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>smartphone pictures are universally awful when given a closer look. A few years ago, I would have agreed with you. The latest generation of flagship phone cam

>smartphone pictures are universally awful when given a closer look. A few years ago, I would have agreed with you. The latest generation of flagship phone cameras (iPhone 8, Pixel 2, Galaxy S9) are comparable in quality to a good compact camera. I really can't see much difference between a modern smartphone and an old favourite like the Powershot S120. You wouldn't want to make big prints, but you can get genuinely good images from a flagship smartphone, especially with a third-party app like Camera+ or ProCamera.

lmilcin 8y ago
Smartphone cameras are excellent quality. The pictures are bad because statistical user is a person who never tried to become better photographer. There is A LOT of excellent smartphone photos, they are just being drowned in deluge of random photos.
- frostburg 8y ago
  I'm not in any way implying bad faith here, but have you ever used a good camera?
  - lmilcin 8y ago
    Depends what you call good camera. For the past couple of years I have been using Nikon D600 with Nikkor 17-35 f2.8, Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRII and Nikkor 50 f1.4 as my workhorse. Camera doesn't mean much. I give my camera to random people and guess what, I get random photos exactly as if they were done with a smartphone. It is not the camera, it is the photographer that takes the picture. The picture is the light field that was present at the moment of taking it -- your job as a photographer is to create or find an interesting light field and the camera is just technical means of preserving it. CAMERA WILL NOT MAKE YOUR PHOTO INTERESTING. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGsmVw4tCWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGsmVw4tCWY
    - frostburg 8y ago
      That's some very good practical gear. My inner snob would say that the 50/1.4 is no Summicron, that I would rather use a 135/2 Apo-Sonnar than the (actually not cheaper) 70-200 and that retrofocus wide angles meant to work well with digital sensors are inferior in the more rarefied markers of image quality to non-telecentric designs like the biogons, hologons and super-angulons of old. This doesn't matter, you probably know that you cannot obtain the same results from a smartphone camera (which doesn't mean that one cannot take an artistically valid picture with a phone, it's just going to be technically inferior). We're not talking about bad photographers here, we're talking about someone that knows what he's doing trying to use a smartphone camera seriously. All the skill and knowledge can't do much against rolling shutter or banding in gradients that should be smooth, etc.
      - lmilcin 8y ago
        Part of making good picture is knowing limitations of your gear. My first camera I used when I started this hobby was Fuji X100. This has a lot of limitations. Extremely slow focus, fixed 35mm (equivalent) f2.0 lens. This forced me to study its limitations and what I can get with it. I have quickly learned, it's not about being able to do everything, it is about being able to do something, very well.
        rangibaby 8y ago
        35mm f/2 should be a very good lens. In my experience the main limiting factors of smartphone are the tiny sensor size (noisy, low DR). Image processing keeps getting better but there are physical limits to what can be squeezed out of a given sensor. If smartphones could trigger flashes at reasonable shutter speed (I guess 1/125 or 1/250) I could see myself using one to take real photos in an emergency. There are also different definitions of what good gear is. I have several 40-60 year old lenses that are excellent for studio and street photography, but people who want edge to edge sharpness (blah blah blah) would probably laugh at them.
frostburg 8y ago
I have had "flagship" phones since 2007 or so, currently on a Note 8. I agree that some phones have acceptable resolution in optimal light for small prints, but basically everything else about the image is still bad: character of the out of focus areas (with -exceptionally- ugly results when using double camera setups to simulate a narrow depth of field), out-of-focus to in-focus transitions, noise structure, tonal smoothness, color reproduction, dynamic range, avoidance of the rolling shutter effect, ghosts, flares, coma... I could go on for a while. Oh, right, the most important thing: almost everyone shoots portraits with smartphone cameras, which are too wide to give a flattering perspective (yes, even the 50mm equivalent "telephotos", which are also even worse cameras technically).

lmilcin 8y ago

Smartphone cameras are excellent quality. The pictures are bad because statistical user is a person who never tried to become better photographer. There is A LOT of excellent smartphone photos, they are just being drowned in deluge of random photos.

frostburg 8y ago
I'm not in any way implying bad faith here, but have you ever used a good camera?
- lmilcin 8y ago
  Depends what you call good camera. For the past couple of years I have been using Nikon D600 with Nikkor 17-35 f2.8, Nikkor 70-200 f2.8 VRII and Nikkor 50 f1.4 as my workhorse. Camera doesn't mean much. I give my camera to random people and guess what, I get random photos exactly as if they were done with a smartphone. It is not the camera, it is the photographer that takes the picture. The picture is the light field that was present at the moment of taking it -- your job as a photographer is to create or find an interesting light field and the camera is just technical means of preserving it. CAMERA WILL NOT MAKE YOUR PHOTO INTERESTING. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGsmVw4tCWY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NGsmVw4tCWY
  - frostburg 8y ago
    That's some very good practical gear. My inner snob would say that the 50/1.4 is no Summicron, that I would rather use a 135/2 Apo-Sonnar than the (actually not cheaper) 70-200 and that retrofocus wide angles meant to work well with digital sensors are inferior in the more rarefied markers of image quality to non-telecentric designs like the biogons, hologons and super-angulons of old. This doesn't matter, you probably know that you cannot obtain the same results from a smartphone camera (which doesn't mean that one cannot take an artistically valid picture with a phone, it's just going to be technically inferior). We're not talking about bad photographers here, we're talking about someone that knows what he's doing trying to use a smartphone camera seriously. All the skill and knowledge can't do much against rolling shutter or banding in gradients that should be smooth, etc.
    - lmilcin 8y ago
      Part of making good picture is knowing limitations of your gear. My first camera I used when I started this hobby was Fuji X100. This has a lot of limitations. Extremely slow focus, fixed 35mm (equivalent) f2.0 lens. This forced me to study its limitations and what I can get with it. I have quickly learned, it's not about being able to do everything, it is about being able to do something, very well.
      - rangibaby 8y ago
        35mm f/2 should be a very good lens. In my experience the main limiting factors of smartphone are the tiny sensor size (noisy, low DR). Image processing keeps getting better but there are physical limits to what can be squeezed out of a given sensor. If smartphones could trigger flashes at reasonable shutter speed (I guess 1/125 or 1/250) I could see myself using one to take real photos in an emergency. There are also different definitions of what good gear is. I have several 40-60 year old lenses that are excellent for studio and street photography, but people who want edge to edge sharpness (blah blah blah) would probably laugh at them.

frostburg 8y ago

I have had "flagship" phones since 2007 or so, currently on a Note 8. I agree that some phones have acceptable resolution in optimal light for small prints, but basically everything else about the image is still bad: character of the out of focus areas (with -exceptionally- ugly results when using double camera setups to simulate a narrow depth of field), out-of-focus to in-focus transitions, noise structure, tonal smoothness, color reproduction, dynamic range, avoidance of the rolling shutter effect, ghosts, flares, coma... I could go on for a while. Oh, right, the most important thing: almost everyone shoots portraits with smartphone cameras, which are too wide to give a flattering perspective (yes, even the 50mm equivalent "telephotos", which are also even worse cameras technically).