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I'm a camera enthusiast and I collect some fancy/expensive old cameras and lenses. I'm the last person who you think would settle for a camera phone as a camera
by ageitgey 7y ago
I'm a camera enthusiast and I collect some fancy/expensive old cameras and lenses. I'm the last person who you think would settle for a camera phone as a camera replacement. But they are just getting so good and they are so easy to use!
I'm finding it harder and harder to justify bringing along a camera unless I'm doing special like a specific photo shoot. Obviously phone cameras are no where near as good as a 40 megapixel full frame camera with a good prime lens shooting in raw. But 99% of the time I'm just going to post a photo of my kid in Instagram and it doesn't matter.
It is a tough time to be a camera maker.
- lnsru 7y agoI remember one businessman telling me in the very early days of digital photography something like this: people do not really care about quality, they just want to recognize their own faces in photos. These times were when digital cameras barely made couple megapixel photos. Current smartphones can do even better making digital cameras obsolete. Cycle goes on.
- env123 7y agohigh performance =/= high quality. There's a threshold that something is decently good enough, no point in maximising everything. The same can be said about music (320 kbps vs flac), operating systems (8gb vs 32gb), wifi (4g vs 5g). Like how greedy do you need to be, to not be content?
- TeMPOraL 7y agoThere are other driving forces, though. A typical person may not need to shoot photos at more than 2 megapixels, given a half-decent sensor underneath. But they like their 4k TV programs, and to shoot those, there need to be high-end cameras available. Then some people might want to go into business of shooting stuff that ends up viewed on 4k displays, and suddenly you have a market for semi-pro equipment. Regular people for which good enough is good enough are the ones not in a market for a camera - they use the one in their phone. Similarly with RAM. 8 GB sounds fine until you change jobs and have to use Slack. I'd argue that web developers are the drivers for more powerful hardware now. And with 5G, more and more people like to watch Netflix in decent quality on the go, so now you have to push more data through the network. Also, out of all things to pick on about the economy, this is one of the least problematic. Personally, I think companies can and should shoot for triple digit megapixels on phones, terabyte of RAM and streaming 8k videos to contact lenses. These technologies are enablers - the more power and performance you make available, the more previously impossible use cases will show up.
- viraptor 7y ago> 8 GB sounds fine until you change jobs and have to use Slack That comparison is getting old these days. Slack takes ~60MB in my FF now. That's a rounding error even under 8GB.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoIt's a proxy for a wider point about website obesity crisis. In the past 2 years, I upgraded from 8GB to 12GB and now 32GB, in big part driven by whatever it is my browsers (both Chrome and Firefox) are doing while running Slack, Messenger, GMail and HN. (I honestly don't care much whether Slack has made performance improvements in the past few months, because I recently switched to the combination of not keeping it active in the browser, using the Android app, and using Ripcord client on desktop, which has sane system requirements.)
- eitland 7y ago> Slack takes ~60MB in my FF now. 400MB for the standalone application last I checked, and that was after the newest upgrades that should make it better IIRC. That is about 5% on a 8GB machine, and typically a much larger procent of the available RAM once you realize that a lot of those 8GBs are used by the OS and possibly other necessary processes.
- TeMPOraL 7y agoTell me if it stays at 400MB after a day of use. EDIT: Thanks for the data points. It's better than I expected.
- TurboHaskal 7y agoI sold all my digital cameras after I bought an iPhone 7 plus and I am not the only one I know personally that has done so. Other than instant film, which ironically feels more magical than ever, I exclusively use the smartphone.
- jclardy 7y agoI used to shoot wedding video as a side-gig, and I had a range of cameras from the T2i to the 6D. I also owned a few P&S just for fun. Since the 7 Plus I have sold all my P&S cameras. The only advantage they have now is the longer reach, but I rarely actually need a zoom lens for a random shot. If I am doing anything serious I bring a DSLR. The main problem is I always have my phone on me, and carrying around something like an RX100 is a pain because of how thick the body is. It is not really pocketable, meaning it goes into a larger bag. Then if I have a larger bag, I might as well bring a better camera.
- StavrosK 7y agoI have the opposite feeling, the RX100 is small enough that I can just stick it in my suitcase/bag and go. If I bring my 5D with I feel obligated to get all the lenses/flash and associated crap and then I'm stuck with a huge 10kg backpack.
