How Much do use your Smartphone for photography?

[K14]

I use an iPhone exclusively now. Light for traveling, and the family uses their iPhones as well, and we can airdop photos between us during our trips. My family has a different perspective on taking pictures, so we tend to get a good collage view of our trips. I think the big advantage is taking panoramic shots with the iPhone; it sure saves on taking extra lenses and cameras to accomplish the same.

 

[Alpsman]

I don't own a smartphone and never will unless absolutely forced to.

Me too ;-)
Also dont own a smartphone.
And my cellphone is about 15 years old and I'ill use it as long as the battery pack is alive.

 

[HuubL]

Is this a Classic M6?

Yep. A Leitz M6. LNIB. I got it for peanuts in 2008 and don’t dare to use it.

 

[raid]

I used my smartphone at a Flamenco Dance and also my Summilux 35/1.4 v2. It was dark and the dancers were moving all over the stage, but I tried focusing with the M10. These images are out of the M10 without any processing; just copy and paste here after resizing the images. I used the Lux wide open at ISO one click below the highest ISO settings. I got DNG+JPG monochrom.

 

[raid]

I preferred using the M10 over my iphone, but the phone gave me videos.

 

[raid]

More Flamenco dancers

 

[raid]

 

[raid]

One more image from the M10

 

[raid]

This was taken with my phone. Is it "better" than the images with the M10?

 

[farlymac]

I am of the camp where the phone camera is a decent tool to document the scene when I'm shooting film and don't want to waste a shot on a street sign for reference. Comes in pretty handy too when it's the only camera around. But I couldn't think of using it as my only camera. I did a shoot once with one of my older phones and while there were a lot of keepers there were also quite a few images that could have been improved with better resolution and chromatic aberration removal. The S22 I have now is a far cry better than anything else I used before, but it lacks that feel of control I get when using a real camera. It's more like a P&S camera than something I would trust for capturing the image I perceive. It does have decent low-light and video capabilities though.

PF

 

[CMur12]

I don't have a smart phone, so I haven't used a phone camera. That's not to say that I wouldn't.

As I see it, the phone camera is the descendant of the old box camera/brownie camera/snapshot camera. These originally had a fixed-focus lens consisting of a single meniscus element, a single shutter speed, and a fixed aperture (a round hole drilled in a metal plate). Around the later 1950s, a second, larger hole was added to allow more light for the slower color film.

We started to see more sophisticated snapshot cameras in the Kodak Instamatic line (and I'm sure there were others), when one bought a more expensive model. For Christmas 1971, I got a Minolta Autopak 600 that took 126 "Instamatic" cartridge film. It had a coated 4-element glass lens, a couple of shutter speeds, a good range of automatically set apertures, and 4-zone focusing. It inspired me to get more seriously into photography, resulting in the purchase of a Yashica TL-Super SLR a few months later.

Snapshot cameras became a lot more sophisticated with the 35mm "point-and-shoots". At this stage, snapshot image quality improved dramatically. Then came digital point-and-shoots, and they were eclipsed and succeeded by phone cameras, which are pretty damned good by snapshot standards.

This brief and incomplete history is only intended to illustrate a point, as there were other cameras appealing to other demographics, as well.

- Murray

 

[dct]

I find the ergonomics of the phone all wrong for photography. I only use mine for recording things I need to remember or snapshots for ebay and the like. I did get a grip for my iPhone to try and use it more, but I still hardly ever do.

Exactly this: My actual one has mostly better photographic specs than my tool-always-there-rugged camera (Lumix DMC-FT5), but I cannot familiarize with all these touch screen things popping out just because I went 1 mm into the screen area with one of my fingers. 😡

The photography implementation is an ergonomic/haptic nightmare and that's the reason I use it very occasionally. I try to avoid it whenever I can.

 

[Axel]

The smartphone has become more and more relevance in my photography since around 2013.
Its just there most of the time and so it is faster than the fastest of my cameras that stay at home or in the car or just in my bag.
Every picture I am able to take is a good picture.
Since my phone(s) have built-in cameras my photography has got new aspects and a new kind of creativity.

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

Exclusively.
* * *
Sure, it doesn’t have the ergonomics of a camera (you can set a button for the shutter, or even use your watch as a remote), but most of the time taking photos is spent not actually taking photos but just looking, and the smartphone gets out of the way 100%, where a camera is a pain to carry in comparison.

Well said.

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

Yes, the best use of a smartphone camera is take pictures of your "real" film cameras to show off on the internet.

One big factor in my choice of my iPhone 13 Pro over a compact digicam is that the screen is so much bigger, brighter, and easier to see and compose with than any digital point and shoot. I have the Pro (not larger Pro Max) size phone with 6.1″ screen and the "viewfinder area" (that is, the part of the screen that actually displays the image to be taken) measures about 4.3″ diagonally—much larger than the 3″ screens common on digital cameras for about the last fifteen years.

 

[JohnGellings]

So, if I'm reading correctly, most people like smartphones because of the convenience and because they are too lazy to bring their other cameras? 😉

(Ducks, runs, hides)

 

[raid]

I always carry with me one or two cameras, and I have my phone with me to check my emails and to have a quick photography tool ready to be used at any time.

 

[JohnGellings]

I always carry with me one or two cameras, and I have my phone with me to check my emails and to have a quick photography tool ready to be used at any time.

I get it. However, my other cameras are quick photography tools too. So, if I have them, the phone is actually slower because it's in my pocket, I have to bring up the app, etc.

 

[TL7]

The i-phone with a tabletop tripod..(I use the Gitzo which is very fast in use)..and also use filters to soften the image a bit from the scratchy/harsh apple rendering...and I'm in business..esp for video on the fly where you dont have to focus the thing and just get the shot. Then pull the exact shot you need from the vid if you need a pic..or.. have a blast and upload vid to youtube.

 

[Godfrey]

Hmm. The phone camera app is right on the "lock screen" and I can configure the iPhone 15 custom button to bring it up with a single click. That's as fast a pulling my camera out of a bag and getting it ready to shoot. 😉

Anywho, it's just another camera in the kit, really. I'm going to spend to some to learn the iPhone 15 Pro camera because I think it can do some pretty amazing photography for something that is always in my pocket anyway.

Quick snap of a friend at xmas day dinner ... about a third of the frame:


Mario - Santa Clara 2023

All I did was crop it and add a border effect. That's pretty good. 😉

G