I’ll totally admit that having a smartphone with the ability to snap photos (and shoot video) is mighty convenient. However that doesn’t mean the phone can actually take good pictures.

As anyone learned in digital cameras is aware, more megapixels does not equal better quality photos, and even if a modern smartphone matches what your digital camera can do, that still doesn’t mean the photos it takes are any good.

My digital camera is a now-old FujiFilm A820, which has “only” 8.3 megapixels of resolution to it.

Even though my A820 runs on two AA batteries and is considered “bulky” by today’s standards, it will always shoot photos better than the Lumia 800 for one very simple reason: It has a bigger and better lens.

You can go on about electronic features all day long, but at the end of the day it’s the lens that will make or break a camera.

Now I’ll totally admit that smartphone makers have engineered some very clever electronic ways to compensate for the fact smartphones have such crappy tiny lenses in them (all in the name of being “thin and convenient”), but the fact of the matter is that a smartphone is not a camera; it’s a phone first and always will be.

Cameras with chintzy lenses are slapped into smartphones and tablets as a feature-add, and the only selling point of that feature has always been the megapixels. Well, it doesn’t matter how many megapixels you stuff into a smart device, because you’ll always be fighting against the fact the lens is so small.

Another thing you’ll be fighting against with a smartphone’s camera is zoom and focus. Cheap point-and-shoot cameras with bigger lenses have a real motor in them for optical zoom, which makes it easy to focus on a subject whether far away or for close-up macro stuff. With the smartphone it’s mainly (if not exclusively) digital-only land.

Example photo I took with my old A820:

I don’t claim the above photo of my crappy cell phone to be “masterful” by any means (especially since you can see paper towel ‘fuzz’ on the OK button and other places even after cleaning the thing); the point is that there is absolutely no way I can get a shot like this from a smartphone because it simply doesn’t have the proper lens to do it. With a point-and-shoot however, I can do it.

To note, yes I have taken photos with “good” smartphones, and have seen plenty of other photos by others with premium-grade smartphone stuff, but that little lens just doesn’t cut it.

When you want real detail be it a distant or close-up subject, traditional digital cameras (even the cheap ones) still trounce smartphones easily.

Yes, modern smartphones can take photos way better than they used to and there’s no denying that. But the cheap point-and-shoot digital camera with the better lens and real working motor for optical zoom and true macro capability will pretty much universally take better photos.

On a final note, if you like the way your smartphone takes photos, then by all means keep using it. The message I’m sending here is to not to fall for the promise big megapixels and super-high-software-tech being able to magically compsensate for a tiny lens, because that’s simply not happening.

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