How Much do use your Smartphone for photography?

I have a cat-phone, otherwise known as an iPhone SE. It's always on me to take cat photos when our cats do cute/stupid things and I don't have time to grab a real camera. I hardly ever use it for taking pictures of anything else.
 
I don’t use it for my “serious” photography but it’s great for taking photos of my kid and for taking photos of things I’m going to sell. I just don’t like it haptics and ergonomics wise.
 
I use my Pixel 4a quite a bit for pics. I photograph events for my local Arts Council, and use my cellphone mainly because of Facebook and Instagram. Followers want to see results ASAP. For personal use, I usually grab something else.

Jim B.
 
I will resort to it if that's all I have...I use it more as a reminder tool, grocery list tool, where did I park tool or record keeper when I'm cycling...(although I started carrying a compact Nikon CoolPix s4300 for that purpose).
 
mrtoml said:
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.
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Yep exactly this. Overall it’s just not a good tool for my artistic photography… after all it’s designed to be a smart phone first not a camera.
 
I really like my iPhone as a travel camera. It's very handy, the photos are always well-exposed, they're sharp enough for the laptop screen. I've printed some and they've turned out just fine. I also use it like a notebook, and the GPS data is very helpful for this. If I don't remember where I was on a particular day on a trip (which happens regretfully often), I'll usually have a phone photo that gives me date and location. I don't use it for my personal work or street - it's not really quick enough, the quality isn't quite what I want, can't really crop, plus I enjoy using a viewfinder.
 
Not often but I have had some good luck. I need to overcome the mindset that the phone isn’t good enough for serious photography. This is not true but back of my mind if I had shot a good photo with one I would rue over why I didn’t use my real camera. That’s just my problem.

The smart phone is also great for documenting things like a snap shot of the CLA receipt from DAG, serial numbers from my gear, etc. It is the most useful tool I own. I don’t think I could have compose this one with a rangefinder:

IMG_0550.jpeg
 
Over the past couple of months, I sold off all my Fuji gear. Then I bought an iPhone 15 Pro. I want to see if I can make good every-day photos with the phone's cameras. The real test will come when I start making prints from the phone's 24Mp RAW files. I still have a Nikon mirrorless camera with a couple of lenses that I'll use for landscape/cityscape and night photography. I'm looking forward to seeing how much of my photography gets done with the iPhone over time. This weekend I'll be taking an iPhone photography class at the Apple store.
 
I find it interesting the objection to using a phone for reasons of its ergonomics. As I said before, I rarely remember that my phone has an excellent camera in it ..But when I do, I tend to use it the same way I use most of my cameras about 80% of the time: on a tripod. It works well as a tripod camera, particularly if you have a Bluetooth remote release. :)

G
 
Interesting thread! I do use my iPhone 12 Mini sometimes to make photos of our 4 cats doing what cats will do. (Hi Lynn!) I don't know the current way to export the photos onto my desktop Mac, but vague memory is that in the past I could transfer them from a phone backup in iTunes. I don't use my phone for email and do not connect to the Cloud. The iPhone is used mostly as a telephone, and for News and Solitaire while waiting, and to track sleep and exercise patterns. Plus Wikipedia and Dictionary!
 
I've just started using a Samsung S10 that was gifted to me. Not impressed with the camera at all! :oops:
 
I use mine iPhone 12, for the occasional snap and video, but I really don't take that many in general.
Related to photography, I mostly use it for light metering, trough the "Light Meter" app.

And I use it as a timer when developing film :p
 
Godfrey said:
I find it interesting the objection to using a phone for reasons of its ergonomics. As I said before, I rarely remember that my phone has an excellent camera in it ..But when I do, I tend to use it the same way I use most of my cameras about 80% of the time: on a tripod. It works well as a tripod camera, particularly if you have a Bluetooth remote release. :)

G
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Well, these things are subjective. It makes sense that some will like it and some won't.
 
The remorse of not having taken the shot with a proper camera has a number of layers. The illogicality is stark when considering you would not have that shot at all In many cases. When I nearly always had with me one Leica or another, later in Lightroom or after getting negatives I realized that my iPhone (cough) would have done a better job.

My first iPhone was the 3GS. I liked the imperfect camera in that. The next couple of iPhones had no magic and were too good, and boring. Later they were just very good. I understand the latest iPhone camera processing is too interventionist. On my 11 Pro the background blur of Porteait mode has to be used very critically or bits of the subject will bleed into the blur.

One sad result of the ubiquity and ease of camera phones is revealed in year books and institutional annuals. My old college’s slick annual has so many dreadful photos now made in low light dinners and other gatherings, with exposure so often determined by the spotlight on the painting behind the smiling group. The occasional fill flash photo from a proper camera shows up the difference.

Most of us don’t exploit the cleverness available in the iPhone camera. The night mode slow exposure with IBIS leaves my M9-P in the shade, literally.

From the iPhone 3GS I lost:



IMG_0482.JPG by Richard, on Flickr
 
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