
Thoughts on cameras in the age of excellent cell phone photos - Tomte
https://whatever.scalzi.com/2020/05/05/thoughts-on-cameras-in-the-age-of-excellent-cell-phone-photos/
======
smoe
A bit off topic, but as somebody that doesn't know anything about photography,
when I look at pictures taken by dedicated hobbyists and (semi-)professionals
vs. normals, the main difference for me is I think almost never from the
technical aspects of their cameras but the deliberateness the photos have been
taken or selected.

As In "oh, I like this tree, lets snapshot it to put on social media" vs.
really thinking about how to capture this moment on a 2D surface. Motif,
framing, lights and shadow, flow of lines, fore-, middle-, and background,
etc. (As I said, I don't know about photography but those seem to be things
you want to care about).

I reckon, the difference of what camera you use is much more about the choices
they allow you to make than some superiority in technical specs. The latter is
to squeeze out the last few percent or as related to production pipeline e.g.
printing on billboards.

I think especially we people in tech, who can often more easily afford it,
tend to jump to getting more sophisticated, expensive gear, be that
photography, music, painting, etc. expecting better results, forgetting that
it's all pretty worthless, if you don't get the fundamental artistry and
techniques right first.

~~~
kieckerjan
Exactly! Point in case. My girlfriend has an art background and a crappy
phone, I have a good DSLR and little experience. When you look at our holiday
pictures, mine are razor sharp but boring as hell, hers are compressed to a
pulp but always funny or interesting to look at. We should really swap
cameras. :)

~~~
petepete
I'm very much into photography and I struggle from this whenever I stray
outside of my comfort zone, wildlife.

~~~
beamatronic
Just bring some wildlife with you wherever you go and include it in the photo!
Should make for some interesting shots...

------
AuryGlenz
I'm probably one of the only professional photographers on HN, just to give
some context. I'm taking a break from editing a wedding as we speak. I don't
know what the rules here are on self promotion but feel free to Google my name
to see my work.

Cell phone pictures to me are the equivalent today of what disposable camera
photos used to be. They're easy to use and get decent results in the right
circumstances. In the wrong circumstances, they're absolutely terrible.

One thing that I don't think gets mentioned enough is that cell phone pictures
generally look good on a cell phone, but blow it up to an 8x10 or a 24"
monitor and you'll quickly see how poor they are. I think it's a pretty big
shame we're living in a time where really great cameras are quite cheap, but
most people's memories are only suitable to view in small sizes.

I also think that a large portion of why camera sales have been on the decline
isn't solely due to cell phone cameras, but the fact that a lot of people
don't have a PC in their home anymore. The apps to transfer images to a cell
phone/tablet are typically quite poor and slow, and managing files generally
isn't easy doing that. People rarely get prints with their own photos, so the
manufacturer that solves that issue would have a decent advantage.

~~~
gambiting
I mean, I don't get this argument at all, I have several photos taken with my
phone printed on A3 format and hanging around my house, I don't see any issue
with them that would show they were taken on a phone. In comparison I have a
few pictures printed out, taken with an old W1 Sony camera and they are awful,
would take pictures from my phone over those any time.

Here's my latest printed picture:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h6P5ZbNjQ5FD9nkzdB_TnfsA4li...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1h6P5ZbNjQ5FD9nkzdB_TnfsA4li_DTMS/view?usp=drivesdk)

And the actual source image:
[https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iVenWHP4TesmhTWAY2qMDQs21u3...](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iVenWHP4TesmhTWAY2qMDQs21u3c38ui/view?usp=drivesdk)

Having said all of this - I find it incredibly rare for people to print photos
at all, which is pretty sad in itself. I get not needing albums, but having
pictures to hang on the walls is always nice.

~~~
ardit33
you made the parent's point, your picture looks good, but still not as a good
as a professional one, taken with a good camera

I have a mirrorless cameras, and time to time I use it... and the pictures I
get with it are still much better than my iphonex

~~~
manmal
It’s the same for me. I have a quite cheap portrait lens for my old Sony
Nex-3, and the pictures I get out of it are (subjectively) so much better than
those taken with my iPhone XS, with actual bokeh and real depth.

~~~
bergstromm466
I mean, can anything really ever be objective? Or are things just continually
witnessed, from tens - to trillions - of times?

~~~
manmal
I would say if you perform a double blind study with a decent sample size, you
will indeed reach objective conclusions, and you will even know the
probability that your observation is correct.

------
imagetic
"The best camera is the one you have with you." \- Unknown

Photographer here. Cell phones have become very capable cameras. I've seen
whole segments of my client list evaporate with the last generation of camera
phones. The last straw was when the iPhone got portrait mode and could render
bokeh/blur like lens physics.

Two things though...

1\. The phone cameras are really really good. In the right hands,
professionally capable in many situations. You don't need to know the basics
of photography/physics to operate a camera phone properly. It helps, but the
average person can just point and shoot with solid results.

2\. We mostly just publish to social media now. The need for extremely
detailed, high quality media work is diminishing at the bottom line. The
market is changing. The quality in which we document is shifting. 8K is a buzz
word, not an archival format for future proofing.

There isn't a cell phone in the world that could even touch the capabilities
of a high end DSLR or Mirrorless camera, but that simply just doesn't matter
now.

~~~
StavrosK
Also photographer here, I disagree that it doesn't matter. There are some
things that you can't do[0] with a phone, e.g. good low-light shots,
astrophotography, different lenses, etc.

Yes, I have a phone with me, and it's great for when I forgot my camera, but
there is no comparison in the freedom that the 5D gives me in postprocessing
compared to a phone sensor. Phones are great for 100% of the things the
average user wants, but not enough for what many artists want.

[0] It's not technically impossible, but it's a huge hassle and probably won't
be near as good as with cameras.

~~~
PuffinBlue
> Also photographer here, I disagree that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter to the people who would previously have paid for a product.
That's the point being made.

Technical excellence will always matter to some, but the point the GP is
making is that the quality of smartphones has reached a level where a larger
and larger segment of 'people who would have paid' now rest within the
smartphone circle on the Venn diagram.

~~~
StavrosK
"Phones have eaten some of the DSLR market" and "it simply doesn't matter now"
are not remotely the same, though.

~~~
slantyyz
> "it simply doesn't matter now"

If the OP is talking about the general public's _perception_ , with most of
them not being photography enthusiasts, I tend to think this rings true.

If you're a photography enthusiast, then yeah, not true at all.

------
KineticLensman
> The better cell phone cameras get, the more frustrated I get with their
> limitations — and the more I recognize how much better a dedicated camera is
> for those situations

Totally agree, as a long time DSLR user.

Six months ago I bought a Nikon D850 – which has 45 Megapixels (8526 x 5504)
at a full-frame resolution, allowing aggressive image cropping if I need it. I
often use a 200-500mm lens. If I switch the camera to a cropped sensor mode I
get a 1.5 x increase in effective focal length (i.e., 850mm) while still
getting a 24 mPx (5408 x 4584) image. The D850 also has very low sensor noise,
which makes shooting in low light a pleasure.

If I want an image of some friends for a typical social media application,
then, yes, I will use my smartphone and get something that is usually good
enough. But, for my main application - wildlife photography – there is just no
comparison. I want to be able to see the detail of the individual feathers on
a bird. And now I’ve gone up the learning curve, unless I make some stupid
mistake, the camera will always get a shot if there is one to be had, not let
the opportunities slip away because I can’t control the focusing or similar.

[Edit] The D850 also has a tolerable DSLR video capability, although video
autofocus sucks a bit. Shooting video at HD resolution, it has some very
impressive live view focusing guides (sharp objects are highlighted in red)
and a live histogram display. HD or 4K video with a 850-effective mm lens is
truly awesome. The newer mirrorless Nikons (Z series) are functionally very
similar from a video perspective.

Also, if I want a stunningly fast burst mode for 'small' (1920 x 1080) JPEG-
quality images, I can use slow-mo video to get 120 frames per second.

~~~
throwanem
If you're running in DX crop all the time, consider a D500. The sensor's
smaller, sure, but I don't have noise problems at ISO 2000, and the blazing
fast shutter has caught a lot of jump shots I'd probably otherwise have
missed. I do use a D850 for macro work, but I wouldn't replace the D500 for
wildlife. (Or the 200-500, which is _amazing_ , even if it does make people
think I must be a pro and lead to being annoyed with questions when I'm just
trying to take pictures of birds.)

 _edit:_ Doesn't have the D850's focus peaking in live view, though, as far as
I know. I never use it for that, so better off checking the manual.

~~~
KineticLensman
All fair points. I could only afford one camera body to replace my ageing D3s,
and I do use FX for other applications, so the D850 was my choice.

Focus peaking for video is amazing: you can move the focus from the foreground
to the horizon and literally see a wave of red 'in-focus' tracking up the
frame. For video, I'm a complete convert to live-view.

[Edit]. With practice, focus peaking makes it possible to track a moving
animal (e.g. a squirrel approaching you across the ground) using manual
focusing, without any of the dreaded auto-focus-hunting that can completely
wreck a clip. You just have to learn instinctively which way to rotate the
lens to move the plane of focus closer or further away.

A video tripod head also helps, so that you can pan and elevate the camera
with one hand while focusing with the other. With a normal tripod head, that
has separate locks for panning and elevating, simultaneously moving and
focusing requires three hands.

