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> 38% of people said that better cameras are a main motivation for buying a new phone This strikes me as just a reflection of the ad campaigns. Apple promotes

by orev 2y ago

> 38% of people said that better cameras are a main motivation for buying a new phone This strikes me as just a reflection of the ad campaigns. Apple promotes “better cameras” for every new iPhone, almost exclusively in their ads, so it’s not surprising that’s what people would say. With every new phone being just an incremental upgrade, hyping up the camera is the only way to get people to drop a $1000 on a new one. Most of these 38% won’t be able to tell the difference between a phone pic taken 5 or more years ago.

esafak 2y ago
Better images got people to buy even more expensive digital cameras that do less than your cell phone. It turns out people like to take pictures.
- giancarlostoro 2y ago
  Do less in terms of what exactly? Because I have photos from old digital cameras from nearly 20 years ago that look drastically better and more detailed than Android or iPhone photos from several years back. I would be surprised if the quality is down. In terms of features the quality is key.
  - esafak 2y ago
    Do less in terms of not being able to do anything beside take a picture. And they don't do any computational photography, either, so their pictures are not necessarily better. Try any low light photography with moving objects on your camera? Or adjust the focal point? Cell phones can do it. If digital cameras were so good they would not be disappearing.
    - orev 2y ago
      Phone cameras have come a long way, no doubt, but DSLRs really do look amazing. Phones are winning because “the best camera is the one that’s with you”. Since people have the phone camera in their pocket all the time, they usually don’t bother to carry a separate bulky one except for special occasions.
      - brookst 2y ago
        Phones are also winning because the gap is narrowing. Computational photography probably? won’t ever replace wide aperture superzoom lenses, but each hear the scope of “you can’t take that shot with a phone” shrinks.
        ezst 2y ago
        The gap isn't narrowing at all, if you look at it from the angle of what the imaging hardware (optics/sensor) is capable of (not much), and how much headroom remains (almost none). We are now very deep in the era of computational photography and AI-enhancing, where algorithms cover-up for the source signal limitations and are let free to invent and omit data for the sake of optimizing a score meant to represent what Apple/Google _thinks looks pretty_. I'd even go as far as claiming that this processing "taints" images in a very specific manner, and that images taken on today's smartphones will age very badly. I am no computational photography expert, but even I can tell that a photo comes from an iPhone: the bokeh looks uncanny (unnatural, one-dimensional, often with visible contours), the white balance biases towards yellowish tones, the amount of selective sharpening/micro-contrasting is uneven. Other manufacturers (Samsung, Google) have comparable although distinct biases that may comfort your ideals of aestheticism or not, the point is that it's not feasible to get neutral takes out of those devices, because they are not technically able to do so. Computational photography is what they are and what defines them: true you can pull RAWs out of them (which are mostly only so in name), but that serves to reveal how-much is processed out of it. Anyhow, I am not comfortable with the status-quo, and that drove me to buy a mirrorless camera a couple years ago: I don't even care whether it might take worse photos than my phone (it doesn't) or be harder to handle (quite the opposite!), I just want to opt-out of Apple's/Google's opinionated ride on modern photography, and take back the ability to make photos that look natural although somewhat imperfect.
        brookst 2y ago
        I don’t disagree with your decision to go mirror mess; makes sense given your views. But it’s hard to credit the opinion that phone cameras are no closer to “real” cameras today than they were 20 years ago. The gap is narrowing.
ghaff 2y ago
Apple at least has certainly emphasized photography (and video) a lot. But that actually seems to be a very reasoned response to consumers asking themselves "Why should I upgrade my phone?" And over at least some timescale--maybe not every model--a better camera actually seems like a pretty reasonable answer for people who care.
brookst 2y ago
I don’t understand this view. Theory 1: People treasure memories and have been let down by pictures tnat don’t age well from cheap film cameras, then early digital cameras, then phone cameras. Phones have gotten good enough to replace separate devices for most people, but the cameras are still not as versatile. People will spend money for incremental improvements because the payoff will last decades and benefit their children. Apple invests heavily in camera tech to satisfy this need, and in marketing to communicate the benefits. Theory 2: sheeple buy whatever marketing tells them to, those rubes don’t see any real benefit. I just don’t see how anyone who enjoys even casual photography could go for theory 2.
- orev 2y ago
  If phone cameras hadn’t changed over the past 10 years, most people would still be happy with the quality of photos taken. Most photos are never printed out or viewed on any device other than their phone. They may be poorly lit, composed badly, and be blurry, but they still serve their primary purpose for most people, which is to relive a memory. That function is the same whether the sensor is 2 or 48 megapixels. Newer tech of course looks better, and people can definitely tell the difference when comparing them side-by-side. But there’s also an element of the reality distortion field when it comes to convincing people that they need to upgrade from a two year old phone to the latest release just because of the camera upgrades.
makeitdouble 2y ago
Better camera is not just the optical quality or even processing though. Older phones gets slower, either because of the dying battery (that could be replaced, but many of these people are on subsidized phones so upgrading is baked into their plan), or software bloat slowly creeping on. When camera boot up, shutter lag or post processing starts to take one sec or two, moving to a newer phone is the obvious option.
dyauspitr 2y ago
Honestly I know very little about photography but I can easily tell the difference between photos on an iPhone 10 vs 13
blackoil 2y ago
> Most of these 38% won’t be able to tell the difference between a phone pic taken 5 or more years ago. That is an arbitrary statement, that came from your biases and not observation. Maybe in best of lighting some 5-year-old photos maybe as good as latest flagship.
jfkfkdkf 2y ago
Wouldn't it make more sense to assume the opposite? That the ad campaigns are a reflection of what product details generate the most ongoing interest in the product? Otherwise you're left with the premise that the ad creates the interest in which case the topic (camera power) is largely coincidental.

