7 ms·

It’s really that comparable??

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
They aren't comparable, not really. In the same way that an 8x10" camera and a full-frame camera aren't. But they are excellent. Good phone cameras have a value proposition all of their own, and they are utterly changing what we expect from photography. My mobile has taught me that a lot of what I relied on or worked with in a DSLR or mirrorless is a crutch. Mobile phone cameras force you, for example, to really think about composition, because you can't simply blur out the bits you don't like (portrait mode still sucks). They force you to think of other ways to isolate subjects, other ways to make use of light and contrast. I've owned a lot of kit over 20 years or so, though I still own a lot of it -- I'm using a 14-year-old full frame DSLR and a seven year old full-frame mirrorless. In the last two years, when studio portrait photography has been complicated or impossible, I have used my phone a lot, when out walking by myself. What I thought was just a way to not-totally-give-up photography has turned into a work of its own. It will anger a lot of photographers who like to whine about how mobile phone cameras can't do X, Y and Z, but here's the truth: if you don't understand what a mobile phone camera can teach you as a photographer, you're probably not really trying.
- Wistar 5y ago
  I shoot professionally (DSLR) and there are situations in my work (automotive) where my iPhone 12 mini just won't work BUT there are also lot of situations in my work where the iPhone could get a better shot—or, at least, get a good shot more easily. A solid color workflow, tilt-shift/specialized optics, high resolution, and lighting/strobe control all go to the DSLR system, whereas just about everything else goes to the iPhone.
- cycomanic 5y ago
  > My mobile has taught me that a lot of what I relied on or worked with in a DSLR or mirrorless is a crutch. > Mobile phone cameras force you, for example, to really think about composition, because you can't simply blur out the bits you don't like (portrait mode still sucks). They force you to think of other ways to isolate subjects, other ways to make use of light and contrast. I would argue that Bokeh is an incredibly important tool that is part of composition and saying it is just there to "blur out the bits you don't like" seems weird to me.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > I would argue that Bokeh is an incredibly important tool that is part of composition and saying it is just there to "blur out the bits you don't like" seems weird to me. And yet that is exactly how many photographers use depth of field. Especially amateur portraitists; the shallowest depth of field they can pull off, with the eyes sharp and the least "distracting" background. (Ever notice the fundamental difference between commercial editorial photography and amateur portrait photography? It is this. Amateur portraitists use blurry backgrounds as a tool to escape complexity.) FWIW, 25 years ago we would not have had this conversation (notwithstanding the non-existence of HN), because this idea of out-of-focus-rendering as an inherently important quality of a specific lens almost did not ever come up. (And we didn't have the word until Mike Johnston introduced it to the english language). Bokeh obsession (as distinct from what used to be called "choosing the right depth of field for your composition") is a very modern, super-fast-aperture, gear-maximalist thing. The mobile phone bursts this very contemporary bubble, if you'll excuse the pun.
    - dsego 5y ago
      As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. And this is currently the biggest difference I can notice between photos produced with my X-T30 and a Xiaomi mid-tier phone, the pictures don't look flat, sometimes it even feels like looking through a window into the scene. The other two differences are field of view and the resolution, since my phone is equipped with a wide angle lens. TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone.
      - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
        > As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. To be clear what I mean is that really the "shot at f/1.4 wide open" portrait thing is an amateur phenomenon. It is just not a big part of commercial portraiture at all, outdoors or in. > TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone. Right. This is what I find -- especially with black and white images (my iPhone seems to produce images that work well with, say, a Pan F thing). But this depth of field stuff what I mean about the way mobile phones force you to think about subject isolation, all of the time; even on the telephoto lens except with subjects less than a couple of feet away. My experience is that people who have never used a DSLR do not have as much trouble getting phone photos they like that are actually good. Partly because they haven't had either the scope or crutch it offers; they are used to seeing and instinctively composing without it. Also because DSLR users spend most of their time composing wide open, not at their target aperture, which ultimately warps our perception and steers us towards shooting images more like the full-time view we get from the viewfinder. There is an art to subject isolation in composition with constant front-to-back sharpness at all times, and a mobile phone will force you to think about it.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal Personally I think almost all of the output of phone cameras (except what's in their glossy ads) is missing a certain je ne sais quoi that distinguishes Photography (note the capital P) from an ordinary photo. That and you can pry the amazing bokeh from a high-quality SLR lens from my cold dead hands.