The receptive field on a cell phone camera is absolutely miniscule, and lenses are designed to widen the camera's field of view such that they can effectively c

The receptive field on a cell phone camera is absolutely miniscule, and lenses are designed to widen the camera's field of view such that they can effectively capture nearby objects. Combine that with camera software being designed to enhance conventional images, and low-light performance on CMOS sensors being abysmal, and photos of anything at any reasonable distance are necessarily degraded to such a point that you may well have been better off not taking the photograph in the first place. Trying to decent take photo of a low-flying aircraft is tricky enough for your average user, who has to hold their camera steady while tracking a moving object and wrestling with autofocus looking for anything that might be a face. I don't think the camera ubiquity argument holds much water with respect to the UFO phenomena, outside of the most preposterous annecdotes.