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I would disagree with this so much. If this would be the case every wedding photographer would just use an iPhone. Yes, phone does HDR (not always perfectly)

I would disagree with this so much. If this would be the case every wedding photographer would just use an iPhone. Yes, phone does HDR (not always perfectly) but there is so much more to photography than trying to make shadows not black and sky as blue as possible.

jeswin 4y ago
> If this would be the case every wedding photographer would just use an iPhone. As a POC, some have. Here's Peter McKinnon [1], and Tomorrow's filmmakers [2]. The wedding is also a very controlled lighting scenario, allowing the dedicated camera to maximize its advantage. Shutter-speed matters too, which Phones have closed in on but not yet eliminated. (In my post, I called out brightly lit conditions.) Large camera bodies are also about looking "professional". Like most people don't wanna go to banks where staff is dressed in t-shirts and shorts. [1]: https://youtu.be/yLZJS2k2V4k https://youtu.be/yLZJS2k2V4k [2]: https://youtu.be/6RAVCzd0MZw https://youtu.be/6RAVCzd0MZw
- aspyct 4y ago
  In real life, weddings don't have a strong control of light. Quite the opposite. It's usually a big mess.
  - llampx 4y ago
    Some weddings I have gone to have the photographer with a big flash and an assistant, who has an even bigger light. With predictable results - everyone looks startled and you can tell that all the red eye has been photoshopped out. To take candid photos in a dimly lit environment (evening, church, outdoors at night etc) you need a big honking flash or a lens that captures more light than the Hubble.
    - aspyct 4y ago
      Yeah I use a flash during the dinner and party at a wedding, but during church is a big fat no :p Indeed, you're stuck with big telephoto lenses and high iso.
    - Auracle 4y ago
      I’m a wedding photographer. Every good photographer (almost) always bounces their speed light off the wall/ceiling or uses an off camera flash. I’ve taken hundreds of thousands of wedding images and never once had red eye to remove. People also don’t “startle” faster than the speed of light. Speedlights aren’t “big honking flashes” and as long as you know what you’re doing you’re still usually at a high ISO as you don’t want the background to be super dim compared to the foreground. Anyways, phones are especially ill suited for that environment compared to modern cameras. At f/1.4, 1/200th of a second shutter at ISO 6400 you can freeze everything but super fast motion with pretty good image quality in very dim environments. Phones absolutely cannot do that. Even pictures taken outside just after the sun sets are a smeary mess after the built in noise reduction.
- MAGZine 4y ago
  from the videos, the iphone looks like a terrible way to shoot VIDEO for a wedding, and that's after spending thousands of dollars on extra equipment. Stills, IMO, would be even more of a disaster.
- Auracle 4y ago
  Your last point is so wrong I don’t know where to start. I don’t like carrying god knows how many pounds of weight on my shoulders with two cameras, 3 lenses, and often two speedlights on me all day. I also bring two Pelican cases of lighting equipment, a camera bag full of batteries and lenses, and an “oh shit” bad with backup cameras and lenses. That’s what I need to do a good job in any condition. Phone camera photos look good on your phone. If you have absolutely perfect lighting they may even look good blown up to a somewhat reasonable size. Good luck getting anything useful in a dim church, on the dance floor, etc. It’s pretty often that a mom comes along to a senior photography shoot and takes photos with their phone of me at work and then sends them to me. The quality is utterly laughable compared to what I’m capturing at the time when actually viewed on something that’s more than 6 inches diagonal. Photographers might make silly YouTube videos trying to get clicks where they use phones on a pro shoot but that’s where it ends.
z9znz 4y ago
> every wedding photographer I wouldn't be surprised to find that some measurable percentage of "official person tasked with photographing a wedding" are just using phones. These are not professional wedding photographers, but they are acting as a wedding photographer while using a phone camera. (And they are friends or family doing the task for free.) Surely many weddings are not high expenditure events. An average person with a modern phone who takes a LOT of photos at each moment or scene will produce some good images. They may not be of the quality where you could print large poster size, but most people probably don't print larger than 11x14. There's no doubt that a skilled photographer with good gear that is suited for the environment can do better. Phones are not a replacement for this if final result is the only criteria. But not only are not all "professional" photographers great, but a lucky amateur with a good phone cam and lots of snaps may end up with output that a layperson, including the subjects of the wedding, might not be able to see the difference of.
