Are modern SmartPhones the Death Knell for compact cameras?

Just returned from a weekend away riding and have been perusing the photos I took, some on a Panasonic Lumix TZ40 and some on an iPhone 6. Once again I’m left amazed by the quality of the iPhone photos and disappointed by Panasonic. The iPhone is the epitome of a “point and shoot” and has much better dynamic range. It captured mountain scenes with much more detail in the sky and clouds, whereas the Lumix photos were quite blown out by comparison. I’m not saying the Lumix was bad, but the iPhone was better.

Anyone else finding this?

The camera companies just need a while to catch up & add apps and the ability to make a call.

I agree with Qwerty. Once I can call people from my camera, I can get rid of my smart phone.

I have just had a very similar experience, I was really disappointed with some of the photos off the lumix.

Only difference is that my compact is a Lumix FT30 which survived falling 3 pitches (approx 180m) and is still working (took a minute to find the memory card though), whereas I don’t think my phone would be 😀

I have four cameras and the one I use on holiday is the iPhone. In good light it’s close enough in quality to a DSLR as makes no difference for holiday snaps.

The camera companies just need a while to catch up & add apps and the ability to make a call.

…and in the meantime the SmartPhone makers are making their cameras better and better. My view is that the lines are blurred between SmartPhone makers and camera makers. After all, most of the SmartPhone manufacturers already make cameras. I think judging by the quality of iPhone pictures Apple can be called a camera maker (whose cameras have apps and can make calls 😉 )

Ive a Samsung Galaxy, despite the claims, its doesn’t have such great point and shoot as a dslr, but, its loads more handy and, does all my trail ‘GPS tracking’ too which makes it far better to use in general.

The iPhone takes some very flattering pictures. Somehow everything looks just that bit better than it actually was

Most camera manufacturers are getting out of the compact camera market, after a couple of years in fierce competition for the last share in a dying market – using the profits from that to invest in other industries and technologies.

So, to answer your question, yes.

Yes, but a compact, but tough high quality camera does appeal for mtb duty. I’ve got one already but it’s old and the picture quality is shocking. So something to replace that for use when a phone is too risky.

Yes. I hardly use my compact Camera (Lumix) it only cost £100 and its 6 years old now, new £600 “phone” every 2 years. The compact takes much better pictures but its not as convenient as the phone which I always have with me and I always knkw where it is. If we printed photos out more we’d still use cameras but we don’t.

Watches are going the same way, being killed off by time display on smart phones.

Sony RX is a game changer though..definitely better than my Samsung and kid iphone6

The only way the phone cameras fall down is in the lens size; they take amazingly good pictures in good light but are terrible in poor light. However in any conditions the colours are excellent.

Look at this picture I took a few years ago with a Blackberry; I must have held it very steady as the definition is amazing:

Don’t bother with my Lumix these days, it’s just another thing to carry My smartphone takes equally good (admittedly I’m point and shoot) pictures, and I’ve always got it.

I think Jessops sighted the improvement in camera phones and the consequent reduction in demand for compacts as a major factor in their problems and there has been considerable further improvement in camera phones since then

What’s the best camera in the world?
The one you have with you.

I’ve got a Canon G9 languishing in a drawer somewhere, don’t think I’ve used it in 3+ years. I suspect it’ll be the last standalone camera I’ll own – the iPhone that’s always in my pocket takes thousands of photos a year.

My wife still carries a compact camera about, partly for a better/more controlled flash and big optical zoom. She probably takes more photos on her iPhone these days also.

@globalti I wager if you try and print that it would look quite poor. Phone camera photos look great where we view them, on internet and on our tiny phone screens.

The only way the phone cameras fall down is in the lens size

That photo shows just how good they are – but also the major downside. Tiny sensor means everything is in focus and you have to rely on apps etc to blur out the background (if that’s what you want).

There seems to be a rise in the number of people carrying proper camera around though.

My friend bought a Lumix FZ200 for his wife to take pictures of their new baby instead of using her iphone. Obviously she felt the pictures from the iphone were not good enough and she is very pleased with the pictures from the FZ200.

My Sony Z3 compact is quite dissappointing if you pull the pictures onto a large monitor and look at them.

The camera companies just need a while to catch up & add apps and the ability to make a call.

This^ I could never understand why Nikon and Canon didn’t get in on the smartphone market and make their own. Similarly Jessops failed to diversify the could of sold smartphones, they had the shop network, the staff and the opportunity, it was ridiculous in my opinion.