------
ageitgey
As a long-time hobbyist photographer, I've had a lot of the same thoughts.
Cell phone cameras are getting really good for the 90% use case. My new
Samsung S20 Ultra almost feels like a 'real' camera in some situations and
it's really cool to have that available in my pocket all the time. But its
limitations are also constantly frustrating because there's a lot it can't do
just because of physics.

But one point I'd add - I also find it very frustrating how having an 'almost
good enough' phone camera it makes it harder to justify bringing a real camera
along to regular day-to-day activities. If your phone is good enough most of
the time, you don't want to lug around an extra device unless you are
specifically doing a photo shoot. But then when something interesting happens
and you can't capture the photo you envision on your phone, it drives me
crazy.

~~~
WalterBright
> makes it harder to justify bringing a real camera along to regular day-to-
> day activities.

Back in the film days, pretty much nobody lugged around a camera to regular
activities, it was only brought out for special events and the trip to
Disneyland. This persisted even with digital cameras.

But the phone camera changed everything.

The worst photos are the ones you never took because you didn't bring the
camera.

~~~
ekianjo
There's also a category called pocket cameras these days.

~~~
slantyyz
The good ones are still somewhat expensive (i.e, Sony RX100 series) and they
are chunky enough that you want or need bigger pockets.

~~~
frosted-flakes
I have the RX100 M5, and I love it[1]. I _can_ fit it in my pocket if I'm
wearing loose pants, but the lens sticks out 1 cm from the body and it's just
a little bit too bulky to be comfortable, even in a jacket pocket.

But I got a neck strap for it, and the camera is light enough that I can
barely tell it's there. That's how I'll use it on a hiking trip, and sometimes
I'll even take photos by looking down at the flip-up screen.

[1] I don't love the menu-driven UI though, or the digital lens ring control.
But however much of a compromise the pop-up digital viewfinder is, it works
great in bright sunlight when the screen gets washed out, or when I need to
hold the camera close to me for a steady shot.

~~~
slantyyz
I used to be big on viewfinders... until I had to get reading glasses. Even
though my cameras with VFs have diopters, I find myself just looking over my
regular glasses and touching the screen to focus and shoot.

------
tobyhinloopen
I have an iPhone 11 Pro and I still use my mirrorless camera all the time. It
just takes noticeably better pictures. Using a good lens changes everything.

If you leave that stock zoom lens on... yeah, it’s not great. Now put a light-
sensitive prime on it and put it wide-open. Instant great pictures that even a
novice will notice “its a nice picture”.

I use a Sony A-6000 with a 30mm F1.8 prime.

~~~
foobarian
I would think that wide-open is likely not the sharpest F-stop around, I guess
unless you want to maximize that depth-of-field effect that phone cameras can
only fake.

~~~
tobyhinloopen
I usually shoot at F2.8-F4.0 —- the lens is F1.8

Shooting at 1.8, too much of the picture is out of focus in my experience.

I’m just a hobbyist. Never actually compared sharpness at stops.

------
londons_explore
The main reason for this is _innovation in dedicated cameras has slowed to a
crawl_.

No dedicated camera I'm aware of will take 128 full res frames within half a
second, and align and stack them to reduce sensor noise. Yet all modern phone
cameras do something like that.

You couldn't even really do the above in postprocessing - the Canon EOS 4000D
can only do 3 fps, and only has a buffer of 6 frames.

The reason phone cameras have caught up despite 'worse' physics, is that
dedicated cameras electronics are lacking functionality that phone cameras
have had for a few years now.

~~~
cesaref
Why would a dedicated camera need to take huge numbers of photos to overcome
sensor noise when it's not there in the first place?

No, I think that's a bad example to choose. I do take your point, dedicated
camera development is more conservative, but their market is different. If you
splurge £10k on a camera system, you are likely a pro, and you want
consistency, and longevity to the design and the operation of the system.

Thinking about it, dedicated cameras have mainly been innovating in video
production rather than stills in the last 5 years.

~~~
StavrosK
I agree with the GP but for a different reason. It's unacceptable to me that I
have to buy a separate trigger so I can take exposures 31 seconds long.
There's no reason why the timer should only go up to 30, or that I shouldn't
have better bracketing, or a timelapse mode, etc etc.

Basically, all of Magic Lantern (a considerable feature set) should have been
standard.

~~~
sukilot
That's a weird nitpick. My phone doesn't even have a headphone jack or an SD
card tray. A free aftermarket add-on isn't a blocker.

~~~
StavrosK
It's a blocker for me because I don't want to pay Canon $160 for something
that was deliberately left off the software so I'd have to pay Canon $160.

Also, it's a literal button. I'm paying $160 for a button with a timer on it.

~~~
c9fc42ad
I agree that the camera software should just let you pick any shutter speed,
but you can get a pretty cheap remote button or intervalometer for <$30, or
even DIY one for cheaper. What does the $160 canon button give you that a
cheaper version doesn't?

~~~
StavrosK
The cheaper ones don't come with a timer, do they? Besides, it's not that I
haven't found a solution (Magic Lantern lets me set the speed to however long
I want), but I dislike the gesture. It's obvious that they're gating features
so they can release them in the next model.

------
DoubleGlazing
One point often overlook with phone cameras is that although they can take
great pictures, the image quality degrades over time as the glass is
rubbed/scratched etc.

When I first got my Huawei P20 Pro, I was seriously impressed with just how
sharp and crisp the images it took were. A year later that "wow" sharpness
factor just wasn't there anymore. Looking at the glass covering the lenses you
could clearly see scuffing and small scratches, the result of a years worth of
normal usages.

For daytime snaps it wasn't that big a deal, but for indoor snaps every light
source looked like t had the starburst effect.

It's a minor issue, but definitely worth noting. It's also the reason why I
still take a "real" camera with me on holidays or to events.

~~~
jp555
I wonder if the iPhone's sapphire camera lens helps?

My 4 year old 6S (used caseless and without much caution its entire life) lens
is still pristine.

------
simonw
Last year I found a really nice balance: a DSLR with a really good, really
long lens (a Canon 100-400mm telephoto) combined with an iPhone 11 Pro.

I use the telephoto for interesting things that are far away - generally
wildlife. I use the iPhone for shots that the telephoto is no good for -
landscapes, interesting things that are nearby.

This gives me the ability to take most photos without needing to swap lenses!

Admitting that my phone takes great quality photos and it's OK to use it even
when I'm carrying my DSLR was a very useful psychological step for me.

~~~
matwood
This has been my vacation photo strategy for awhile now. I keep my 300mm zoom
on my Nikon and use my iPhone for snaps. The benefits of the iPhone are that
the pics it takes almost never need any post. The downside is that it is
limited to what pics it can take.

I also do miss having the 50mm on my Nikon while walking around. It's sharp,
takes great low light pics, and is so versatile.

So yeah, I understand your psychological hangups because I have the same ones
:)

~~~
mickelsen
My vacation strategy is the iPhone for the day and a camera with a 50mm prime
that I take out at night for low light portraits ;)

~~~
ValentineC
Same, except it's an Olympus OM-D with a 14mm f/2.5 lens (28mm field-of-view)
in my case. It takes fantastic photos even at ISO 1600 and above.

------
reedf1
I'm new to photography and I've invested heavily in the mirrorless ecosystem
in the past year. I can't echo this articles sentiment enough. For 90-95% of
use cases my 2 grand camera is a lame duck.

I regularly wondered if the love of my camera was simply some sunk cost bias
towards it. I've been mostly cured of this thought through the reactions of
people. A "holy sh*t" when I show them a long-exposure of the stars. A
whispered "oh my god" when I show them a shot with beautiful bokeh.

And to me - as a physicist - the act catching the edge cases, that extra 5% of
shots. The stuff you need a good sensor and a nice piece of glass to capture.
That's what I find exciting.

~~~
StavrosK
When you get into heavy postprocessing, the dynamic range of the phone can't
hold a candle to that of the camera, though. It's just night and day.

There's no way you could retrieve this much detail from a phone sensor:
[https://imgz.org/ius5Vhb9/](https://imgz.org/ius5Vhb9/)

~~~
CamperBob2
The top version of the photo is really nice. It could easily have come from a
good phone camera.

The bottom version... OK, my phone can't do that. If it did, I'd take it to
the Apple store to see if they could fix it.

~~~
miahi
I would say your phone can do that, it's just that you did not enable HDR.

The thing is, because of how our eyes and brain work (huge dynamic range plus
postprocessing), the actual viewed scene was probably closer to the second
photo than the first, but with a higher contrast (the camera HDR emulates the
eye but you also need a huge dynamic range display to show it right, otherwise
it's "compressed" to low contrast). So you can choose the contrast (first
photo) or dynamic range (second photo) but not both.

~~~
CamperBob2
My comment came out sounding somewhat mean, which wasn't my intention, but the
truth is that I'm not a big fan of HDR and related artificial effects. These
effects don't look anything like the imagery perceived by _my_ eyes and brain;
they're just different ways to ruin a good photo.

In this case, a very good photo.

~~~
sukilot
Non-HDR isn't anything like what your eyes see.

~~~
CamperBob2
Once dynamic range is lost by rendering something on a phone screen or
computer monitor, you can't recover it without making the image look weird and
artificial. It's like mixing 24-bit audio for playback through an 8-bit DAC.
You can play all sorts of games with dynamic range expansion, but at the end
of the day you've done a bad thing.

Then there's the fact that a lot of problems people try to solve with HDR are
actually gamma correction issues.

Of course, I may just not be taking the right drugs...

------
malchow
Time always tells. A Bresson photo taken with a Leica in 1940 looks as good
now as it did then. Somehow I suspect that, no matter how impressive the
current iPhone 11 cameras are, those HEIC files will look obviously lame in
just a few years. The same won't hold true for anyone using good lenses on a
nice Sony A7R or Leica M10.

