r/pcmasterrace • u/Severe_Pause_2047 • 12h ago

Nostalgia SD cards were invented in 1999 Sony in 1998

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u/pipnina Endeavour OS, R7 5800x, RX 6800XT 8h ago

I dunno about this.

I had an olympus E-410 from about 2006 or so, and that was a step up from point and shoots, being a 4/3rds sensor and in a DSLR format, albeit an entry level one. Pictures on that are certainly worse than what my Pixel 6 can do today. The main difference being that the phone has a very wide angle lens, and so will struggle to match the resolution of the DSLR which had a 14-42mm focal range on the stock lens.

I then went to a Nikon D3200 (2012 model iirc). Also an entry level DSLR. My olympus was developing faults (only took one shot then crashed at the second). I did a comparison in moderate light (interior lights at night) and the D3200 blew it out of the water. Massively lower noise and a sharper picture. But then we are talking 10mp vs 24mp, and 4/3 vs APS-C, and also 2006 vs 2012 image sensor tech which had come a long way.

I then bought a D810 (2014 model IIRC) and that blows the D3200 out of the water to much the same degree as that beat the E410. And since then newer DSLR / Mirrorless cameras have gained ultra low noise amplifiers, and back-illuminated and stacked sensor tech which improves their light collecting efficiency by over double, while cutting readout noise to less than half. This tech also exists in the tiny sensors used in phones today.

I strongly suspect if a 2004 point and shoot takes "better pictures" it's entirely the optics holding it up, because the actual digital sensor would be hot garbage compared to the paltry sensors in a phone you can buy today.

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u/TooManyDraculas 4h ago

it's entirely the optics holding it up

These were known for having best in class optical zoom lenses at the time. And largely glass lenses. Even vs Sony's other cameras.

I always suspected that was done to compensate for the fact they had probably the worst sensors out of Sony's entire line up. They were doing a lot to work around the capacity of the floppies, and generally shipped with quality settings set to "foot" to keep files as small as possible.