iPhone 13 Pro

Try printing from it at greater than A4.

This is the challenge all camera companies face. For 99% of people in 99% of use cases their phones aren’t just an alternative to a camera, but are actually better than most cameras, especially when you consider convenience, ease of use and connectivity.
And this is from a guy who hardly ever takes a picture with his camera.

unfocused said:

This is the challenge all camera companies face. For 99% of people in 99% of use cases their phones aren’t just an alternative to a camera, but are actually better than most cameras, especially when you consider convenience, ease of use and connectivity.
And this is from a guy who hardly ever takes a picture with his camera.

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It's been estimated that 1.43 trillion photos were taken in 2020, with 90% on mobile phones. And they are not shooting at 20 or 30 fps.

And probably a large number with the lower resolution selfie camera.

AlanF said:

It's been estimated that 1.43 trillion photos were taken in 2020, with 90% on mobile phones. And they are not shooting at 20 or 30 fps.

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90% is a very low estimate, but what is your point?

unfocused said:

90% is a very low estimate, but what is your point?

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My point was that I was providing evidence in support of what you had written that for by far the vast majority the phone is the camera of choice.

AlanF said:

My point was that I was providing evidence in support of what you had written that for by far the vast majority the phone is the camera of choice.

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My apologies. I responded harshly. So easy to misinterpret over the internet. Also too easy to go looking for a fight. I try not to do that, but obviously don't always succeed.

Flamingtree said:

I guess looking at it from a positive perspective, those of us who are professional/ enthusiasts, camera companies are pushed to do more and offer more in a stand alone camera. So we will keep getting better cameras.

What’s the one thing you wish your phone has that your camera doesn’t? For me it would be quality of the screen on the back followed by weight.

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For me, I wish that my phone has a 100-500mm lens (or better still a 10-500mm) that would slip into my shirt pocket as my camera doesn't have that. (Harry might have solved that with his high dispersion acrylic lens.)

Flamingtree said:

What’s the one thing you wish your phone has that your camera doesn’t? For me it would be quality of the screen on the back followed by weight.

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Is the question what property exclusive to the smartphone I would like on my camera, or vice versa?

In the former case, I wish modern ILC would embrace computational photography more. In particular all kinds of it that relate to combining a series of pictures into a single image to enhance detail and noise, as well as those aspects that allow manipulating the image based on depth maps, such as blurring a background after the fact or adjusting the lighting separately for the foreground and background.

That is the sort of technology that is employed heavily in smartphones to allow them to come close to what a dedicated camera produces on first glance. And fundamentally it is technology that allows inferior hardware to produce good results. Which of course isn't really what ILC manufacturers want to provide us - they are more into selling superior hardware to improve the quality.

As for the phone, I don't use it to take pictures at all, basically. Because it lacks one key feature: Enjoyable ergonomics. I do photography purely as a hobby and touching a section of a screen does absolutely nothing for me emotionally. The interaction with the image is so far detached that I am not getting anything from it. No wheels to quickly change settings or AF point, no swivel screen to see a preview of my image without getting into uncomfortable poses, no decent grip to get a sense of stability and control, no means to manipulate the flash...

But addressing any of it really would diminish the qualities of smartphone I and the market as a whole value.

It is mind-boggling how far compact hardware has come, but for all use cases where compactness is not the primary concern, you will always be able to deliver a superior product by prioritizing the primary qualities the customer is looking for. Be that ergonomics in the case of office work places, computational power for serious tasks or ergonomics, flexibility and optical quality in the case of cameras.

But, for any given use case, a user of course has to evaluate how much their use case warrants compromising on the intriguing quality of compactness a smartphone provides in favor of a dedicated device.

My iPhone is the current version of the SE. I don’t like big phones. The best iPhone cameras come on the biggest phones. I have an iPad for when I want a big screen. My iPad is the current 11” Pro, so a much better camera than in the phone, but clearly I’m not going to carry it with me to shoot pictures.

I make pictures with the phone when I don’t have a camera along. It takes decent pictures, and the panorama feature works well. I won’t bother to compare its pictures to the quality and flexibility I get from my DSLR. I use the G5X II for travel. It fits easily in jacket or pants pocket, so it is the camera I always have with me when I think I might want to shoot pictures but not lug my whole kit.

Flexibility and control are the main reasons I use the G5 rather than just relying on my phone. It has a zoom lens that goes into near telephoto range, shoots Raw files, lets you control aperture, shutter, and ISO to whatever degree you wish. The sensor is small, but a whole lot bigger than the phone’s. It doesn’t do the software tricks that the phone can, such as faking a shallow depth of field, but I would rather control that kind of thing myself in Photoshop.