~~~
hn_check
Good photos keep looking good. Bad photos don't. Story at 11.

"those HEIC files will look obviously lame in just a few years"

This is, of course, absolute nonsense. It is equipment elitism (e.g. "if I
just buy the right camera and the right lens I'll be a great photographer"),
and is actually extraordinary to compare with your leading comment about
Bresson's photography: Bresson was working with extremely limited hardware,
though it was pretty good for the time. Grainy film with a very poor dynamic
range. Soft, inaccurate lenses. He took great photos so that became
irrelevant, not the reason for the success. Yet you segue to saying that
therefore smartphone photos won't be good in the future? Talk about missing
the lesson from your own example.

Further, there are loads of "prosumers" taking just loads and loads of
absolutely disposable, terrible photos on their SLRs with "good lenses" (<\-
that is of course one of those fun no true scotsman things where you can
always just argue that counterpoints just don't fit the notion). Yeah,
shooting everything as a bokeh photo on your f1.2 lens is exactly what every
first-time photographer does.

------
css
Two points not discussed here:

\- Startup time. It takes less than half a second from a cold start for my
Canon to start shooting at 14fps, but my iPhone 11 Pro often tales 5-10s to
open the camera app for some reason, plus more time for it to realize I am
holding the shutter for burst and not tapping for single shooting.

\- Autofocus time. My Canon can track moving subjects with autofocus and keep
them in focus on almost any vector (I mainly shoot surf photos where my
subject is traveling both towards and perpendicular to me), whereas my iPhone
struggles to keep a stationary subject in focus even in direct sunlight.

~~~
m463
Gah I _HATE_ that about apple products.

You can't customize the UI.

Why can't you customize the UI? Apple won't let you. You only get what they
have decided to allow.

Why can't we just hold a button and unlock the phone directly into the camera?

(patiently waiting for linux phone)

EDIT: to be clear, I mean an unambiguous way of taking a still photo or video
that doesn't require looking at the screen or "being in a mode".

~~~
CharlesW
> _Why can 't we just hold a button and unlock the phone directly into the
> camera?_

FWIW, I'm able to just drag the lock screen left to open the camera app.
Alternatively, I can press/hold the camera icon on the lock screen.

Hearing about a 5-10s delay is shocking. It's instantaneous on my iPhone 11.

~~~
m463
Sorry, I wasn't more clear.

I mean some way that you don't have to look at the screen for feedback.

What you're saying is true, but it behaves differently depending on reasons
(like did you unlock first or accidentally press the home button to get to the
home screen or ...)

The idea would be - some unambiguous non-fiddly way of launching the camera
into either still photo or video mode.

I'm pretty sure everyone who's ever had an iphone has struggled and lost this
battle trying to rip off a photo or video.

~~~
wenc
From what you're describing, it sounds like you're having a very different
iPhone experience from the norm. Just curious, what model/iOS do you have?

Just a data point: I have an older (2015) iPhone 6s from work that supports
opening the camera app in <1s from lock screen.

~~~
m463
iphone 8 with touch id. I'm not saying it's not fast, I'm saying something
else.

~~~
wenc
Hmm, yes I confess I'm not fully understanding. A left swipe from the lock
screen to me seems both fast and non-fiddly.

You don't need to touch the home button at all. Just hold your phone up (the
screen will turn on if you have "Raise to Wake" on -- usually on by default).
Then swipe left from the right edge. That's it.

~~~
m463
well in general my phone will let you click the screen saver button and swipe
to get the camera -- when locked.

when unlocked you have to look at the screen and miss the shot.

Maybe a more concrete example would be:

Apple allows apple pay to be a first-class function. You can double-click the
home button at any time to access apple pay.

Apple has an "accessibility shortcut" for triple clicking the home button. But
it's for magnifier.

Why wouldn't they allow the phone owner to customize the UI for critical
functions like camera from the iphone 1 days?

------
aimor
I was actually relieved when the author came around to my own experience:
camera phones are 90% there, but being in that 10% space with only a phone is
endlessly frustrating.

Beyond quality, I also dislike how camera phones have cheapened photos.
Decades ago I actively thought this wouldn't be a problem, but now it's very
apparent that it is: People take thousands of photos and don't look at them.

Why? I think it's too many photos for people to comfortably curate. 4 rolls of
film was manageable, and with limited space in the album (and patience for the
task), the best ones got picked out and the rest filed away in a shoebox.
Today? I've been there, watching patiently, as someone scrolls though their
phone "album", skipping over dozens of identical images to get to the next
good one. Unlimited space gives even the most fat fingered "photo burst" prone
grandparent reason to never delete anything. It's so bad that now the phone AI
has taken over the task of "organizing". It's a terrible combination. Maybe
the phones will learn to create albums just from the good photos, but so far
I'm not impressed.

~~~
ValentineC
> _Beyond quality, I also dislike how camera phones have cheapened photos._

I don't think this is about camera phones, but digital cameras.

I find myself curating more photos immediately when they're taken with my
iPhone — while leaving photos in my DSLR/M43 cameras for future curation,
because their LCD screens are tiny.

------
nicbou
Another benefit of smartphones is that photos are geotagged, processed, and
backed up automatically. This is a pretty big deal if you travel for more than
a few days.

My humble RX100 took objectively better pictures than my Samsung S9, but not
enough to justify the extra weight, and the extra logistics. When my RX100
broke, I did not replace it.

I also had larger cameras. They made photography the main activity whenever I
brought them with me. I rarely took them with me.

~~~
yunusabd
Second that, I wanted to display the photos from my DSLR on a map. The photos
weren't geotagged, so I had to find a way to add the locations. Ended up
writing a script that matches the photos from the DSLR with the geolocations
from my Google location history. Worked well enough, but geotagging should
really be a standard feature in any camera these days.

~~~
nicbou
Lightroom can do that for you

------
gorgoiler
_[Said with a sense of irony]_

Luckily for my sense of self, I’ve only ever engaged in available light
photography.

Ilford Delta 3200 when everyone else was using Kodak Gold 200. Fast fixed
focal length lenses when everyone else was using f3.5 or slower kit zooms.
Everything shot wide open all of the time, resulting in many dud photos with
incorrect focus, and a few fantastic shots.

It’s an excellent way of justifying my box of _”real camera equipment”_ to
myself, on the continuing onslaught of evidence that cell phone cameras are
plenty good enough.

------
robotmay
I do wish a phone company would offer a phone that does _no_ real processing
of the image. Phone photos look fine on a phone, but the moment you enlarge
them they really are extremely weird, in my experience. Personally I would
love the utility of a modern camera along the lines of old Leicas; simple,
manual, compact, and with good quality if you know what you're doing. I
suppose there are modern Leicas but god; that price inflation.

Also lovely to see an article by Scalzi on here, one of my all-time favourite
authors.

~~~
khyryk
By extremely weird, I'm guessing you mean lacking in detail. The tiny sensors
can't resolve as much detail so cropping with phone pictures will hit a wall
much faster than, say, a 24MP APS-C sensor. The trade-off here is that you
can't really shove a Sony A5100 with its lens on into a pants pocket like you
easily can with any smartphone. I've pulled out a phone and taken once-in-a-
lifetime pictures within 3 seconds -- good luck doing it with a packed-away
bigger camera.

This is part of why you see so many wide angle and macro shots these days:
they're the ideal scenarios for phone pictures. Phone sensors are finally
starting to creep up in size from the common 1/2.55" sensors. I suspect should
they reach the 1" size, the resolution of detail will dramatically improve. It
looks like the S20 Ultra has a 1/1.33" already, but I haven't tried it myself.

~~~
robotmay
Ah I mostly meant more in terms of the denoising, HDR-ish effects, and the
like, but I do agree that the sensors are also partly to blame there. I
imagine the small size increases the need for noise reduction processing.

------
onion2k
My hobby is wildlife photography, mostly of birds. I live in hope that a
manufacturer will make a 1000mm folded optic inside a phone one day,
especially if it's not insanely expensive like an dSLR lens, but I suspect the
laws of physics will stop them. That said, if manufacturers can bring the
computational photography advances that phones get to the wider photography
world that would definitely be a positive benefit.

~~~
reportingsjr
This is what I'm curious about. I've recently gotten really interested in
nature photography, but mostly on small details rather than far away. Trying
to get phones to focus on flowers, small insects, etc is an exercise in
frustration. Even when I think I got something in decent focus, I'll view the
photo on my computer and it is super blurry. I'm currently looking at cameras
to get away from this personally.

~~~
throwanem
If it helps, the name for this style is "macro" photography. It should be
"micro", but somebody got it wrong a hundred years ago and we're all stuck
with it now. That's what to be looking for in info, tutorials, lenses and
other gear, etc.