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    > Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal You might, but even then you might also consider that learning from one medium can translate even to a very different medium. But in any case here we're not talking about quite different media. The images are processed and edited in fundamentally the same way. As a result, many photographers tend to perceive the one (mobile phone digital photography) as an inherently inferior subset of the range of the other (large digital sensor photography). This is because photographers -- particularly in the digital era -- do not ordinarily consider the creative advantages of self-imposed restrictions. And when deliberate creative restrictions are suggested, the immediate response is to dismiss them or to suggest that they are wasteful (you're losing information at capture), better achieved in post-processing (so you have more "flexibility"). So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. All of these things are narrowly valuable in some area of photography, but they get glommed together to make a giant assumption. The mobile phone presents a convenient, nearly unavoidable way to question many of the impacts of that maximalist position. One of the things I often want to do is ask photographers "why are your DSLR photos better than your friend's mobile phone photos?" and then poke them in the ribs each time they mention the technical advantages of their kit. But it would generally get quite violent.
    - tomc1985 5y ago
      > So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. I wouldn't conflate "buy the latest you can" with gear maximalism. My own journey with that started with dissatisfaction of the quality of the output that I had, and, as I became a better photographer, running up against the limits of my camera and lens. Then, after understanding what I was experiencing was indeed the hardware and not a limitation of my skill, I upgraded, and the hardware leapfrogged my abilities. Then I got better and I once again started hitting the limits of my hardware. Though I am now at a point where the hardware and my abilities are so good that I am content with the output as one can reasonably expect for a hardcore amateur. My point is that "gear maximalism" is not always just mere materialism. As for the phone, it's convenient. I can guss it up and if the output is sufficiently pig-like I can put lipstick on it til it looks good enough. With the right software I can even output RAW files and theoretically feed them into Lightroom like my normal workflow. But it will never be as good, and there are so many techniques that I simply can't do with it. "The best camera is the one in your hand" is true and all, but it's flooding the world with shit photos. Good is the enemy of great, after all.
tuyiown 5y ago
Besides telephoto and real macro, the results of the iPhone 12 made the idea of gear renewal almost absurd for me, it’s just incredible and I’m not talking about the 12 pro. There is trade offs, none of them justifies carrying heavy gear around most of the time. edit: it’s a hobby and I just spent a lot of time trying to take pretty pictures, and searching the proper cost tradeoff to do them
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Right. Gear churn just seems peculiar. I think this is also why we see lots of people who own high end full-frame etc., are now adapting old lenses, building extraordinary DIY rigs like the "digital camera obscura" trend of the moment, making entirely custom lenses with surplus optics and 3D printers, etc. It's the same reason as for why there's so much interest in film. These things have different strengths. I think mobile phones have liberated photography in a way unparalleled since the time when 35mm film liberated photography.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    >Gear churn just seems peculiar. There was a period when DSLRs were improving pretty rapidly and it made sense to move up on a pretty regular cadence because the new stuff was so much better. (And we've seen this with phones more recently.) There's definitely a retro aspect to film and vinyl. Personally that's not for me having lived with the limitations of both. But I spent years working with custom film developing chemistry and the like.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      I still think of myself as someone who shoots a little bit of film, though like other things I still think of myself as doing, not since the pandemic. But I think I view film photography, darkroom work, and mobile phones in basically the same way. They are just some photography tools among many, and my photography education would be incomplete without them.
      - 5y ago
ghaff 5y ago
It depends on what you're doing and what the photos are for. If you're shooting events, sports, wildlife, or want to do shots with specialty--like ultra-wideangle--lenses, precise aperture control, large blowups, no. But phones can now handle a huge amount of what most people--even relatively serious photographers, need day to day or on a random hike/city visit/etc. need. If you're shooting with a DSLR and whatever kit lens it came with on A you're probably fine using a phone.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hughrr 5y ago
Absolutely for amateur and enthusiast level usage. 90% of a decent photograph isn't the camera but the photographer and the post processing.
jug 5y ago
No but earlier many overshot what they needed because smartphones were so obviously inferior even for social media. FF and even APS-C are still clearly better but what matters here is that modern smartphones are reaching the “good enough” bar to no longer look bad.
starfleet_bop 5y ago
They say the best camera is the one you have on you …
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