- httpsterio 7y agoThe best camera is the one you have with you. I also usually don't carry my DSLR with me unless I have something very specific in mind.
- matwood 7y agoA phone can't beat the picture quality off my d7100 with a 50mm prime (no need for a 40mp full frame), but typically I don't need that level of quality. Where phones really fall down though is anything requiring zoom. Now when I go on vacation I use my phone for most snapshot like pictures and keep my zoom/ultra wide lens on the dslr. That works but I do start to wonder why I am lugging all this extra weight around for very specific picture purposes.
- collyw 7y agoThe phone quality is fine for most people. The most they are going to do with it is upload selfies to facebook.
- matwood 7y agoI agree. I was just pointing out that my old d7100 + 50mm prime is better than a phone camera, but as you say it doesn't matter for most use cases. Part of me wants to sell all my dslr gear and the other part wants to get a mirrorless z6. It's a weird spot to be in because I have plenty of pics that would have been very hard, if not impossible to capture with a phone. But, I want to lighten my load when traveling.
- alistairSH 7y agoIt sounds like a mirrorless setup might for you. I have basically the same use cases... I use my Olympus u4/3 gear on vacation or specific things, but for everyday carry, it's just my iPhone 7. Of course, I now own so much u4/3 stuff that it probably weighs more than a single DSLR and a single nice zoom. Two bodies, a pro level zoom, a handful of 1.8 primes, and moderately priced super-wide and telephoto zooms. Deciding what to bring on any given trip is getting to be a "problem". lol.
- closetohome 7y agoA serious 50 or the nifty fifty?
- 7y ago
- petre 7y agoI just carry an old Ricoh GRD III when I do carry a camera. It has great ergonomics and the image isn't deformed at the ends. Otherwise I just put up with my phone camera than nerver seems to do what I want. The GRD was perhaps my best investment into camera gear.
- bobloblaw45 7y agoThere are philosophies in many hobbies that are pretty close to what you were getting at. With firearms when asked what the best gun is the answer is "the one you shoot well". With astronomy they say it's better to have a small cheap telescope you use all the time rather than a big expensive telescope you barely use. And with cars/motorcycles you hear how it's more fun to drive a slow vehicle fast than a fast vehicle slow. Everywhere there's a fixation on expensive equipment. People use it to try to replace skill. Also it serves as a way to elevate their status within their hobbies community. And man it happens in every hobby I've seen. But in the end all it really does it weigh them down. Their equipment is too bulky to use all the time. So much more gizmos to keep track of. Things are so much more expensive that you don't really take it out as much and enjoy it out of fear of breaking it. Even if there's some sort of insurance in place to cover the cost of damage, you still don't want to risk scratching your new baby. Anyways there's this series on youtube called "Pro Photographer, Cheap Camera Challenge" that I adore. I'm not even a photography buff but it's super interesting to see these professional photographers take the cheapest cameras available, in some cases they're actually toys, and turn out some amazing pictures.
- crikli 7y agoPointless digression: "And with cars/motorcycles you hear how it's more fun to drive a slow vehicle fast than a fast vehicle slow." I know this is just your third comparator in your statement, but I never thought I'd see it pop up on HN. :) It's one of those clichés you see all the time in Jalopnik comment sections...I always want to say "but have actually done that, driven the slow car fast and the fast car slow?" Because...I've got a slow car and a very very fast car. The fast car is fun to drive even when you're going 0 miles an hour at a stoplight. The slow car is fun to drive slow but awful to drive fast. Maybe this statement works if the "slow" car is an E30/Miata/Fiat or similar but in my book, fast car going any speed is always way more fun. :)
- rlonstein 7y agoI haven't heard it about cars but it applies to motorcycles. Generalizing, a maintained bike with good brakes and tires is probably more capable than most riders and faster than public roads so a 1990's or later 400-600cc motorcycle ("slow"?) is more fun whirring the engine and stirring the gearbox than loping along in second gear on a liter-class bike.
- arvinsim 7y agoYour post actually shows what camera maker's need to do to compete smartphones. Make camera bodies as small as possible so that that they can be brought everywhere without much hassle. The big problem are lenses. So I think they should make cameras that make lens swapping as easy as possible.