I mainly do macro work these days myself, e.g. [https://aaron-m.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/DSC_9393.jpg](https://aaron-m.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/DSC_9393.jpg) \- I'm happy to talk about what it was
like getting started, if you think it might be useful. Definitely some
surprises, even coming at it from a place of good familiarity with
interchangeable-lens photography in general.

~~~
myu701
Your macro skills are amazing. Boy am I glad that wasp isn't live-sized
because when my display showed it, I got the chills!

Phones currently cannot easily capture the details on the wasp, from the
blood? vessels to the compound eye cells. Something somewhere would be blurred
into oblivion.

Is it the macro lense that captures those details, or is it a wide f-stop /
image size / ISO is low enough ?

I know the terms and that they matter, but not what combinations to use given
what I want to capture. (this must be what it is like for a non-techie person
to try to select video transcoding settings :) )

~~~
throwanem
You definitely need a macro lens for shots like this. Their design differs
from regular prime lenses in a way that lets you focus on subjects much closer
to the lens than a regular prime, so you can get this kind of detail; with a
regular prime, you have to be a lot further out. (I took this shot with the
lens objective element about six inches away from the wasp - a regular lens
can't focus on anything that close.)

Somewhat counterintuitively, you actually need a very _high_ F-stop to capture
this kind of detail offhand, too - this was shot at f/32, through a lens that
maxes out at f/2.8. The reason is that, the wider open your aperture is, the
more off-axis light is captured - which produces shallower depth of field
(DoF), i.e., a narrower space ahead of and behind the focus point that is also
pretty much in focus. Because of the way macro lenses work, they exacerbate
this problem a lot. So you need a very narrow aperture to have enough of your
subject in focus for a good image.

(You do also lose some sharpness to diffraction at such high F-stops, it's
true. But that's the tradeoff - high F-stop _and_ deep DoF _and_ diffraction
losses, _or_ low F-stop _and_ shallow DoF _and_ almost nothing in focus. The
only way to compensate is by taking a lot of wide-open shots and focus
stacking, but that requires the kind of time and precision that's only
possible with a stationary subject - and this wasp was anything but! I might
get away with f/22 or f/25 in the same situation today, but I'm a better macro
photographer now than I was a year ago, too.)

Another effect of the narrow aperture you need for good DoF is that you're
capturing very little light in any single exposure - there's just physically a
smaller space for light to enter and hit the sensor. You can compensate for
that by vastly increasing ISO sensitivity, but at the cost of adding a
similarly vast amount of noise to your shots; the best way to overcome the
light problem is by adding light with flashes.

Ring flashes, mounted on the filter thread at the front of the lens, are
especially popular for this, because they produce a largely shadowless light
that falls evenly on subjects very close to the lens. Another popular option
is any of a variety of macro bracket systems, which let you mount regular
"speedlight" flashes in a way that concentrates their light similarly to how a
ring flash does. There are also systems such as Nikon's SB-R1C1, which
combines a hot-shoe-mounted control unit with two (or more) flash heads that
mount to a ring on the filter thread.

That said - sure, you can spend a lot of money on macro lighting, but you
don't always need to. Especially if you're just starting out, a regular
speedlight on the hot shoe, maybe with a homemade bounce card taped on to help
aim the light at the macro subject, is absolutely a good starting option -
especially since macro lenses tend to be a little spendier than regular primes
due to their more complex construction. Better to start out spending money on
the best 60-80mm macro lens you can afford, because you can't do without that
and it'll give you a good opportunity to find out whether macro photography is
something you really enjoy doing! Once you know you want to keep going, _that
's_ the time to be looking at complicated lighting and other gear that'll help
you level up your ability to get keepers.

On a related note - image (sensor) size is significant, but not hugely so. I
got that wasp photo with a Nikon D500, which has an APS-C size sensor, and it
came out well enough that I can have 36x24 inch (91x61 cm) prints made from
the full-resolution version at no significant cost in quality. (I actually
have such a print hanging on my living room wall. It's quite striking! I never
get tired of looking at it, although others rarely feel the same - I used to
have it over my bed, but my boyfriend at the time asked me to take it down.)
With a larger sensor, you can capture more detail and a wider field of view,
for sure. But you don't _need_ a larger sensor - I've seen shots made on Micro
Four-Thirds system bodies that equal or better the best work I've ever done.

Overall, macro doesn't give the lie to the axiom that the most important piece
of equipment in photography is the one between the photographer's ears. Macro
is a realm where that axiom is maybe a _little_ less true, because of the
technical constraints of the style. But once you've got a good macro lens and
a basic speedlight, you've got enough to where it comes back to practice,
skill, and learning how to recognize the kind of images _you_ want to make.

Oh, and speaking of skill - one thing about macro is that autofocus tends not
to be very useful, both because AF systems tend not to handle the situation
well, and because your plane of focus is so narrow at such close ranges that
the best AF in the world can't keep up. If you haven't had much opportunity to
develop your manual focus skills before picking up macro, you definitely will
have once you do! It's easier than it might seem at first; modern AF cameras
don't have the same kind of manual focusing aids that old film SLRs did, but
you absolutely can train your eye to pick up detail and recognize where the
plane of focus lies. You'll learn, too, to hold your breath while focusing to
minimize wobble, and how to synchronize shutter firing with the tiny movements
you can't stop your body from making, in order to get tack-sharp shots with
the focus exactly where you want it. If I had to pick one thing about macro
that's more than anything else a matter of skill and practice, that would be
it - don't get discouraged if it's hard to do at first! I was _terrible_ at it
to begin with, and I can attest that you will get better if you work at it.

Anyway, that's a lot, but I hope it helps!

(And, yeah, those would be blood vessels in the wasp's wings, _sort of_ \-
insects have an open circulatory system, so they don't work quite the same way
we're used to thinking about as vertebrates. But they do circulate hemolymph -
if you're interested,
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S146780391...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1467803918300677)
has a good deal more detail.)

------
lippel82
One benefit that gets rarely mentioned is the ability to stick a flash on the
DSLR, point it to the ceiling and do indirect flashing that's properly metered
by the camera. This makes such a big difference for the image quality of
indoor portraits!

~~~
kevstev
Having a flash that can fire upward is such a game changer when taking photos
I have a hard time understanding why this wasn't an option on point and shoots
and even built in flashes on DSLR's for years.

Maybe its about differentiation, but if just a single manufacturer created a
model that you could adjust the flash to point upward, people would flock to
it after seeing the results.

~~~
ValentineC
I'm guessing it's a combination of having to engineer an extra hinge, which
could affect durability, and not wanting to cannibalise the sales of their
external flashes.

------
cgufus
I hate what phones do to photos of persons. Blurring out details that
accentuate the character of a person only to make it social media style
(beautify). Life is not what you see in social media, life is what people
actually are.

------
jiggawatts
Just to throw my anecdotal experience on the pile: When I get home from a
trip, I dump my Nikon D800 photos into Lightroom alongside with the pictures
from my partner's M4/3s and both of our recent-model iPhones.

When picking and scoring pictures in Lightroom, all I see is a stream of
interleaved photos from all of the cameras, without labels clearly indicating
which-is-which.

In the end, I typically choose 80% of the keepers from the Nikon, 15% from the
m4/3s camera, and maybe 5% from the two phones combined.

Everyone I know compliments me on "how good a photographer I am", but I'm
really not, and I know it. Not one artistic bone in my body. The camera and
the lenses I have are incredibly good though! I just press the button, and out
pops a fantastic image.

------
12xo
For most people and most uses, a cell phone camera is all you ever need. But
its more akin to having an iPad vs a MacbookPro. For most, all they ever need
is in the iPad but for professionals and techies, its limitations come into
play quickly.

Small screens and social media make cell phone pics shine. But their images
fall apart with closer inspection and they do not produce the quality needed
for fine art or commercial work.

The old saying that the best camera is the one you have on you holds true. And
yes, my iPhone Pro is amazing compared to shooting with a Fuji 100 and a Nikon
FM2... but I never use it for final shots.

------
mholt
I agree with this, there is no substitute for a "real" camera.

However, I usually only have my phone on me, so, I decided to make that into a
novelty selling point for my online store:
[https://finerpixels.com](https://finerpixels.com)

The whole point is that I use a phone because the lower quality sensor adds a
unique painting-like quality if you look close enough.

I've made several large prints from phone photos and they look really
aesthetic in fact. But it still takes an eye to get it right.

------
nicholassmith
The way I end up thinking of it now is: I use my DSLR when I want to do
photography, I use my phone when I want to take a photo. The end of goal of
both is the same, to create an image, but it's how each one gets there that
makes it interesting to me personally. Computational photography has
democratised taking really good photos, but having creative freedom of a DSLR
(or mirrorless, or film etc) allows for a richer experience in my eyes. Maybe
phone cameras will get to that level at some stage.

------
OliverJones
It's all about the glass ... the lenses.

A camera with a large aperture (translation: one of those great big lenses)
can do stuff a phone camera can only simulate.

\-- gather more light. (Phone camera sensors are getting better so that's of
diminishing importance.)

\-- control the depth of field nicely. Lens marketroids brag about "creamy
bokeh", which is what the out-of-focus stuff looks like in a photo taken with
a narrow depth of field. Cell phones use a depth-sensor hack ... a really
great depth-sensor hack ... to drive image processing to blur image
backgrounds. Great hack, but still a hack.

If you're thinking of buying a camera with the crappy kit 14-14mm f/2.8 zoom
lens, just don't. Use your camera.

But if you know what a good lens is for and know how to use it, buy the
camera. I want this LEGENDARY lens to take pictures of indoor events but I
can't justify the cost.
[https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1023336-REG/panasonic...](https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1023336-REG/panasonic_leica_dg_nocticron_42_5mm.html/overview)

Phone camera designers should keep chasing Neal Stephenson's lensless camera
vision from Anathem.
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathem))
But in the meantime good glass has its place.