They aren't comparable, not really. In the same way that an 8x10" camera and a full-frame camera aren't. But they are excellent. Good phone cameras have a value proposition all of their own, and they are utterly changing what we expect from photography. My mobile has taught me that a lot of what I relied on or worked with in a DSLR or mirrorless is a crutch. Mobile phone cameras force you, for example, to really think about composition, because you can't simply blur out the bits you don't like (portrait mode still sucks). They force you to think of other ways to isolate subjects, other ways to make use of light and contrast. I've owned a lot of kit over 20 years or so, though I still own a lot of it -- I'm using a 14-year-old full frame DSLR and a seven year old full-frame mirrorless. In the last two years, when studio portrait photography has been complicated or impossible, I have used my phone a lot, when out walking by myself. What I thought was just a way to not-totally-give-up photography has turned into a work of its own. It will anger a lot of photographers who like to whine about how mobile phone cameras can't do X, Y and Z, but here's the truth: if you don't understand what a mobile phone camera can teach you as a photographer, you're probably not really trying.

Wistar 5y ago
I shoot professionally (DSLR) and there are situations in my work (automotive) where my iPhone 12 mini just won't work BUT there are also lot of situations in my work where the iPhone could get a better shot—or, at least, get a good shot more easily. A solid color workflow, tilt-shift/specialized optics, high resolution, and lighting/strobe control all go to the DSLR system, whereas just about everything else goes to the iPhone.
cycomanic 5y ago
> My mobile has taught me that a lot of what I relied on or worked with in a DSLR or mirrorless is a crutch. > Mobile phone cameras force you, for example, to really think about composition, because you can't simply blur out the bits you don't like (portrait mode still sucks). They force you to think of other ways to isolate subjects, other ways to make use of light and contrast. I would argue that Bokeh is an incredibly important tool that is part of composition and saying it is just there to "blur out the bits you don't like" seems weird to me.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > I would argue that Bokeh is an incredibly important tool that is part of composition and saying it is just there to "blur out the bits you don't like" seems weird to me. And yet that is exactly how many photographers use depth of field. Especially amateur portraitists; the shallowest depth of field they can pull off, with the eyes sharp and the least "distracting" background. (Ever notice the fundamental difference between commercial editorial photography and amateur portrait photography? It is this. Amateur portraitists use blurry backgrounds as a tool to escape complexity.) FWIW, 25 years ago we would not have had this conversation (notwithstanding the non-existence of HN), because this idea of out-of-focus-rendering as an inherently important quality of a specific lens almost did not ever come up. (And we didn't have the word until Mike Johnston introduced it to the english language). Bokeh obsession (as distinct from what used to be called "choosing the right depth of field for your composition") is a very modern, super-fast-aperture, gear-maximalist thing. The mobile phone bursts this very contemporary bubble, if you'll excuse the pun.
  - dsego 5y ago
    As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. And this is currently the biggest difference I can notice between photos produced with my X-T30 and a Xiaomi mid-tier phone, the pictures don't look flat, sometimes it even feels like looking through a window into the scene. The other two differences are field of view and the resolution, since my phone is equipped with a wide angle lens. TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone.
    - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
      > As an amateur I like to use the depth of field to bring a 3d quality to my shots, sort of separate the layers a bit. Usually stopped down a bit, not wide open. To be clear what I mean is that really the "shot at f/1.4 wide open" portrait thing is an amateur phenomenon. It is just not a big part of commercial portraiture at all, outdoors or in. > TBH, when I shoot the wide end of my kit lens on the X-T30 and don't pixel peep, it's hard to tell apart the jpeg's from my camera and my phone. Right. This is what I find -- especially with black and white images (my iPhone seems to produce images that work well with, say, a Pan F thing). But this depth of field stuff what I mean about the way mobile phones force you to think about subject isolation, all of the time; even on the telephoto lens except with subjects less than a couple of feet away. My experience is that people who have never used a DSLR do not have as much trouble getting phone photos they like that are actually good. Partly because they haven't had either the scope or crutch it offers; they are used to seeing and instinctively composing without it. Also because DSLR users spend most of their time composing wide open, not at their target aperture, which ultimately warps our perception and steers us towards shooting images more like the full-time view we get from the viewfinder. There is an art to subject isolation in composition with constant front-to-back sharpness at all times, and a mobile phone will force you to think about it.
tomc1985 5y ago
Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal Personally I think almost all of the output of phone cameras (except what's in their glossy ads) is missing a certain je ne sais quoi that distinguishes Photography (note the capital P) from an ordinary photo. That and you can pry the amazing bokeh from a high-quality SLR lens from my cold dead hands.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  > Honestly it's just a different media. There's no need to think too hard about it. Might as well compare oil pastel to charcoal You might, but even then you might also consider that learning from one medium can translate even to a very different medium. But in any case here we're not talking about quite different media. The images are processed and edited in fundamentally the same way. As a result, many photographers tend to perceive the one (mobile phone digital photography) as an inherently inferior subset of the range of the other (large digital sensor photography). This is because photographers -- particularly in the digital era -- do not ordinarily consider the creative advantages of self-imposed restrictions. And when deliberate creative restrictions are suggested, the immediate response is to dismiss them or to suggest that they are wasteful (you're losing information at capture), better achieved in post-processing (so you have more "flexibility"). So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. All of these things are narrowly valuable in some area of photography, but they get glommed together to make a giant assumption. The mobile phone presents a convenient, nearly unavoidable way to question many of the impacts of that maximalist position. One of the things I often want to do is ask photographers "why are your DSLR photos better than your friend's mobile phone photos?" and then poke them in the ribs each time they mention the technical advantages of their kit. But it would generally get quite violent.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    > So there is a "precision maximalist" and "gear maximalist" default to most contemporary photography. Use the sharpest, fastest, least quirky lens you can get, shoot at the highest resolution, buy the latest if you can. I wouldn't conflate "buy the latest you can" with gear maximalism. My own journey with that started with dissatisfaction of the quality of the output that I had, and, as I became a better photographer, running up against the limits of my camera and lens. Then, after understanding what I was experiencing was indeed the hardware and not a limitation of my skill, I upgraded, and the hardware leapfrogged my abilities. Then I got better and I once again started hitting the limits of my hardware. Though I am now at a point where the hardware and my abilities are so good that I am content with the output as one can reasonably expect for a hardcore amateur. My point is that "gear maximalism" is not always just mere materialism. As for the phone, it's convenient. I can guss it up and if the output is sufficiently pig-like I can put lipstick on it til it looks good enough. With the right software I can even output RAW files and theoretically feed them into Lightroom like my normal workflow. But it will never be as good, and there are so many techniques that I simply can't do with it. "The best camera is the one in your hand" is true and all, but it's flooding the world with shit photos. Good is the enemy of great, after all.

