Are cell phones as good as DSLRs? My friend says 'yes'.

[Solarflare]

No but I have a backpack all the time, anyway, even before I was into photography. My usual setup - D600, 70-200mm f4, 28mm f1.8 - weights about 2kg. Thats so extremely lightweight that I have to check the bag to make sure the camera is actually with me.

Also, theres much better cameras than just cellphones that will still fit into your jacket pocket. For example the Ricoh GR.

 

[TheStunch]

+1

 

[TCampbell]

The other day I was at the planetarium and thought I should snap a photo of the Spitz star-projector while I was there working on it. I didn't have my DSLR so I used my iPhone 5s.

Here is that result ... snapped with the planetarium lights ON. As you can see... it's take sharp with absolutely no noticeable noise whatsoever. ;-)

But then I remembered that some time ago... back when I was still shooting with my 5D II, I had also taken a shot of the Spitz star projector... but this time with the lights OFF. Normally you can't see the projector in a dark planetarium with lights off, but I used one of my red lights to shine it across the Spitz while taking this 30 second exposure.

This is the result:

Based on these results, I can see why the iPhone 5s is the clear winner. :-/

 

[photoguy99]

The thing you guys are mostly falling down on is this: you conceive of photography largely as 'that which can be done with a DSLR'. Good photos are sharp, have low noise, lots of pixels, etc. All that stuff you get when you use a DSLR. Bad photos are everything else, by definition, and therefore don't count.

How many formal portraits have been made? A few billion, maybe. That's a high estimate. Sports photos? That's another few billion, maybe. A bigger one. And so on.

That's over the entire 150 year span of photography.

How many photos are uploaded to Facebook alone in a week? A couple billion. Every week. 100 billion in a year. Maybe more.

Photography isn't the thing you do with a DSLR any more. Sure, the formal portrait thing still exists. Sports photos are still taken. More than ever, really.

But in terms of photography as a whole, that set of things you do with a DSLR is a tiny blip. It barely moves the needle.

Photography is immediate. It's now. It's at least as much about frictionless sharing as anything else. Shallow depth of field doesn't even register as a relevant feature, except to a tiny little corner of the population.

That thing you do with the DSLR? It still exists, it's still pretty great. But it's only slightly more relevant than wet plate.

So defining 'better' as 'that which a DSLR can do' isn't just cheating, it's wrong.

 

[Rick50]

Well, I know one thing. You can call your friend on your cell but not on your DSLR.

 

[TheStunch]

I agree that most photography is being done with cell phones, though i would add that most pro and high end photography is not, I would say that in the context of this forum, DSLRs are better (and portability not withstanding, better overall), though, cell phones are taking the photo industry and putting it on it's head with the ways the can be used to make art. I wrote an article about it on my blog, though it is short and not totally comprehensive.

 

[Scatterbrained]

.........

So defining 'better' as 'that which a DSLR can do' isn't just cheating, it's wrong.

Not entirely. No one would say that a Camry is a better car than a BMW, but when it comes to cost of ownership or ease of parking the Camry would surely win. Meanwhile it will get you where you need to go, reliably even. The BMW would be a car for discerning enthusiasts while the Camry serves a market of consumer that doesn't really care too much about cars but still find themselves needing one nevertheless. That doesn't make the Camry a better car from an enthusiasts perspective however.
To use another analogy, let's compare a proper stove/oven to a microwave oven. More people use microwave ovens (and more often) than use regular ovens and stoves. Does that mean that the microwave is a better way to cook? Not if you have a passion for food it doesn't. If all you're trying to do is fill a hole then sure, the microwave wins. Chances are high however that the person using the microwave isn't terribly interested in the quality of their food so much as they are interested in simply abating their hunger. The microwave, like the cellphone, has convenience and speed on it's side; but like the cellphone, it gives up quality to achieve convenience. People who choose convenience are foregoing quality, usually knowingly so. There's nothing wrong with that. Quality as a quantifiable metric isn't terribly high up on most peoples value scale when compared to convenience, with the exception of the few things in life they are passionate about.