And, here's the thing: camera lenses, properly cared for, can last a lot
longer than camera bodies. If the body craps out get a new body that fits your
glass.

------
DanielBMarkham
"...Or to put it another way: cell phone cameras have gotten good enough that
they will do 90% to 95% of everything that the average person would ever want
out of a camera. ..."

I've been a photographer my entire life. I love the hobby. Over the last few
years, I've been thinking a lot about this also. I have the latest Pixel. I
also have a couple of DSLRs and a few lenses. Recently I bought the best
point-and-shoot you can buy. From the reviews, I was promised great things
about it.

Result? Meh.

The phones and mirrorless DLSRs are not bad cameras. Both have reached the
point where I'd guess they'd do about 80% of what I would do, and that's
pretty cool. It's especially handy if I'm in a hurry and just want to bang out
a few shots to send or post somewhere.

The problem is that last 20%. My time is not free. Usually if I'm going out to
shoot some, I want to shoot some. That is, I want full control over the light
bucket, a great bucket, and I'm taking time to get shots that might turn out
well when I get into post-processing. These higher-tech cameras take pretty
cool shots all of the time, but they're just guessing as to what might make a
good shot, and they have built-in limits. So if I'm taking an afternoon to
shoot, I'm taking my DSLR.

Oddly, the newer mirrorless camera has been the most disappointing, probably
because I had such high hopes. It's great tech, it's just not a professional
part of a photography workflow. Once I stopped thinking I could take pro
pictures with it, it got more fun. But now whenever I'm using it I wonder why
I'm not just going with the cell phone.

------
mmaunder
For stills the new three camera iPhone is amazing unless you want to zoom. I
own a bunch of L series Canon zoom lenses including an F4 600mm prime and it’s
unbelievable. In particular, compressing backgrounds into foreground subjects
is what zoom lenses are great at. Or collapsing a scene. Google ‘seven
powerlines scene’ on google images for an example.

Other than zoom lenses my iPhone does everything I need for stills and the new
wide lens is amazing.

Video is different. Cellphones still suck at producing video with a wide
dynamic range and color depth. I make films and we shoot on Blackmagic
cameras. We get raw partial debayered output with 4:4:4 12 bit color and 14.5
stops of dynamic range. Your cellphone won’t come close to this, which is fine
because you’re not grading your video much. We put the footage in davinci
resolve and push the hell out of it, and if you don’t have that data depth
it’ll fall apart fast.

But cellphones will get there with video too and then we’ll be left in the
same situation, where the only differentiator will be things that you simply
can’t achieve with a small platform - like fast zoom lenses or intentionally
large sensors.

------
jrockway
Ultimately, the keys to a technically good photograph is to be close and to
collect a lot of light. For the documentary photographs most people want to
take, there is no camera that wouldn't meet their needs. They are close
(literally arm's length) and there is usually plenty of light. Any camera will
be good under these conditions.

The challenge comes when you want to photograph something unusual. The biggest
disappointment I've had in recent memory was sitting on a ferry at night,
surrounded by what seemed like the blindingly bright and infinitely large city
skyline. Basking in the glow, I knew I wanted to take a picture, so I busted
out my iPhone. All I got was a blurry sphere or two surrounded by pitch
blackness. I wasn't close and I didn't have a lot of light, so the choice in
camera didn't work. (I know my a7 would have handled this admirably at ISO
1600. I kind of forgot there were stars in the sky until I started using that
thing at night -- I can't see them, but the camera can.)

Digital processing can help here -- AI denoising, using frames of video
stacked on top of each other and carefully shifted by using accelerometer data
to simulate a longer exposure, motors that move the sensor around, etc. But
often you can look at one of these pictures and tell that it's synthetic --
not capturing the moment you saw as you saw it, but looking like what you saw
shaped by 1000s of other similar moments composited together by an AI.

I have yet to find the perfect camera. Big sensors collect a lot of light, but
require big bodies and big lenses. Small sensors are always with you, but fail
when you're about to take the most interesting picture. There is probably not
a workaround for this, so I think you'll find a lot of people with big cameras
for years to come.

------
0x01DEED
In digital photography there are two steps:

STEP 1: capture the light and save it in 0s and 1s

STEP 2: process the original 0s and 1s into a new set of 0s and 1s that is
much more pleasant to the eye

-> DSLRs do STEP 1 extremely well and STEP 2 poorly. But, almost all professional photographers would not even let their DSLR do STEP 2 because they prefer anyway to do it themselves MANUALLY (e.g. in Lightroom, Photoshop etc). Therefore they never use the STEP 2 functionality of their DSLR. And I think they wouldn't use the STEP 2 functionality even if their DSLR was good at it. That's because they want FULL control of the final outcome. Probably this is why DSLR companies haven't invested a lot in upgrading the STEP 2 functionality (so far).

-> Smartphones do STEP 1 poorly but they do STEP 2 extremely well using algorithms. So they cater for different needs: When you want to sacrifice STEP 1 for convenience, when you just want a decent photo fast, when you're not that opinionated about the final outcome and would rather let smartphone decide it etc etc. Also, because they can't do STEP 1 very well, they are limited to a specific photography style, the "everyday well-lit snapshot" style. They can't do sports photography, they can't do wildlife photography, they can't do macro etc.

So, smartphones are convenient, and do a few things very well, but they can't
do miracles.

DSLRs are not convenient, but if you add some extra work, they can do
miracles!

(My prediction is that DSLR companies will start upgrading their STEP 2
algorithms a lot in the future and try to convince more people to use their
cameras as "point-and-shoot". But they will fail. People will continue using
their mobile phones, because they are light and much more convenient)

------
ptero
To me, phone cameras work great for most cases _in good light_. For flowers
and landscapes I never bother with DSLR now.

Poor light though and real DSLR with large aperture glass and a big sensor
works a LOT better. And for some cases like moving wildlife at long range
phones aren't competitive. Getting a DSLR is probably driven by whether those
cases are important or not.

------
misiogames
My Nikon DSLR (and lens) rarely leave the bag in the last few years, my
compromise was to get a middle-of-the-pack fixed lens camera, a Fujifim X20,
that is compact enough that I can just drop in my backpack and always have
around in case i think the cell phone camera doesn't cut it but that stills
allows for some "manual" tinkering if wanted.

------
deanclatworthy
For those who have made the decision to use their camera phone over a larger
DSLR, I urge you to consider a compact mirrorless camera such as Fujifilm
X100F (or the newer X100V).

It's small enough to fit inside a spacious pocket, and inconspicuous enough to
take subtle photos - plus the thing looks gorgeous. And of course, the
beautiful built in film simulations.

------
nullc
Most of the time I post photos I took on an SLR I get comments about how
amazing the photos are.

Cell phone photos no longer suck horribly, sure.

------
BWGB
I find that the phone creates a version of the picture that it thinks is best,
probably to look good on social media. Where as a DSLR has the functionality
to make manual adjustments to create a photo to your own specs. Sometimes
having a photos with high/low exposure, or grainy effects created
authentically via DSLR are preferred.

~~~
harpratap
Most phones have option to click RAW photos

~~~
m000
Phones are designed with the implicit assumption that they offer you more
storage than you'll ever need. If you start shooting RAW, this assumption
crumbles very quickly.

~~~
harpratap
Galaxy S20 comes with 1TB expandable storage. With 20MB RAW images you can
store 50000 images. Also you can always pay for cloud storage, you can get 2TB
for $10 a month.

------
veesahni
I've been torn for similar reasons over the last few years: Should I take my
camera when the phone in my pocket is good enough?

Photos I take from my Pixel are 90% there - the automatic processing is
excellent. But sometimes the white balance is off or sometimes it exposes for
the wrong thing. I can correct these things in lightroom but the adjustability
is limited compared to files from a dedicated camera. And then there's other
issues with phone cameras like a limited buffer and rapid battery drain.

Ultimately similar to the OP I've decided to not get rid of my dedicated
camera. Instead, I'm consciously keeping it out and nearby so I get to it
quickly when I need to.

FWIW, I'm on the m43 mirrorless system - awesome balance of portability and
quality. Unfortunately companies behind these systems were struggling before
phones got so much better. The current economic environment isn't helping.

------
stared
I used to carry my DSLR almost all the time. Now I don't + even if I do, very
often I end up taking a picture with my phone (in even light, and when I don't
need any zoom, the result is similar (or better), and I can post it right
away).

When there is bad light, or high contrast, even a 10-old DSLR is better... but
requires time for post-processing. However, I think it is going to change soon
with deep learning, for tweaking everything - from local contrast, through
removing chromatic aberration, to fixing blurred pictures with super-
resolution. To, well, adjusting ISO a lot:
[https://github.com/cchen156/Learning-to-See-in-the-
Dark](https://github.com/cchen156/Learning-to-See-in-the-Dark)

------
djdjeirjrjfjf
There’s still a profound difference between phone pics and camera pics. Optics
quality is just as important as brute resolution. High-end Android phones and
iPhones have been getting better optics, but still there’s only so much you
can do with glass the size of an M&M and most recent advances and prospective
future advances are coming from AI. AI can correct color and lighting, but I
seriously doubt we’re going to be filling in poor detail using onboard GANs
anytime soon. Who knows, maybe those are famous last words, but I don’t think
so. Optical quality is limited by the laws of physics. So unless we discover
something fundamentally new, high-end cameras are going to stay the size they
have been for the past hundred years.

------
m463
DSLRs are usually superior cameras.

One weak point seems to be long lenses. The Nikon P1000 is designed with a
small sensor and an appropriate lens with integrated image stabilization. It
can take usable photos with a 3000mm equivalent magnificaiton. The moon will
fill the frame edge to edge, maybe a little extra.

(the P1000 is not a DSLR it's an all-in-one)

There's an additional edge to tight sensor-lens integration that camera phones
have, they can even use multiple sensor to get extra information to apply
extraordinary effects automatically. That's kind of hard for a DSLR to do.

As to "Scalzi's AI can only do so much"...

[https://youtu.be/bcZFQ3f26pA](https://youtu.be/bcZFQ3f26pA)

I think AI still has a LOT of untapped potential.