- AndrewThrowaway 4y ago
  There is no doubt my mother-in-law barely notices a difference when I take a photo of her grand children using phone and using camera. And this is for one simple reason - she looks at how much fun her grand children are having. Not the quality of HDR or anything else. So your point really stands here. However for anybody just a little bit involved the difference is huge. Simple things like depth of field can only be faked on small sensor because if physics. HDR on phones also often look fake, imperfect and artificial. To the point that I think in 50 years people will try to fake it to get that "2020 look" as nowadays we try to get "film look of 60s".
  - z9znz 4y ago
    > depth of field I know I'm a weird person, but I never got the whole depth-of-field/bokeh thing. While I understand that some people want the "focus" to be the sharp center of attention, and perhaps other things to be less sharp, I never liked the "everything except the main object is super blurry" effect. In many cases, I want everything to be in focus so I can choose what to look at and enjoy. As for HDR look, it's a bit difficult to say what neutral/normal is since it depends on SO many variables (including the brain of the viewer). So I would argue that your perception of the "fakeness" of phone HDR is because your mind is trained on images which look different. Even if there is a formal correct definition of ideal, in cases of relatively small differences it's kind of moot. Plus, at my basic understanding I believe photogs shooting in raw are choosing to some degree how to interpret the data when they convert from RAW. Maybe they let the default converter choose, and maybe (probably) they make some choices of their own. So at this point there is no truth. There is just the subjective choices of the operator. Even between camera/lens/software choices the results can be quite varied from what I've seen reading many camera tests, reviews, and comparisons. Ultimately a human with a little training or some intuition/luck can make choices of how and where to shoot which probably have the greatest overall impact on the likeability of the image.
pmontra 4y ago
About "there is so much more to photography than...": a guy I met in a vacation years ago was taking pictures with a low cost phone with at best an average sensor. Nevertheless his pictures were always more memorable than the ones that other people in the party were taking with 1000+ Euro cameras. OK, he couldn't zoom into the eyes of birds on branches (my cheap 30x compact camera could) but he had enough talent to make me wish he had one of those cameras.
- AndrewThrowaway 4y ago
  No doubt here. Just watching a few videos on youtube about composition and similar stuff can improve your photos greatly. Sometimes people just don't have "a feeling" on why professional photos look like professional photos. It is all about composition, angles and stuff. Sensor size is not so important if you are taking a photo of landscape and showing it on instagram.
- llampx 4y ago
  Sometimes I go back and look at my camera phone pictures from 2016 and before, and regret so much that I didn't buy a more expensive camera phone. Some really good pictures are marred by noise and blur because of the cheap lens and sensor of the phone.
Gigachad 4y ago
Even if the iPhone was better, you couldn’t show up to the job and use an iPhone because people would feel ripped off and assume they could do the same with their phones.
- rowanG077 4y ago
  I feel this is false. If people thought that why wouldn't they just rent some pro gear? Much cheaper then a photographer.
  - tcmb 4y ago
    Because they don't know how to handle the pro gear.
    - rowanG077 4y ago
      So they are paying for skills. Which are used Whether the photographer uses an iPhone or pro gear. That was the entire point I made. It make no sense for people to think they could do it themselves. If they hired a pro in the first place.
      - Gigachad 4y ago
        You assume people are thinking this many steps forward. Wearing a button up shirt and tie doesn’t make your brain work faster in the office, but people do it anyway for the show. It doesn’t have to be rational, it’s just how people think. Taking photos with phones looks casual/unprofessional regardless of how good the phone is at taking photos.
bombcar 4y ago
I’ve seen wedding photographers where they have the assistant taking photos with the phone as a backup. And sometimes the customers prefer the phone shots.
- amelius 4y ago
  There's a business here: phone covers that make a phone look like a professional camera.
  - luxuryballs 4y ago
    ah yes the Canon DSLR phone case
  - Terretta 4y ago
    Smart phone rigs are a thing: E.g.: https://smile.amazon.com/Zeadio-Stabilizing-Stabilizer-Panasonic-Camcorder/dp/B06Y51PMR6/ https://smile.amazon.com/Zeadio-Stabilizing-Stabilizer-Panas... More: https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=video+grip+iphone+rig&sprefix=video+grip+iphone+rig https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=video+grip+iphone+rig&sprefix=v...

