Cellphones vs. Compact Cameras
Feb 6, 2019 16:10:27 #
There are different levels of compact cameras. When making comparisons to smartphone cameras, you can't really lump advanced compacts like Sony A6300, Sony RX100 or Canon G16 together with the $100 or below pocket cameras, such as the Nikon Coolpix A10 or Sony DSCW800. It is the inexpensive pocket cameras which are directly competing with smartphone cameras, not the advanced compacts!
Feb 6, 2019 16:14:53 #
Bill_de wrote:
It all depends on the end use. There have been magazine covers done with cellphones. Here's one from Billboard.
https://bgr.com/2017/02/17/iphone-7-plus-billboard-magazine-portrait-mode/
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https://bgr.com/2017/02/17/iphone-7-plus-billboard-magazine-portrait-mode/
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You reminded me Bill that many years ago, Air New Zealand ran a competition for a photo of their then new DC10 (I think it was).
The winning pic was taken as the plane passed over a woman standing at the end of the runway in Hawaii (I think it was).
For years the photo was on billboards as part of their advertising and the woman was paid very well for her effort.
The camera? A Kodak Instamatic.
Feb 6, 2019 16:40:59 #
I think many people want a camera but are less concerned about anything other than recording their time with friends and family or memories of a visit to a new place. Cell phone photos are “good enough” and in many instances as good as or better photographically than a compact camera. The cell phone camera is good enough and always at hand...and one less device to carry around.
Feb 6, 2019 16:41:08 #
rook2c4 wrote:
There are different levels of compact cameras. When making comparisons to smartphone cameras, you can't really lump advanced compacts like Sony A6300, Sony RX100 or Canon G16 together with the $100 or below pocket cameras, such as the Nikon Coolpix A10 or Sony DSCW800. It is the inexpensive pocket cameras which are directly competing with smartphone cameras, not the advanced compacts!
Exactly, as you say.
Feb 6, 2019 16:49:20 #
jak86094 wrote:
I think many people want a camera but are less concerned about anything other than recording their time with friends and family or memories of a visit to a new place. Cell phone photos are “good enough” and in many instances as good as or better photographically than a compact camera. The cell phone camera is good enough and always at hand...and one less device to carry around.
I think someone said it here, earlier, that there's a difference between those who take photography seriously and those who simply want to record a moment. Years ago the Polaroid camera sort of filled that need--instant picture. Today we have digital cameras, and reasonably competent cameras built into cellphones that fill that niche, and we can toss all the ones that don't turn out, without wasting film.
Feb 6, 2019 16:51:53 #
Wingpilot wrote:
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I don't un... (show quote)
Greg,
Two things that confuse and amuse me about the cellphone camera adherents' raves:
1. 'Cellphones are more than adequate for most casual photography, but most compacts and pocket cameras are not, because I need an EVF in bright daylight.' (why is the display screen on a "camera" unusable, but the one on a cellphone is wonderful?)
2. 'Small cameras (anything smaller than a DSLR) are ergonomically inadequate. I have large hands and just cannot use small cameras ~ so, I just use a cellphone to capture great images'. (why is a compact camera too small for large hands and ergonomically a bad design, yet, cellphones are just fine?)
_Van
Feb 6, 2019 16:56:33 #
jak86094 wrote:
I think many people want a camera but are less concerned about anything other than recording their time with friends and family or memories of a visit to a new place. Cell phone photos are “good enough” and in many instances as good as or better photographically than a compact camera. The cell phone camera is good enough and always at hand...and one less device to carry around.
Yup, I agree. For the masses, cellphone cameras are "good enough". So is Kraft Macaroni &
Cheese ~ and Wonder Bread.
Feb 6, 2019 16:58:43 #
le boecere wrote:
Greg, br br Two things that confuse and amuse me ... (show quote)
For #2 it is probably the ergonomics. Folks get used to having a cell phone in their hand 22 hours a day. A small camera not so much.
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Feb 6, 2019 17:00:41 #
Bill_de wrote:
For #2 it is probably the ergonomics. Folks get used to having a cell phone in their hand 22 hours a day. A small camera not so much.