~~~
slantyyz
I think one thing Apple got right about smartphone photography is that they
are selling the general public the ability to take superior _photos_ without
most of the inconveniences that tend to come with superior _cameras_.

And that equation more than adequately satisfies the photographic requirements
of most people.

------
phyzome
What I can't figure out is how, in this day and age, to get a digital camera
that does both macro and telephoto without requiring interchangeable lenses.

15 years ago, you'd get a Canon Powershot S1 or some other "bridge" camera,
but as far as I can tell the industry stopped _making_ those. My S5 just
recently broke, and for my purposes (bugs, plants, and birds) I really need
something that has excellent macro without having to carry around a whole
bunch of kit, but can also zoom in on stuff in the distance. Last I checked (5
years ago) there was nothing on the market, so I just bought an unopened S5
off of eBay. -.-

Maybe things have improved since?

~~~
zacherates
Camera sales have fallen off a cliff in the last ten years as people
increasingly rely exclusively on their smartphones. This has lead to camera
companies simplifying their product lines (or simply going out of business).

That being said: Interchangeable lens are great. Join us on the dark side :-)

~~~
phyzome
Ouch, yeah, so the situation may actually be getting worse.

The best camera is the one you have... and I'm not going to have any if I have
to carry around extra lenses. Most of my photos are spur of the moment so I
rely on being able to carry around my camera all the time. Realistically, I'm
only going to carry around an integrated lens camera, no bigger than a
Powershot S5 (which is already pretty big!)

~~~
zacherates
Just because you can change the lenses on your camera, doesn't mean you have
to. There are zoom lenses with pretty extreme ranges that are even pretty
compact like the Olympus 14-150mm and slightly pricier 12-200mm for Micro
Four-Thirds. Now, I have a soft spot in my heart for MFT, realistically, it's
a system that probably doesn't have too much of a future unfortunately (though
not currently defunct at the time of this writing).

If you're more concerned about the future of the system than compactness,
there are full frame superzoom lenses like the 18-400mm from Tamron (for Canon
EF or Nikon mounts). One of the big benefits of interchangeable lens systems
is not necessarily the ability to collect a bunch of glass and swap it out
constantly (that's more of risk actually), but rather to figure out the glass
that suits the shooting you do and use that. When I was getting started, I
bought a bunch of different primes, and it took me a while to settle down, but
since I got the Canon L-series standard zoom (1993 vintage), it's just the
lens that's on my camera that I use all the time.

------
jungletime
One of the most popular cameras on youtube is the g7x line from canon. Which
is a ~$500 pocket camera with fixed 1.8 lens.

Judging by youtube alone, this camera has made the careers of countless beauty
youtubers and probably made the equivalent of millions of dollars for them.

Its probably the overall best camera for filming yourself indoors. The 1.8
aperture, canon colors, and flip out screen, small size, can't really be beat
by anything else. Why? because it makes faces look beautiful!!!

Getting the skin tones correct in low indoor lighting, is something that cell
phones couldn't do over the last decade, and can't really do that well even
now.

~~~
12xo
I am a pro photographer and love the G7X. Its my goto travel camera although
there are some limitations, it produces excellent images. If you want a
compact travel camera, this is a great choice. And no, I dont use it for
video, which is why most of the users like it, I like it for the speed, optics
and the technical controls.

------
throwanem
It's always a fun day when the HN camera thread comes around!

Here are some examples of what you need to be able to do with a phone before
it makes sense to talk about interchangeable-lens cameras not needing to exist
any more.

[https://aaron-m.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/DSC_9393.jpg](https://aaron-m.com/wp-
content/uploads/2019/07/DSC_9393.jpg)

[https://aaron-m.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/08/DSC0375.jpg](https://aaron-m.com/wp-
content/uploads/2018/08/DSC0375.jpg)

~~~
ragazzina
So you're basically agreeing with the article.

~~~
throwanem
But disagreeing with a lot of the comment thread here. "Phones can do
everything" is a pretty common claim when the HN photography thread comes
around, and I never tire of pointing out with examples that there are whole
categories of things that phones just physically can't do.

------
stanski
Something tells me he wouldn't be having such a dilemma when he needs to spend
$1000 or more in two years for a new flagship cell phone. Nevermind how much
less a new camera costs and how much longer it will be useful for.

~~~
nicbou
Compared to the cost of bodies and glass, I'd say it's not so bad.

~~~
ValentineC
Glass is usually a one-time investment that rarely depreciates (though I
wonder if my Nikon DSLR primes still fetch the same value these days).

And while my 12-year-old full-frame Nikon D700 might only fetch a token sum
now, it'll still take photos that are on a different level from any camera
phone out there.

Thousand-dollar phones are a sunk cost, and it's common to only recover
between half to two-thirds of the cost after one release cycle.

~~~
wl
Glass isn't the investment it used to be. Glass designed in the era of 35mm
and early DSLRs doesn't hold a candle to the glass designed for modern high
resolution sensors.

------
mauvehaus
As the article points out, a cell phone camera will take good to great
pictures in a lot of conditions: landscapes, snapshots of people, not too dark
conditions, and most anywhere you don't need a specialized lens.

If you get outside that range of conditions, things fall off fast. The
dandelion picture at the top of the article is probably getting close to the
limits of what you can ask a cell phone camera to do, but the author is a pro,
and knows where the limits are and makes good use of the equipment.

For an example of how bad things get when you get past the limits, here are
two photos of the same moth (or muppet, we're not sure):

Taken with an iPhone X, which was released 2.5 years ago:

[https://www.instagram.com/p/CA1UNSahipd/](https://www.instagram.com/p/CA1UNSahipd/)
(swipe to the second picture; that's me mugging in the first one)

Taken with a Sony a7ii with a Pentax SMC Macro Takumar f/4 50mm. By digital
standards the body is _ancient_ (released almost 6 years ago), but it's full
frame and the price fit my budget. The lens is, well, very old:

[https://www.instagram.com/p/CA2iXoej3Vx/](https://www.instagram.com/p/CA2iXoej3Vx/)

The light is not challenging; this is purely illustrative of what the glass
and/or sensor can or can't do.

In fairness to the argument that the best camera is the one you have with you,
my partner pulled out her phone and got the picture. I had to run back into
the house for the camera. If the moth had flown away, she'd have had a
picture, and I wouldn't have.

We bought the camera principally to shoot finished furniture on a tripod under
continuous light. It's mostly long exposures at low sensitivity (for reduced
sensor noise) in that use. We use the aperture to control depth of field in
that use. This is another case where a phone just doesn't give as much control
as we want. We aren't brilliant photographers (yet), but with some time spent,
we've been getting good enough photos that I'm not looking to hire this part
of my business out yet.

------
CarVac
For me, photography is something I do for fun, not really for the results. Not
much is more fun than using a precision-made manual focus lens, and no cell
phone will _ever_ offer me that experience.

------
ben7799
I've been struggling with this.

I've long been into photography and have a crap ton of gear that I've mostly
been bored of. Canon 5D3, 5-6 lenses, 5-6 flashes, umbrellas and studio gear,
you name it.

The two cameras I get the most enjoyment out of right now though: \- iPhone 8
Plus \- DJI Mavic Mini

The introduction of multiple lenses on the smartphones was the thing that
started changing everything for me.

I have never really been a "must have every focal length covered" guy with my
SLRs/DSLRs. I very often felt more creative and got better results with prime
lenses. Having only one focal length feels restrictive, but 2-3 is plenty.
With these new phones having 2-3 it's suddenly enough to feel like I'm not
creatively restricted. I am fairly excited to get an iPhone 12 Pro or Pixel
whatever the next time around that hopefully has super-wide/wide-
normal/telephoto options.

The Drone has 1 focal length, but it's an insane tripod that lets you get all
kinds of compositions & angles & shots you can't get any other way, so very
very exciting.

Having the phone with you all the time breeds creativity. Not having to carry
a bunch of heavy stuff breeds creativity. Not dealing with terabytes of RAW
photos & programs like Lightroom and hours of "processing" at your desk breed
creativity.

Most of what has been sold with high end photo gear has ended up revolving
around pixel peeping and being sure you can get a sharp photo of the maximum #
of possible shots, even if a lot of those shots aren't really creative. Unless
you're really really focused on shooting wildlife or something a lot of those
very expensive tools are mostly going to sit and not produce that many killer
photos you want to look at all the time. It's also been very aspirational...
people get satisfaction out of saving up and buying more stuff and
consumerism. But once you have the stuff for years that starts to not be as
fun.

I am fairly certain at this point there's no way I'm going to go drop $3k+ on
another DSLR body. (My 5D3 is the 3rd I've bought). It's more a question of do
I end up starting to sell off some of that gear. There's just more fun trying
to do creative stuff with less at this point.

