Recently I took a trip to Islands of Adventure on a mini-vacation, and if there’s anywhere you’ll see cameras, it’s there.
I saw digital cameras. Lots of them. Were I to hazard a guess, around 90% of the people I saw using cameras were point-and-shoots and the other 10% using DSLR full-bodied type.
I was also specifically looking around to see if anyone was using a smartphone to snap photos with. Nope. Other than myself, I saw nobody using a smartphone’s camera. In a Florida theme park of all places.
In the back of my mind I thought that everyone would have dumped digital cameras for smartphones by now, because after all, smartphones are cheap these days and not everyone is a photographer. Wow, was I wrong. Very wrong.
If you were to ask me which brand I saw the most, I can’t say because it was all over the place. Casio, Panasonic, Nikon, Olympus, Sony, etc. You name it, and it was there. All the brands were represented in just about every color you could think of.
Why do people hang on to digital cameras so much?
There are a few good reasons.
True optical zoom
Even a cheap 50-dollar digital camera has optical zoom these days. Smartphones as far as I’m aware at best only have digital zoom, and as anyone who’s taken photos is aware, digital zoom sucks compared to optical.
AA-powered
When the phone’s battery runs down, that’s it. Most people don’t carry around spare phone batteries. With AA-powered digital cameras however, it’s a quick run to the gift shop, buy some AAs and you’re back in business. Yeah, you spent way more than you should have for batteries at the gift shop, but the point is you can do it and keep snapping photos.
Better photos
Smartphones are not known for taking good photos no matter how ritzy they are. Those tiny lenses have a difficult time capturing proper light and color, whereas with a cheap digital camera it’s easy.
A dedicated platform for the task
This is probably the best reason of all. Digital cameras are meant to do one thing well – take photos. Yes, they do video as well, but the primary purpose is photos. A smartphone’s primary purpose is not photos but rather communication via text and voice. Photos from a smartphone at best are a tertiary consideration behind communications and apps.
Will smartphones ever be able to take a photo as good as a true camera?
A good lens is an absolute requirement when it comes to photos. Given that even the cheap digital cameras blow the doors off smartphones in that department, I don’t ever see phones taking better photos than real cameras.
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It is partly that smartphones don’t charge a monthly fee, Not everyone wants to pay a monthly fee.
Also, the physical size of the light sensor makes a difference in image quality. It is not just about the number pixels.
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As you have pointed out already, lens size makes a big diffrerence. Cell phone pictures are crap simply said. And I am amazed how people dare publish such crappy pictures in sites like Facebook. They are ok for capturing things that happen unexpectedly and you want to share but they are NOT ok for things like vacations or family events and such. While some specific phones such as the iPhone take quite good pictures they still don’t match the quality of the cheapest point and shoot cameras around. Apart from lens size, sensor size and optical zoom which have already been mentioned I will add to the list the following:
1. Electronic flash
2. Large memory capacity and easy to exchange memory cards
3. Real cameras don’t show a distorted image when taking a picture while the camera is moving
4. Real cameras are much FASTER than a cell phone camera.
5. Pressing a real button (half-way then fully) beats a touch screen out of the water any time.
Also people are less prone to record videos in vertical format with a digital camera than with a cell phone. I cringe every time I see a video shot vertically wasting nearly all of the computer or TV screen which is wider in the horizontal dimension.
Good article. Proper photos demand the correct hardware to capture the best images. Phones are quick and dirty. But for lasting photographs a real camera is the only way to go.