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Very good point. You may be sayin' that a big part of "ergonomics" is "the familiar".
Feb 6, 2019 17:05:39 #
The bottom line is that cameras and cell phones are very different beasts---just like cars and lawn mowers.
If you're buying the smart phone to use as phone, then it's a ride-on lawnmower with a radio -- not a bad idea:
plug in your headphones and mow the grass!
But for a photographer to try to get by with a cell phone camera is like trying to get by with a ride-on
lawnmower instead of a car---grandpa driving his John Deere mower down the freeway!
"The best camera is the one you have with you" is a defense of smart phone cameras only if one assumes
that people will only carry with them tiny, super light-weight cameras. I doubt if Don McCullin would agree
with that. But maybe American consumers really are that lazy now--it's possible.
Photography has never been--and will never be--simple, easy and convenient. So if total convenience is
what's required of a camera, then photography is dead -- it's been replaced by automated image capture.
If you're buying the smart phone to use as phone, then it's a ride-on lawnmower with a radio -- not a bad idea:
plug in your headphones and mow the grass!
But for a photographer to try to get by with a cell phone camera is like trying to get by with a ride-on
lawnmower instead of a car---grandpa driving his John Deere mower down the freeway!
"The best camera is the one you have with you" is a defense of smart phone cameras only if one assumes
that people will only carry with them tiny, super light-weight cameras. I doubt if Don McCullin would agree
with that. But maybe American consumers really are that lazy now--it's possible.
Photography has never been--and will never be--simple, easy and convenient. So if total convenience is
what's required of a camera, then photography is dead -- it's been replaced by automated image capture.
Feb 6, 2019 17:57:05 #
Wingpilot wrote:
Perhaps I'm missing something here, but I don't un... (show quote)
Use you iPhone 8 Plus for more than the “occasional” snap, and you will find it to be a very good real camera. Cell phones are not just for convenience or for instant gratification—they can produce great images than can be enlarged to 20* by 30” prints with incredible resolution.
I am far from discarding my DSLR, but one cannot dismiss the quality images that cell phones can produce.
Cell phones are a big part of the future of serious photography.
Feb 6, 2019 20:06:19 #
I think your third sentence really says it all; the ability to instantaneously send pics anywhere they wish. " meeting society unmet needs " . Stated simply, a cellphone meets the needs of the masses a whole lot more than a compact... do you REALLY think they are pixel peeping ?
Feb 6, 2019 20:31:38 #
MrBob wrote:
I think your third sentence really says it all; the ability to instantaneously send pics anywhere they wish. " meeting society unmet needs " . Stated simply, a cellphone meets the needs of the masses a whole lot more than a compact... do you REALLY think they are pixel peeping ?
I'm pretty sure that all those who take pictures to post on Instagram, Facebook, etc., aren't pixel peeping. However, I'm not the masses, and still appreciate what a dedicated camera allows me to do.
Feb 6, 2019 20:34:31 #
Kmgw9v wrote:
Use you iPhone 8 Plus for more than the “occasional” snap, and you will find it to be a very good real camera. Cell phones are not just for convenience or for instant gratification—they can produce great images than can be enlarged to 20* by 30” prints with incredible resolution.
I am far from discarding my DSLR, but one cannot dismiss the quality images that cell phones can produce.
Cell phones are a big part of the future of serious photography.
I am far from discarding my DSLR, but one cannot dismiss the quality images that cell phones can produce.
Cell phones are a big part of the future of serious photography.
I never gave any thought to enlarging iPhone photos to that size. I've done 8x10's, but that's it. I may have to investigate making a larger print from an iPhone photo. I do think that sometime in the fairly near future that cellphone camera technology will progress to the point where they will be considered to be serious cameras, or at least suitable for serious photography.
Feb 6, 2019 20:36:52 #
Wingpilot wrote:
I'm pretty sure that all those who take pictures to post on Instagram, Facebook, etc., aren't pixel peeping. However, I'm not the masses, and still appreciate what a dedicated camera allows me to do.
The photos I see on others phones, or receive via email*, are (usually) anything BUT in the category of "pixel peeping"!
(*I'm too dumb for a smartphone, so I depend on email.)
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