~~~
cheschire
With the depth camera on my iphone 11, the phone is able to dynamically add or
adjust bokeh after the fact when a photo is taken in portrait mode, and get a
reasonable approximation of it as well without the need to transfer to a PC
for manipulation.

It's very easy to quickly see right there on site how the photo will turn out
and take a few more if you're unhappy, as opposed to a DSLR where I would lug
around an ipad as well just to throw the SD card in it to view at a reasonable
size, and still not be sure if I can fix the photo in post.

For life, a phone is now the right camera. For professional endeavors, it
might still be worth the compromise to buy the gear.

------
Dumblydorr
This parallels the debate between vinyl enthusiasts and digital music
consumers. Vinyl enthusiasts swear it's better, but most people don't want to
spend hundreds of dollars and hours of time researching and tweaking settings.

Coming from someone who would've been a musician pre-digital era, I think 95%
as good is good enough for most folks, they don't need the real thing or the
luxury good by a expert artist if it'll cost them 10X the money for an
incremental improvement.

------
vmception
I only use DSLR/EVIL cameras for portrait photography, for the depth of field.
They have no utility for me for outings, tourism, or landscapes, hiking, etc.
My phone has more utility.

For reference, I would consider myself an enthusiast and professional
photographer. I used a darkroom, and have published books and felt quality was
important.

When AI depth of field works for distances of 6-20 feet I will ditch the
physically superior camera for my phone in that use case too.

------
carti
Besides picture quality, there's definitely something to be said for using a
device that's exclusively for photo/video. You've got better UX (hopefully),
amazing lens options, no notifications or distractions, and a different state
of mind (at least for me). It's also immediately obvious to everyone in the
vicinity that you're taking pictures and not just messing with your phone.

------
patwolf
I bought a Fuji x100s back in 2013. I rarely use it any more as cell phone
cameras have gotten so good. However, when one of the x100s photos comes on
the slideshow on our living room TV, I'm blown away at how good it looks.

Having had children during that time, I'm undecided whether it's better that
my oldest has a handful of superb baby photos or that my youngest has a ton of
decent baby photos.

------
bawana
Big sensor cameras are needed for 1). Low light work 2) printing 3). Dynamic
range

Stacking photos introduces artifacts- the subject moves in between sho5s

------
spindle
One thing I don't see mentioned frequently is that old-style DSLRs are TOUGH.
This means that the cost per year of ownership is not as high as it seems at
first glance. So if DSLRs have any advantages for you at all (for me, I like
to have a lens with a good zoom) then it's worth considering getting one, even
if you continue to mostly use your phone camera.

------
lmilcin
I think cellphone cameras can be good when couple conditions are met:

\- mid range focus length

\- normal, good lighting conditions (for example, no huge dynamic range where
you have to be able to choose part of dynamic range you are working with)

\- fast exposures in good lighting

\- static targets or slowly moving humans

\- conditions where you can't or won't take large camera

I use my full frame for things that can't be reliably or at all captured with
smartphone:

\- dramatic, wide shots, or super sharp telephoto. It is not possible to
replicate extreme wide shots or super sharp telephoto (mine is 70-200 f2.8
VR),

\- isolate specific targets with shallow focus depth (cellphones are only good
at isolating human faces because that's what algorithms are trained)

\- smartphones are useless in dark conditions -- and not just because bad
image quality but also because they can't focus and because you have to stare
at the screen which blinds you

\- I can work with extreme dynamic range (think dark church with one ray of
sunlight lighting couple people). Smartphones can try to guess what you are
doing but what if their guess isn't what you want?

\- framing lots of photos in short succession -- I use full manual mode and
can reliably frame lots of interesting photos in short succession (think a
wedding) which the smartphone isn't really built for. With DSLR I can spot
interesting target, fix focus point, frame and shoot every second or two.

\- I can track moving targets and not just humans

\- I can shoot wide open in good light to get shallow depth of field, using ND
filters

\- I can use polarizing filters to get dramatic sky or crystal clear water

\- I can trigger additional fill lights to get nice pictures in adverse
conditions like shooting into sun

I will say one more thing. People are drowning in smartphone-made photos. By
choosing full frame camera I can make photos that instantly pop up and are
interesting to the viewer exactly because they have some uncommon aspect (like
extremely wide shot). I don't think DSLRs are anywhere close to death. There
are some aspects of photos that are not possible to replicate due to physics
and geometry that will always be tempting for photographers to use to make
their photos interesting.

------
kerrsclyde
Ergonomics still matter. My DSLR is so much more fun to shoot with than phone.
That said the Osmo Mobile 3 is pretty damn cool.

------
snowwrestler
It's all about lenses, specifically the ability to vary them to achieve a wide
variety of looks.

If you see those great professional movies that are "shot on iPhone" or "shot
on iPad", if you could see their shoot, many of them have a selection of
after-market lenses they are mounting on the phone or tablet for different
shots.

------
pier25
If Apple had some sort of body to mount an iPhone as the sensor and attach
DSLR lenses it would probably kill the DSLR industry or at least greatly
damage it.

The biggest reason to use a DSLR are the lenses. The second is better low
light performance and RAW capabilities (for video and photography) but I think
a Pixel or iPhone can do that already.

~~~
illegalsmile
For sure, the difference even on a DSLR between a kit lens and a nice L-series
is night and day. Would the sensor on a phone be able to take advantage of the
lens though?

~~~
pier25
Honestly I don't know, I imagine Apple should be able to solve that.

A couple of years ago before DSLRs could be able to record video I used a
RedRock adapter [1] that allowed to use photography lenses with digital video
cameras. It was super clunky but it worked.

[https://www.provideocoalition.com/redrock_micro_alters_indie...](https://www.provideocoalition.com/redrock_micro_alters_indie_film_production_landscape_with_blitz_of_new_prod/)

------
ajoy
Tangentially related, but not really a comparison of cellphone cameras, but: I
find the incompatibility of lenses between the different manufacturers really
annoying. I have to choose between say nikon/canon/sony and then if I buy
lenses, which I have to, I am stuck with that manufacturer, unless I replace
everything.

------
yesimahuman
My iPhone takes great portrait mode photos of my kids to send to their
grandparents and the occasional sunset, but that’s it. My mirrorless and my
film cameras in particular create photos of such quality and character
(especially film) that, for me, a dedicated camera is a no brainer. But they
both have a place, and that’s okay!

------
knolan
When our kids arrived our SLRs and nice lenses quickly got relegated in favour
of our iPhones. But we’re getting then back out once more bit by bit.

I’m extremely happy with the cameras on my 11 Pro but it is nowhere near a
100mm f/2.8 macro on a 5D mk3 for image quality.

Fortunately I can control love both and hope to restore the balance.

------
tjr225
I like all kinds of cameras. One major nit-pick I have of cell phone cameras
is that I have to interact with a touch screen to take a picture.

A separate dedicated "function" button that could be optionally set to take
pictures without unlocking the phone itself or fiddling with a touch screen
would be amazing.

~~~
brwnjm
I hit the power button twice to activate the camera then hit the volume button
to take the photo. That's the Pixel behavior anyways.

------
bookmarkable
Wanted: A phone and SMS device that easily syncs photos, messages and contacts
and has an excellent camera (iPhone or Pixel hobbyist level). No apps,
spyware, built-in Google ties. Just shoot photos and be in touch when needed.

Kickstarter, anyone?

I tried the Light Phone II. It is okay, but missing a camera was too much of a
hurdle.

~~~
ianferrel
What about an iPhone with no apps on it? (not trying to be snarky, but it
seems like it does the things you want).

~~~
balladeer
For that price one can buy maybe five Android phones (with comparable or
better hardware). Then install Lineage. Or maybe more than five.

------
gavin_gee
1\. intended output and quality of the photo 2\. the joy the physical act of
using a camera provides 3\. you want to take photos while disconnected

these are basically the only three reasons to buy a camera beyond the
smartphone. Like most things in life unless its a job, the trade offs are
personal.

------
rb808
The amazing thing to me is phone cameras are still getting better. They've
reached a stage where I've given up using an SLR. In the future there will be
very little need for a dedicated camera - yes weddings maybe excepted.

------
karatestomp
Any mirrorless cameras shoot "live photos"? I'd like nicer image quality and
would like to drop to a non-smartphone, but won't give those up. It's the
single feature keeping me paying for smartphones. :-/

~~~
KineticLensman
> Any mirrorless cameras shoot "live photos"?

If you mean what Nikon calls 'live view', yes, either through the electronic
viewfinder or on the screen on the back. Often with superimposed aides such as
exposure histogram or focus highlighting ('peaking'). You can set it so that
touching the back screen takes the picture as well as pressing the normal
shutter-release button.