jeswin 4y ago

> If this would be the case every wedding photographer would just use an iPhone. As a POC, some have. Here's Peter McKinnon [1], and Tomorrow's filmmakers [2]. The wedding is also a very controlled lighting scenario, allowing the dedicated camera to maximize its advantage. Shutter-speed matters too, which Phones have closed in on but not yet eliminated. (In my post, I called out brightly lit conditions.) Large camera bodies are also about looking "professional". Like most people don't wanna go to banks where staff is dressed in t-shirts and shorts. [1]: https://youtu.be/yLZJS2k2V4k https://youtu.be/yLZJS2k2V4k [2]: https://youtu.be/6RAVCzd0MZw https://youtu.be/6RAVCzd0MZw

aspyct 4y ago
In real life, weddings don't have a strong control of light. Quite the opposite. It's usually a big mess.
- llampx 4y ago
  Some weddings I have gone to have the photographer with a big flash and an assistant, who has an even bigger light. With predictable results - everyone looks startled and you can tell that all the red eye has been photoshopped out. To take candid photos in a dimly lit environment (evening, church, outdoors at night etc) you need a big honking flash or a lens that captures more light than the Hubble.
  - aspyct 4y ago
    Yeah I use a flash during the dinner and party at a wedding, but during church is a big fat no :p Indeed, you're stuck with big telephoto lenses and high iso.
  - Auracle 4y ago
    I’m a wedding photographer. Every good photographer (almost) always bounces their speed light off the wall/ceiling or uses an off camera flash. I’ve taken hundreds of thousands of wedding images and never once had red eye to remove. People also don’t “startle” faster than the speed of light. Speedlights aren’t “big honking flashes” and as long as you know what you’re doing you’re still usually at a high ISO as you don’t want the background to be super dim compared to the foreground. Anyways, phones are especially ill suited for that environment compared to modern cameras. At f/1.4, 1/200th of a second shutter at ISO 6400 you can freeze everything but super fast motion with pretty good image quality in very dim environments. Phones absolutely cannot do that. Even pictures taken outside just after the sun sets are a smeary mess after the built in noise reduction.
MAGZine 4y ago
from the videos, the iphone looks like a terrible way to shoot VIDEO for a wedding, and that's after spending thousands of dollars on extra equipment. Stills, IMO, would be even more of a disaster.
Auracle 4y ago
Your last point is so wrong I don’t know where to start. I don’t like carrying god knows how many pounds of weight on my shoulders with two cameras, 3 lenses, and often two speedlights on me all day. I also bring two Pelican cases of lighting equipment, a camera bag full of batteries and lenses, and an “oh shit” bad with backup cameras and lenses. That’s what I need to do a good job in any condition. Phone camera photos look good on your phone. If you have absolutely perfect lighting they may even look good blown up to a somewhat reasonable size. Good luck getting anything useful in a dim church, on the dance floor, etc. It’s pretty often that a mom comes along to a senior photography shoot and takes photos with their phone of me at work and then sends them to me. The quality is utterly laughable compared to what I’m capturing at the time when actually viewed on something that’s more than 6 inches diagonal. Photographers might make silly YouTube videos trying to get clicks where they use phones on a pro shoot but that’s where it ends.

z9znz 4y ago

> every wedding photographer I wouldn't be surprised to find that some measurable percentage of "official person tasked with photographing a wedding" are just using phones. These are not professional wedding photographers, but they are acting as a wedding photographer while using a phone camera. (And they are friends or family doing the task for free.) Surely many weddings are not high expenditure events. An average person with a modern phone who takes a LOT of photos at each moment or scene will produce some good images. They may not be of the quality where you could print large poster size, but most people probably don't print larger than 11x14. There's no doubt that a skilled photographer with good gear that is suited for the environment can do better. Phones are not a replacement for this if final result is the only criteria. But not only are not all "professional" photographers great, but a lucky amateur with a good phone cam and lots of snaps may end up with output that a layperson, including the subjects of the wedding, might not be able to see the difference of.

