Smartphones are certainly cutting into dedicated camera sales, and work well for a lot of uses, but they are not competitors with DSLRs and mirrorless cameras.

Smartphones are certainly cutting into dedicated camera sales, and work well for a lot of uses, but they are not competitors with DSLRs and mirrorless cameras. There are limits to physics that smartphones aren't overcoming anytime soon. Smartphone makers naturally want to make phones thinner and smaller, but this affects how good the cameras ever will be. One of the issues that you almost see never talked about is how smartphone lenses degrade over time. Because people are putting cameras into pockets and bags, the lenses get smudged and damaged. Compare that to a normal camera lens that is always protected when not in use. I started a photo of the day project and early on I decided not use my iPhone 5 for my photos because they stood out so much: http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2013/08/21/why-i-am-so-happy-that-i-chose-flickr-over-instagram-for-my-photo-of-the-day-project/ http://patthorntonfiles.com/blog/2013/08/21/why-i-am-so-happ... Instead, I eventually got a EOS M mirrorless camera to supplement my DSLR. It's small, fits in a jacket pocket and takes photos substantially better than any smartphone. If you can't get much better photos out of a DSLR or mirrorless, then, yes, stick with a smartphone. It's convenient, always with you and allows for quick Web uploads. But if you want to get more into photography, having better sensors, better lenses and more manual controls will allow you to take shots that you simply can't get with a smartphone.