Celluar phone photography-boon or bane?

[SCEMan]

Never would have got this shot from my backyard with my iPhone 13 Pro...

 

[Chauncey Gardener]

 

[bykfixer]

Never would have got this shot from my backyard with my iPhone 13 Pro...

View attachment 53701

On the other side of the coin....

I never would have gotten these photos using my Nikon gear while driving.

 

[raggie33]

ya pics dont load for me bykfixer may be on my end

 

[PewPewPew]

It all comes down to what is convenient.

I have an older Canon EOS digital camera and even though it has less megapixels than my phone it takes beautiful pictures because of the size of the photoreceptor. Lens choice will also play a large part in the quality. With an adjustable focus lens you can really capture the subject and not all the background like you see in all the phone pictures.

Don't get caught up in the marketing hype about megapixels. Megapixels are just how many pixels resolution your screen displays. You can have 30 trillion megapixels but if it's taken with a poor lens and photoreceptor, it's going to be a trillion blurry/bleeding pixels. Everything taken with the SLR has looked beautiful when it's enlarged and printed.

Phone? Good for sharing digital pics with friends, or to help sell something.

For special occasions, it's worth it to lug around the SLR with a tripod, but for everyday use it's not worth the hassle to carry it around.

A camera in your back pocket is always going to be better than no camera at all.

 

[PewPewPew]

Speaking of, did anyone see or hear about the scandal where Samsung had photo software that replaced a round orb at night (some people did it will a street lamp) with a high resolution picture of the moon?
The guy in this article displayed a highly blurry picture of the moon on his computer, then took a picture of it with his samsung phone. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moon-photos-ai-galaxy-s21-s23-ultra

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Speaking of, did anyone see or hear about the scandal where Samsung had photo software that replaced a round orb at night (some people did it will a street lamp) with a high resolution picture of the moon?
The guy in this article displayed a highly blurry picture of the moon on his computer, then took a picture of it with his samsung phone. https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moon-photos-ai-galaxy-s21-s23-ultra

Well, that's kinda par for the course when it comes from that general area of the globe. They fake a lot of things.

 

[alpg88]

ya pics dont load for me bykfixer may be on my end

i do not see them either

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

i do not see them either

Ditto here.

 

[bykfixer]

ya pics dont load for me bykfixer may be on my end

Reloaded.

 

[raggie33]

some great shots bykfixer

 

[alpg88]

Perfect example why phone cam with auto exposure will not always get a full pic, i see that exposure settings, focus were taken from bright sky, and tree line is just a black silhouette. With cameras you can set to multiple exposure/focus areas, and you get sky and tree line bright and sharp.

 

[Chauncey Gardener]

Just today, I had about three seconds to whip out the phone and -

 

[IMA SOL MAN]

Just today, I had about three seconds to whip out the phone and -


View attachment 53758

Good catch! 🧑‍🚒🚒
Guess that wasn't an electric-diesel hybrid...

 

[bykfixer]

Perfect example why phone cam with auto exposure will not always get a full pic, i see that exposure settings, focus were taken from bright sky, and tree line is just a black silhouette. With cameras you can set to multiple exposure/focus areas, and you get sky and tree line bright and sharp.

I wanted the black silouette tree line.

 

[bykfixer]

some great shots bykfixer

Thanks.
Yours are nice too.

 

[newts]

I didn't look all the way back but if it hasn't been said yet:

"The best camera is the one you have with you" - cell phone cameras are a great asset and I don't know any photographer who doesn't use one at times. While the cell cameras have gotten really good they will never replace real cameras for real optical properties.

 

[raggie33]

A course my phone was the only camera on me . So the shot I got wasn't great a faster dslr sensor would of done way better in this low light but it was at home

 

[bykfixer]

Several years ago there was an article by a famous photographer in Shutterbug magazine about his adventures across America with only his celphone for taking pictures. It was in a series of articles Shutterbug did discussing turning crumby photos into artistic ones. The guy wrote about using the flaws of the then current celphone cameras to create interesting pictures. He wrote a book about it back around 2006 or 7.

At the time I was using an LG flip phone that really struggled with white balance and ended up with several interesting renditions of things like driving in a tunnel in mixed lighting, civil war memorials with the sun in my face, parking lots at night etc with strange colored lighting etc. Some were actually more interesting than my Nikon D80 could produce at the time. I still use that technique to this day at times. The issue anymore is how acurate my iPhone is that it's difficult to get those weird renditions anymore without editing it using pre-fab e-filters.

 

[bykfixer]

A course my phone was the only camera on me . So the shot I got wasn't great a faster dslr sensor would of done way better in this low light but it was at home

The issue with that one was probably aperature size was smaller (larger number) so the light it let in during the preset shutter speed was reduced. Therefore it likely cranked up ISO to the point noise became an issue.

I remember those early "Pixel" phones having way better cameras than other Androids and Apples. I wanted one of those when my HTC comitted suicide but they were selling faster than folks could stock them. My son was a beta tester for google at the time and they kept him stocked with the latest models each time one was developed. He no longer participates with them.