I'm sure Canon and the others are the same now, I just don't have direct
experience of them.

~~~
karatestomp
No, I mean the thing where it captures a short video (usually lower-res, I
think, at least on the phone I have) at the same time as taking a full-res
photo. The result is like something out of Harry Potter—you're looking at a
photo, you hold your finger on it (at least on a touchscreen interface) and
now you're seeing video giving a couple seconds of context, with sound, on
either side of the photo. It's downright magical. I've got no use for a camera
without that feature as long as my kids live at home, at least (a while yet).

"Live Photo" is what Apple calls it. I don't know if anything like that's
available on other phone platforms, let alone stand-alone cameras, but last
time I checked I couldn't find any.

[EDIT] a clip of the announcement of the feature, with examples (it's far from
new):
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTEj8Gfe144](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTEj8Gfe144)

~~~
KineticLensman
Ah - I see what you mean. In that case, for Nikons at least, the answer is
'no'

------
wcindy
What non-photographers don’t know is that iPhone pictures only look good on
iPhones. That amazing shot you texted me? Yep it looks great. But if you ever
print it, or look at it on a computer monitor, it will look like a sad joke.

------
scrumbledober
For a long time I thought cell phone cameras were so good there was no point
in buying a dedicated camera. Then I won a hackathon at work and the prize was
a Sony mirrorless camera. It's a totally different experience

------
dlgeek
Off topic - anyone recognize the artists on stage in the last photograph? I'm
pretty sure that's Jonathan Coulton in the middle, so I suspect it's from
JoCoCruise, but I don't recognize the others.

~~~
tibbon
I think so!

------
FloatArtifact
What I find interesting there's very little open source until DSLR cameras. I
know the sensors will always be proprietary. I've always felt limited more so
by the firmware.

There's a few projects like Magic Lantern.

------
openfuture
For me if the camera is a networked computer then I will refuse having my
picture taken by it (of course this is futile but I will break most etiquette
and accept being labelled rude and unfair to follow my beliefs here).

Of course I try to be symmetric, I never take pictures of anything with my own
networked computer.

It is absolutely incredible how entitled people are when it comes to taking
group pictures.

If you want to draw me then I will sit still for however long you want. If you
have a polaroid or something like that then go nuts, etc.

It's not really about privacy because it's not really a useful way to preserve
my privacy, however, it is kind of about privacy since making this distinction
(that no one seems to be aware of / willing to make) sometimes reaches people
and gets them thinking.

~~~
r00fus
It's amazing how this impacts even schools - I refused to sign off for my
kid's class post pictures on Instagram (owned by FB), so they just ask her to
stay out of the group pictures.

I mean, they have a locally hosted hub for photos - called memberhub (it's
primitive, but functional), but the teacher & school insist that I need to
authorize them to post to Instagram if she's in the group pics.

My kids are understanding but feel left out. It sucks. I'm not so paranoid
about digital photos, but I draw the line at them getting fed into a facial
recognition AI.

~~~
ValentineC
> _but the teacher & school insist that I need to authorize them to post to
> Instagram if she's in the group pics._

It's ridiculous that students are now forced to be part of a school's
marketing, or get excluded from class activities.

~~~
r00fus
It's not so much that I object to the marketing (if there is any). It's that
they refuse to use any alternative to Instagram which sends my kids pics to be
harvested by FB. There's a reason I have quit FB and never gotten on Insta.

I mean, they do also take pictures for the yearbook which I'm ok with.

------
uberduper
Off topic but if you didn't recognize the name Scalzi, he's the author of an
incredible mil sci fi series called Old Man's War. If you're fond of that
genre, you may really enjoy it.

------
parenthesis
Am I the only one who finds it really hard to correctly angle a photo-taking
device without an optical viewfinder to look through?

~~~
throwanem
Nope, same here. You can turn on a rule-of-thirds grid in camera settings, and
I find it helps - not so much for composition, the rule's fine but overrated,
but just in providing a set of rulers to align against.

------
tech-historian
Phone cameras have become so good that the market for DSLRs and high-end
consumer cameras has cratered. Canon's market cap is now back down to what it
was in '98-99.

Canon Inc's market cap history (in millions of $USD):

1994: $14,700

1995: $15,300

1996: $18,600

1997: $26,200

1998: $21,300

1999: $35,500

2000: $43,600

2001: $36,100

2002: $34,800

2003: $46,500

2004: $47,200

2005: $52,900

2006: $75,600

2007: $79,800

2008: $65,600

2009: $51,500

2010: $62,000

2011: $63,700

2012: $57,800

2013: $46,300

2014: $37,800

2015: $41,000

2016: $32,700

2017: $41,900

2018: $43,400

2019: $31,800

2020: $29,800

------
mikece
“... if I don’t think I’m going to get a lot of use from something... then I
can’t justify the price in my head.”

Which is exactly why I didn’t hesitate to spend $1200 on an iPhone 8 Plus a
couple years ago but am looking to sell my awesome Nikon D7500: I almost never
use my Nikon but I use the iPhone all day, every day (including for photos of
significant life events).

------
Havoc
That tiny quality difference hardly matters versus the "I always have my phone
on me" factor.

~~~
fabianhjr
> But if you’re an avid photographer (or a professional photographer), you
> spend so much more of your time than the average person in the 5%-to-10%
> area where cell phones fall down, that you become painfully aware of how far
> they have yet to go, regardless of how far they have come. This isn’t about
> snobbery (or more accurately, shouldn’t be) — it’s about use cases. For how
> I use cameras, my Pixel phone, as wonderful as the photography out of it is
> on a regular basis, still can’t give me everything I want and need, and it’s
> frustrating for me that it can’t.

The article goes into use cases and technical differences, not just a "one is
better than the other".

------
StavrosK
As a hobbyist photographer and professional phone owner, I have thoughts I'm
not afraid to foist upon you unwilling audience:

1) Yes, phones are great for 100% of the average person, who just wants some
snapshots to remember/post on Instagram/etc. Not only that, but most phones
apply filters to the photo that makes it look more appealing (like in the
article), which is what most people want. Photographers want fidelity, so they
can apply their own edits in post, so a deciding factor is maximizing post-
processing freedom.

Cameras are more for professional/artistic use these days.

2) Phones are never ever going to replace professional cameras. Hell, not even
non-professional cameras are ever going to replace professional cameras. I
have a Canon 5D as my main camera and a Sony RX-100 mkIII as a travel camera,
and while the latter is fantastic, has great quality in a very small form
factor, I end up frustrated 30% of the times I use it. The 5D is a
professional camera, and much of what you pay for is for the ergonomics.

It's very cumbersome to have to go three menus down to change a setting in the
smaller camera when I could have done it without taking my eye away from the
viewfinder on the 5D, and it leads to missed shots. I haven't seen this point
mentioned anywhere, and it's a big differentiator.

I could include here the fact that the camera is much more predictable: If you
hear the "beep" that tells you it's focused, pressing the button gets me a
photo in < 100ms. Phones have a will of their own, and it's pretty random when
you'll actually have your photo. Cameras focus in a few milliseconds exactly
on the subject, phones focus somewhere in the vicinity of where you asked, at
some point soonish. This leads to a much better, more solid-feeling experience
when using a camera.

3) Phones are great for taking wide-angle photos in ample light, but not great
for everything else. They can clean low-light photos decently these days, but
a large sensor is much more versatile in what you can do with it. The same
goes for the lenses, 24mm is good for a lot of things, but sometimes you just
need a different focal length.

4) Larger sensors have a _lot_ more detail in the resulting photo. A camera
lets you go from the before to the after here, and this isn't even a terrible
shot: [https://imgz.org/ius5Vhb9/](https://imgz.org/ius5Vhb9/)

A phone wouldn't be able to retrieve much detail in that scene, and the result
would look much worse. A camera can help you salvage many photos that would
have been write-offs with a phone, e.g. when they're too dark/bright, or when
you have tones too close to each other.

TL;DR: Phones are great, but cameras are great too.

~~~
throwanem
You can turn off focus priority on shutter release if you want, fyi. Then the
shutter releases exactly when you tell it to, every single time.

I did that when I found I was missing jump shots because the AF system got
confused and waited to refocus, giving me a tack-sharp shot of a place where a
bird had just been. Now, when I miss a jump shot, at least it's _my_ fault.

~~~
StavrosK
Hmm, can I do that in Google Camera? I can't find the option.

~~~
throwanem
Sorry, no, I meant on ILCs, to eliminate the focus delay before release. I
don't know of any phone camera that lets you. Maybe with an app.

~~~
StavrosK
Oh, yes, though there it's so fast that it usually doesn't bother me. If I've
focused beforehand on a static scene I just turn AF off from the switch on the
lens.

~~~
throwanem
Back-button AF is super convenient for this, too. No need to worry about
turning AF on and off, you just hold the button when you want it and let go
when you don't. With enough configurable buttons, you can even have multiple
AF modes instantly to hand - I do this on my D500, for example, so I can coach
in on a sitting bird with group AF on Fn1, and then get tack-sharp eye focus
with single-point mode on AF-ON, and not ever have to think about dinking
around with control dials or menus while I'm shooting.

Now that I think about it, that obviates my shutter focus priority setting
anyway, since half-pressing the shutter only locks exposure. Oh, well...

~~~
StavrosK
Hmm, that's a good idea, though my focus is on oneshot, so half-pressing the
shutter locks focus anyway. I don't really shoot moving things, so oneshot
works well for me.

~~~
throwanem
Also fair!

------
dghughes
Cameras are like fast food they're quick and cheap but not as good as "home
cooked".

I think the early 2000s are going to be the fuzzy ages of pictorial history.

~~~
dghughes
Early digital cameras I meant. Not all cameras. I actually started down the
road as a photographer but my local college cancelled the class due to lack of
interest.

I have a Yashica Mat 124G, a Mamyia 645J, a 35mm, and several old accordion
types for show.