by orev 2y ago

esafak 2y ago

Better images got people to buy even more expensive digital cameras that do less than your cell phone. It turns out people like to take pictures.

giancarlostoro 2y ago
Do less in terms of what exactly? Because I have photos from old digital cameras from nearly 20 years ago that look drastically better and more detailed than Android or iPhone photos from several years back. I would be surprised if the quality is down. In terms of features the quality is key.
- esafak 2y ago
  Do less in terms of not being able to do anything beside take a picture. And they don't do any computational photography, either, so their pictures are not necessarily better. Try any low light photography with moving objects on your camera? Or adjust the focal point? Cell phones can do it. If digital cameras were so good they would not be disappearing.
  - orev 2y ago
    Phone cameras have come a long way, no doubt, but DSLRs really do look amazing. Phones are winning because “the best camera is the one that’s with you”. Since people have the phone camera in their pocket all the time, they usually don’t bother to carry a separate bulky one except for special occasions.
    - brookst 2y ago
      Phones are also winning because the gap is narrowing. Computational photography probably? won’t ever replace wide aperture superzoom lenses, but each hear the scope of “you can’t take that shot with a phone” shrinks.
      - ezst 2y ago
        The gap isn't narrowing at all, if you look at it from the angle of what the imaging hardware (optics/sensor) is capable of (not much), and how much headroom remains (almost none). We are now very deep in the era of computational photography and AI-enhancing, where algorithms cover-up for the source signal limitations and are let free to invent and omit data for the sake of optimizing a score meant to represent what Apple/Google _thinks looks pretty_. I'd even go as far as claiming that this processing "taints" images in a very specific manner, and that images taken on today's smartphones will age very badly. I am no computational photography expert, but even I can tell that a photo comes from an iPhone: the bokeh looks uncanny (unnatural, one-dimensional, often with visible contours), the white balance biases towards yellowish tones, the amount of selective sharpening/micro-contrasting is uneven. Other manufacturers (Samsung, Google) have comparable although distinct biases that may comfort your ideals of aestheticism or not, the point is that it's not feasible to get neutral takes out of those devices, because they are not technically able to do so. Computational photography is what they are and what defines them: true you can pull RAWs out of them (which are mostly only so in name), but that serves to reveal how-much is processed out of it. Anyhow, I am not comfortable with the status-quo, and that drove me to buy a mirrorless camera a couple years ago: I don't even care whether it might take worse photos than my phone (it doesn't) or be harder to handle (quite the opposite!), I just want to opt-out of Apple's/Google's opinionated ride on modern photography, and take back the ability to make photos that look natural although somewhat imperfect.
        brookst 2y ago
        I don’t disagree with your decision to go mirror mess; makes sense given your views. But it’s hard to credit the opinion that phone cameras are no closer to “real” cameras today than they were 20 years ago. The gap is narrowing.

ghaff 2y ago

Apple at least has certainly emphasized photography (and video) a lot. But that actually seems to be a very reasoned response to consumers asking themselves "Why should I upgrade my phone?" And over at least some timescale--maybe not every model--a better camera actually seems like a pretty reasonable answer for people who care.

brookst 2y ago

I don’t understand this view. Theory 1: People treasure memories and have been let down by pictures tnat don’t age well from cheap film cameras, then early digital cameras, then phone cameras. Phones have gotten good enough to replace separate devices for most people, but the cameras are still not as versatile. People will spend money for incremental improvements because the payoff will last decades and benefit their children. Apple invests heavily in camera tech to satisfy this need, and in marketing to communicate the benefits. Theory 2: sheeple buy whatever marketing tells them to, those rubes don’t see any real benefit. I just don’t see how anyone who enjoys even casual photography could go for theory 2.

orev 2y ago
If phone cameras hadn’t changed over the past 10 years, most people would still be happy with the quality of photos taken. Most photos are never printed out or viewed on any device other than their phone. They may be poorly lit, composed badly, and be blurry, but they still serve their primary purpose for most people, which is to relive a memory. That function is the same whether the sensor is 2 or 48 megapixels. Newer tech of course looks better, and people can definitely tell the difference when comparing them side-by-side. But there’s also an element of the reality distortion field when it comes to convincing people that they need to upgrade from a two year old phone to the latest release just because of the camera upgrades.

makeitdouble 2y ago

Better camera is not just the optical quality or even processing though. Older phones gets slower, either because of the dying battery (that could be replaced, but many of these people are on subsidized phones so upgrading is baked into their plan), or software bloat slowly creeping on. When camera boot up, shutter lag or post processing starts to take one sec or two, moving to a newer phone is the obvious option.

dyauspitr 2y ago

Honestly I know very little about photography but I can easily tell the difference between photos on an iPhone 10 vs 13

blackoil 2y ago

> Most of these 38% won’t be able to tell the difference between a phone pic taken 5 or more years ago. That is an arbitrary statement, that came from your biases and not observation. Maybe in best of lighting some 5-year-old photos maybe as good as latest flagship.

jfkfkdkf 2y ago

Wouldn't it make more sense to assume the opposite? That the ad campaigns are a reflection of what product details generate the most ongoing interest in the product? Otherwise you're left with the premise that the ad creates the interest in which case the topic (camera power) is largely coincidental.