In the right hands and with the right attitude, a camera phone can do amazing stuff.

While visiting a friend, I noticed some truly amazing framed 16x20 landscape photos mounted on his walls. Better than the vast majority of the landscape images I see posted here on UHH. When I asked my friend where he purchased the photographs, he said his wife took all of the pictures on their recent trip to California. To my surprise, I then found out that these images were all captured with a smartphone camera. At up close inspection I could see that there wasn't much fine detail in the prints - as expected. But at normal viewing distance, those details don't really matter... you wouldn't see them anyway, even if they had been there.

I think many photographers have such low expectations of what their smartphone cameras can do, they don't even try to do anything beyond snapshots with it, then accept the resulting images as evidence that the smartphone is not usable for anything but throwaway snapshots. Of course the phone camera has limitations, but if one takes the time and effort to learn how to work within those limitations, one will soon discover that the phone camera is absolutely capable of generating more than snapshots. Particularly if one installs additional apps on the device which can further expand the features of the camera, such as control over shutter speed, ISO and aperture settings.

I've come across a term that seems to peg the issue. "Smartphone Envy".

"but if one takes the time and effort to learn how to work within those limitations". That last word, "limitations", explains why I work with an actual camera to take my shots. It can be said that a house can be built with a smartphone if one has the 'app' for it. Personally, I'd prefer to use the right equipment to build the house.

Bottom line, one uses the appropriate tool to achieve the desired goal.

As the sculptor might say, "Why do I need the hammer and chisels? I have a smartphone with an 'App'!"

" Using the APPROPRIATE " tool for the job is exactly why SO many folks use their phone cam.... It DOES what they want to do ! What U or I want to do is a very small percentage of what the avg. folks want and need. Factor out the geriatric crowd and the professionals and we have to a VERY large percentage of folks who are perfectly satisfied with the convenience and quality of their phone cams. As far as Apps are concerned. WHERE is the internal CAMERA APP that helps me produce a better capture. WHERE is the two way SD slot ? WHERE is the embedded Manuel in ROM memory in case you need a lookup in the field ? Yes. I know, the purist still wants to start his car with a crank. The SAME folks that carped about Film/Digital are the same folks that carped about DSLR/Mirrorless and are now carping about Real cameras/phone cams. I think maybe a section for Pin Hole cameras would be appropriate for the die hards.

Something that no one has mentioned yet....the speed of taking a quick "grab shot". My camera for traveling is a Panasonic DMC TZ7, which hangs around my neck all the time. If I see a shot that can't wait I can have the camera turned on and the picture taken (one handed if necessary) before anyone else could have their phone turned on. And since I worked with a manual camera in the film days, I know when an exposure adjustment is necessary so I can very quickly adjust the exposure 1 or 2 f-stops before the iPhone guy can select the camera app on his phone.

Nothing has changes. My daughter gave us a party recently for our 50th anniversary.
Everyone got together not a big group and the cell phones came out. I said their is not enough
light on us standing and seating. We need to face the light or come out of the back porch. where the light
would be behind the shooter at shaded bit by the cover. Well the shot is awful the only one we have
had in a long time. I just smiled and enjoyed the moment.
I am pretty good photographer and videographer. But I trip all over myself when i
try to take a smart phone shot. My daughter is great with the cell phone wouldnt
even know where a shutter is on my cameras. Go figure.