View Full Version : Help: The best miniature camera phones?


Wayne Morellini
July 5th, 2020, 07:52 AM
Hi. Haven't been around for a while, my account dashboard has been broken. I used to be in alternative imagining a lot.

I've been wanting to find the best FullHD+ (4k+ actually) miniature camera phones (the size of the original iPhone or smaller, but definitely smaller than the original iphone SE) for pro filming through something like filmic Pro or vizzywig still frame based technique. But it is hard to find out about lots of them, and I've been too sick to be able to look much. Going through some pretty insane stuff here.

I was wondering if there is anybody out there who would like to research this, maybe one of the old crowd, or if anybody would like to contribute some linked suggestions to the thread?

Another thing is, camera apps you can load in a new codec to, to get closer to 36mb/s+ h264 per megapixel (4k at nearly 300mb/s), half that much in h265 and a 1/4 in the new video after that? A lot of phone codec hardware is pretty poor, but there is a lot more processing power in the CPU/GPU which could be used with it. A Bayer raw codec like cineform could be used.
Tricking out the hardware. 4:2:2/4:4:4 and external control interface also being looked for?

Some of the stuff out there makes the original iPhone look enormous, but generally the sensors aren't great, and that's hard to find out about too.

Some examples:
Surely there may be good ones out there.

i.ebayimg.com/images/g/-pEAAOSwdmRdVD8o/s-l400.jpg

www.dhresource.com/0x0/f2/albu/g10/M00/3B/35/rBVaVlzStz-ATKfSAATdkjdsbS8038.jpg

i.ebayimg.com/images/g/lX4AAOSwtvZcPqex/s-l400.jpg

i.ebayimg.com/images/g/rjEAAOSwCZZdLIzw/s-l400.jpg

Donald McPherson
November 9th, 2021, 01:59 PM
Maybe not miniature. But I just upgraded my phone to the Samsung s21 Ultra. Anyone wants to a DSLR.

Jeff Turkali
April 10th, 2022, 07:19 PM
Hi. Haven't been around for a while, my account dashboard has been broken. I used to be in alternative imagining a lot.

I've been wanting to find the best FullHD+ (4k+ actually) miniature camera phones (the size of the original iPhone or smaller, but definitely smaller than the original iphone SE) for pro filming through something like filmic Pro or vizzywig still frame based technique. But it is hard to find out about lots of them, and I've been too sick to be able to look much. Going through some pretty insane stuff here.

I was wondering if there is anybody out there who would like to research this, maybe one of the old crowd, or if anybody would like to contribute some linked suggestions to the thread?

Another thing is, camera apps you can load in a new codec to, to get closer to 36mb/s+ h264 per megapixel (4k at nearly 300mb/s), half that much in h265 and a 1/4 in the new video after that? A lot of phone codec hardware is pretty poor, but there is a lot more processing power in the CPU/GPU which could be used with it. A Bayer raw codec like cineform could be used.
Tricking out the hardware. 4:2:2/4:4:4 and external control interface also being looked for?

Some of the stuff out there makes the original iPhone look enormous, but generally the sensors aren't great, and that's hard to find out about too.

Some examples:
Surely there may be good ones out there.

i.ebayimg.com/images/g/-pEAAOSwdmRdVD8o/s-l400.jpg

www.dhresource.com/0x0/f2/albu/g10/M00/3B/35/rBVaVlzStz-ATKfSAATdkjdsbS8038.jpg

i.ebayimg.com/images/g/lX4AAOSwtvZcPqex/s-l400.jpg

i.ebayimg.com/images/g/rjEAAOSwCZZdLIzw/s-l400.jpg

You want top quality 4k video, and the smallest camera out there? OK!!!

I’m seeing major improvements in all areas of cell phone video. Any iPhone 12, or 13 is now going to be pretty killer. Yet I opted for the Pro Max models - desiring the largest storage space available.