AndrewThrowaway 4y ago
There is no doubt my mother-in-law barely notices a difference when I take a photo of her grand children using phone and using camera. And this is for one simple reason - she looks at how much fun her grand children are having. Not the quality of HDR or anything else. So your point really stands here. However for anybody just a little bit involved the difference is huge. Simple things like depth of field can only be faked on small sensor because if physics. HDR on phones also often look fake, imperfect and artificial. To the point that I think in 50 years people will try to fake it to get that "2020 look" as nowadays we try to get "film look of 60s".
- z9znz 4y ago
  > depth of field I know I'm a weird person, but I never got the whole depth-of-field/bokeh thing. While I understand that some people want the "focus" to be the sharp center of attention, and perhaps other things to be less sharp, I never liked the "everything except the main object is super blurry" effect. In many cases, I want everything to be in focus so I can choose what to look at and enjoy. As for HDR look, it's a bit difficult to say what neutral/normal is since it depends on SO many variables (including the brain of the viewer). So I would argue that your perception of the "fakeness" of phone HDR is because your mind is trained on images which look different. Even if there is a formal correct definition of ideal, in cases of relatively small differences it's kind of moot. Plus, at my basic understanding I believe photogs shooting in raw are choosing to some degree how to interpret the data when they convert from RAW. Maybe they let the default converter choose, and maybe (probably) they make some choices of their own. So at this point there is no truth. There is just the subjective choices of the operator. Even between camera/lens/software choices the results can be quite varied from what I've seen reading many camera tests, reviews, and comparisons. Ultimately a human with a little training or some intuition/luck can make choices of how and where to shoot which probably have the greatest overall impact on the likeability of the image.

pmontra 4y ago

About "there is so much more to photography than...": a guy I met in a vacation years ago was taking pictures with a low cost phone with at best an average sensor. Nevertheless his pictures were always more memorable than the ones that other people in the party were taking with 1000+ Euro cameras. OK, he couldn't zoom into the eyes of birds on branches (my cheap 30x compact camera could) but he had enough talent to make me wish he had one of those cameras.

AndrewThrowaway 4y ago
No doubt here. Just watching a few videos on youtube about composition and similar stuff can improve your photos greatly. Sometimes people just don't have "a feeling" on why professional photos look like professional photos. It is all about composition, angles and stuff. Sensor size is not so important if you are taking a photo of landscape and showing it on instagram.
llampx 4y ago
Sometimes I go back and look at my camera phone pictures from 2016 and before, and regret so much that I didn't buy a more expensive camera phone. Some really good pictures are marred by noise and blur because of the cheap lens and sensor of the phone.

Gigachad 4y ago

Even if the iPhone was better, you couldn’t show up to the job and use an iPhone because people would feel ripped off and assume they could do the same with their phones.

rowanG077 4y ago
I feel this is false. If people thought that why wouldn't they just rent some pro gear? Much cheaper then a photographer.
- tcmb 4y ago
  Because they don't know how to handle the pro gear.
  - rowanG077 4y ago
    So they are paying for skills. Which are used Whether the photographer uses an iPhone or pro gear. That was the entire point I made. It make no sense for people to think they could do it themselves. If they hired a pro in the first place.
    - Gigachad 4y ago
      You assume people are thinking this many steps forward. Wearing a button up shirt and tie doesn’t make your brain work faster in the office, but people do it anyway for the show. It doesn’t have to be rational, it’s just how people think. Taking photos with phones looks casual/unprofessional regardless of how good the phone is at taking photos.

bombcar 4y ago

I’ve seen wedding photographers where they have the assistant taking photos with the phone as a backup. And sometimes the customers prefer the phone shots.

amelius 4y ago
There's a business here: phone covers that make a phone look like a professional camera.
- luxuryballs 4y ago
  ah yes the Canon DSLR phone case
- Terretta 4y ago
  Smart phone rigs are a thing: E.g.: https://smile.amazon.com/Zeadio-Stabilizing-Stabilizer-Panasonic-Camcorder/dp/B06Y51PMR6/ https://smile.amazon.com/Zeadio-Stabilizing-Stabilizer-Panas... More: https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=video+grip+iphone+rig&sprefix=video+grip+iphone+rig https://smile.amazon.com/s?k=video+grip+iphone+rig&sprefix=v...