 

[photoguy99]

Except that we're in a world where almost nobody even understands that there is a thing like traditional cooking, a world in which almost everyone views cooking as identical to heating things in a microwave.

Claiming that a wolf range is better than a microwave will only go over well in a group of olde tyme traditional cookes. The rest of the world will just think you're odd.

Not to say the argument can't be made either way. I think it can, and neither way is particularly silly.

The point is that the answer isn't obvious unless you rig the game.

 

[Scatterbrained]

Except that we're in a world where almost nobody even understands that there is a thing like traditional cooking, a world in which almost everyone views cooking as identical to heating things in a microwave.

Claiming that a wolf range is better than a microwave will only go over well in a group of olde tyme traditional cookes. The rest of the world will just think you're odd.

Not to say the argument can't be made either way. I think it can, and neither way is particularly silly.

The point is that the answer isn't obvious unless you rig the game.

Clearly you've never heard of "Food Network", or "The Cooking Channel".

 

[Mr. Innuendo]

Given the right conditions, I believe that a photo from, say, a new iPhone can rival a photo taken with a DSLR.

Under most circumstances, though, I believe a DSLR will out-perform, and out-shine, a cell phone every time.

 

[photoguy99]

Scatterbrained, you've clearly not understood my post. We're not literally in a world where almost nobody cooks. We're in the photographic equivalent.

 

[astroNikon]

Scatterbrained, you've clearly not understood my post. We're not literally in a world where almost nobody cooks. We're in the photographic equivalent.

Most, if not all of my friends cook. So I don't understand this. Maybe the demographic friends circle that you are in doesn't cook.

But a camera is a tool, it all depends upon how one knows how to use the tool. A cell phone pic can be far better than a dslr, wheres a dslr pic can be far better than a cell phone pic. It all depends upon the person taking the photo. but in general, the dslr is far more flexible which requires, a more sophisticated user to use it to its potential.

 

[photoguy99]

Oh dear God people. I am extending an already existing analogy.

I am not claiming that nobody knows how to cook any more.

 

[astroNikon]

...I am not claiming that nobody knows how to cook any more.

..... We're not literally in a world where almost nobody cooks.....

You're correct. You used a double negative.

 

[TCampbell]

How many formal portraits have been made? A few billion, maybe. That's a high estimate. Sports photos? That's another few billion, maybe. A bigger one. And so on.

Your argument isn't very well-reasonsed, is it? Facebook (being the "new" MySpace) isn't exactly a standard for what the world is doing anymore.

How many sports photos are taken with camera phones... that people actually like? I'm thinking that's a rather low number. Camera phones are miserable at action photography.

While we're at it... how many safari photos are shot with camera phones? The "problem" here, is that the camera phone doesn't have long lenses. By the time you are close enough to the tiger or brown bear to get the same photo you might get with a DSLR... you'll be its next lunch. If you'd like to use the camera phone, that's fine... I think I'll be renting a nice long lens.

We're not exactly running low on people who come to this forum to express their displeasure with their current phone or camera and ask what they can do to capture photos of their active children in low-light?

How many brides are looking to hire wedding photographers who use camera-phones? I'm guessing that's another fairly low number.

The list goes on and on.

The typical person who owns a smart-phone with a camera is happy to use it for snaps, but usually recognizes it for what it is... a great tool that you always have with you... for "snaps". I like the notion that my phone has a small compact camera built-in. For example... the last time the little water-refilling thingy on my toilet tank broke, I snapped a photo with my iPhone and took it to my friendly neighborhood hardware store... wherein the kind gentlemen at the store knew exactly what I needed. Oddly enough... that same photo did not make it onto my wall as a framed print.

If the lighting is great and the subject isn't moving and there are no other factors that make the shot difficult to capture... then every camera is a good camera. It all falls apart when the shooting conditions become challenging or the client's expectations are high.

I'm not snubbing the camera phone... sometimes they are great. They'll easily displace point & shoot cameras (they've done significant damage to that market already and I have very little doubt that within a handful of years they'll go the way of 8-Track tapes and Dymo "squeeze" label-makers.) I would expect camera phones to be popular among those who would previously have used a simple point & shoot camera. They are a long way from being able to encroach on DSLR territory.