'm not alone in this sort of standpoint. I cannot imagine that there is a reason why they couldn't do exactly what I've outlined here.

Actually it's not too bad of a camera if they tweek it a little. Too bad the AF a feature Mirror-less cameras are known, for is so horrendous. Also, the battery life is nothing to brag about. Otherwise, for an experimental model it's not bad at all.

[TaoMaas]

Without a pentaprism, there is no Pentax. I'm pretty sure the company sees it that way too.

That's a good point, Sandy...and you may very well be right. So maybe we're looking at this wrong because, while Pentax seems to have parked themselves in the DSLR camp, Ricoh has not. They make a pretty darned popular mirrorless camera in the GR. Instead of asking Pentax to make another mirrorless camera, maybe we should be asking Ricoh to make an interchangeable lens GR.

[normhead]

Otherwise one could argue as well that mirrorless K01 and gigapixel sw for upscaling produces also 48 mpixel images..

.

One of the next things I will investigate will be how well the 12 MP image do in Gigapixel. The one comparison I did had the 12 MP showed the my Apple photo at 12 MP had as much detail as my K-1. I guess to relate to the OP and original topic, phones are breaking the traditional model of what a camera should be, and shown what is possible. If anything, phones have shown how small a camera can really be. So small they are included as part of a real small package. How much people will want the comparatively larger package of even a K-01 is debatable. Personally I think cameras will eat EVF and Mirrorless' lunch. My iPhone currently does everything my K-01 used to do for me, in a much smaller easier to use package.

I'm going to have to retake this image, with my iPhone in place of the K-01, to be up to date.

[pres589]

I feel like Pentax lives in other things besides the mirror that they put in front of the sensor. Honestly at this point I respect their adherence to ISO-invariance and neutral color science more than their use of a mirror in their cameras.

[normhead]

I feel like Pentax lives in other things besides the mirror that they put in front of the sensor. Honestly at this point I respect their adherence to ISO-invariance and neutral color science more than their use of a mirror in their cameras.

I too appreciate their concentration on making good images, rather than bells and whistles.

[Wheatfield]

The K-01 was mirrorless, so here is my question:

If the K-01 was mirrorless, then the obvious question is: Why can't they make another mirrorless camera with a digital viewfinder, that takes K lens?

I have read, and realize, that the big barrier is the flange distance, but again, it's been done before with the k-01 - so great big question mark (?)

They could, but then they would be an also ran at the very back of the mirrorless market. Sony, Nikon, Fuji and Canon dominate the market with Panasonic and Olympus taking up the rear. Pentax, if they made a mirrorless at this time, would be on the starting blocks in a race that is already over.
Mirrorless is now the mass market in an rapidly shrinking market. Pentax failed in the mass market and is doing quite well, thank you very much, as a niche market player making stuff that no one else is making but that still has a small but discerning market.
A Pentax EV ILC would die on the shelf no matter how good it is. That ship has sailed and it's too far out to sea to turn around and pick up a handful of passengers.

[reh321]

The K-01 was mirrorless, so here is my question:

If the K-01 was mirrorless, then the obvious question is: Why can't they make another mirrorless camera with a digital viewfinder, that takes K lens?

I have read, and realize, that the big barrier is the flange distance, but again, it's been done before with the k-01 - so great big question mark (?)

When I was looking at cameras in 2015, I rejected the K-01 because it lacked a viewfinder. I did get a Q-7 - and because of the quiet leaf-shutters it’s lenses have, it has found a place {inside} with me - but I haven’t changed my mind ….. in fact, experience with the Q-7 has convinced me I was correct. The Sony NEX and the Canon EOS-M of the same vintage also lacked viewfinders, but Sony and Canon eventually added EVFs {creating the A6nnn and the EOS-Mxx families, respectively}, but Pentax decided “MILC isn’t for us”.

[zippythezip]

I like using the clearviewer on my cameras. Even use it on my GR3 and TG6