tuyiown 5y ago

Besides telephoto and real macro, the results of the iPhone 12 made the idea of gear renewal almost absurd for me, it’s just incredible and I’m not talking about the 12 pro. There is trade offs, none of them justifies carrying heavy gear around most of the time. edit: it’s a hobby and I just spent a lot of time trying to take pretty pictures, and searching the proper cost tradeoff to do them

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Right. Gear churn just seems peculiar. I think this is also why we see lots of people who own high end full-frame etc., are now adapting old lenses, building extraordinary DIY rigs like the "digital camera obscura" trend of the moment, making entirely custom lenses with surplus optics and 3D printers, etc. It's the same reason as for why there's so much interest in film. These things have different strengths. I think mobile phones have liberated photography in a way unparalleled since the time when 35mm film liberated photography.
- ghaff 5y ago
  >Gear churn just seems peculiar. There was a period when DSLRs were improving pretty rapidly and it made sense to move up on a pretty regular cadence because the new stuff was so much better. (And we've seen this with phones more recently.) There's definitely a retro aspect to film and vinyl. Personally that's not for me having lived with the limitations of both. But I spent years working with custom film developing chemistry and the like.
  - unfocussed_mike 5y ago
    I still think of myself as someone who shoots a little bit of film, though like other things I still think of myself as doing, not since the pandemic. But I think I view film photography, darkroom work, and mobile phones in basically the same way. They are just some photography tools among many, and my photography education would be incomplete without them.
    - 5y ago

ghaff 5y ago

It depends on what you're doing and what the photos are for. If you're shooting events, sports, wildlife, or want to do shots with specialty--like ultra-wideangle--lenses, precise aperture control, large blowups, no. But phones can now handle a huge amount of what most people--even relatively serious photographers, need day to day or on a random hike/city visit/etc. need. If you're shooting with a DSLR and whatever kit lens it came with on A you're probably fine using a phone.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hughrr 5y ago

Absolutely for amateur and enthusiast level usage. 90% of a decent photograph isn't the camera but the photographer and the post processing.

jug 5y ago

No but earlier many overshot what they needed because smartphones were so obviously inferior even for social media. FF and even APS-C are still clearly better but what matters here is that modern smartphones are reaching the “good enough” bar to no longer look bad.

starfleet_bop 5y ago

They say the best camera is the one you have on you …

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]