Dunno about this from a quality point of view, but definitely from a convenience point of view.

Admittedly my phone is a few years old, but then so is my compact camera. It’s a £200 Nikon & absolutely blows the camera on my phone out of the water; the pics off the phone are fine in decent light, but as soon as the light levels drop off, then forget it.

I find that the phone pics look good on a phone screen or even an 8″ tablet, but as soon as you view them on something bigger or print them out then they don’t look so good.

We went out to a local beer festival & I think I was the only one there with a compact camera; there were a few blokes wandering around with SLRs, but the vast majority were using their phones.
I’d be interested to try an up to date phone camera to see how much they really have come on…

ive gone back to a propper camera too .

the photos off phones look good on the phone.

ive yet to see a descent picture when printed at any meaningful size from a phone.

i see phone cameras very much as a capture the moment quickly its always to hand. – for internet posting really. if its a stunning landscape or such like my camera always produces a more useful shot.

Tbh even tho iPhone / smartphone pictures aren’t as good, and I can’t stand all those filters n guff on phone cameras.

Our Niton SLR is very rarely used these days, 2 kids(now 4!) plus paraphernalia and a bulky camera?
Nah I’ll loose a bit of perspective in family snaps, for the ease of using a camera I have on me 24/7

This^ I could never understand why Nikon and Canon didn’t get in on the smartphone market and make their own.

I do wonder if we’ll see more ‘collaboration’ phones, a bit like the Marshal smartphone. But then the Marshal phone has no marshal bits in it, just a mid range phone with top drawer DAC and amp circuits (both are fairly cheap in the scheme of things) and a high end price tag. Debatable whether it’s better than an iPhone/S7/whatever. But Sony make the sensors for Canon/Nikon DSLR’s and also the sensors for a lot of smartphones. So what would we gain, it’d just be another phone?

90% of a smartphones camera quality is down to the fact you’ve got a mediocre compact camera strapped to enough processing power to go to town on the in-body processing (artificially giving the photos a depth of field and dynamic range that a sensor that small couldn’t achieve on it’s own).

The Micro 4:3 cameras have become very popular as a result of this though. SLR quality with more pocketable form factor

I haven’t used my dSLR in over a year I reckon. iPhone has been astounding, and it’s always in my pocket

Not for me. When riding at least, I always pack my seven year old Ixus 80.

since when was an SLR a compact camera though ? – apples and limes that comparison

Attempts at converging the “camera experience” with smartphones has been largely clumsy and/or overpriced imho.

e.g.

and

Having said that, if the Panasonic had OIS then I’d be trying to get one.

For most people a photo is just to record a memory, a quick snapshot of an event. They don’t care about tonal accuracy, dark and light areas, pixelation and resolution, they just want a quick and easy photo. Phones perform this function with ease and they make backing up and sharing the photos very simple too.

These sort of people bought dirt cheap disposable film cameras (back in the day!), and dirt cheap digital compacts that weren’t good in low light or poor conditions either. A modern smartphone phone is probably a big step up for most people.

FWIW my DSLR hasn’t been used for years, but I was never a keen photographer. It was bought when phone cameras really were poor.

artificially giving the photos a depth of field and dynamic range that a sensor that small couldn’t achieve on it’s own

Interesting. Can you explain a bit more? I would have thought that if the sensor hasn’t captured the detail (e.g. an over-exposed sky), no amount of processing can bring that detail back convincingly. My iPhone seems great at capturing that dynamic range and that’s without even using the HDR setting.

I’m always impressed with the iPhone shots (I haven’t got one, but it’s impossible to go on a group ride without someone sticking a load of pics on Insta etc), but find a camera you love using and you almost always have it. For me, that’s either my X100t, or 35mm film cameras (a Leica and a Yashica point and shoot). No lenses to change, on board flash only. I always have one of them with me.

Nah I’ll loose a bit of perspective in family snaps, for the ease of using a camera I have on me 24/7

This. I have a DSLR too, and as my photogfriends sometimes say, the best camera is the one you have with you, and the great advantage of the smartphone is not only being able to take it just about everywhere (maybe not saunas) but also packing enough functionality in a small enough case that you actually want to take it everywhere. All the time. I’ve never found even a small, light camera that I want to have with me practically everywhere I go.

For most people a photo is just to record a memory, a quick snapshot of an event. They don’t care about tonal accuracy, dark and light areas, pixelation and resolution, they just want a quick and easy photo. Phones perform this function with ease and they make backing up and sharing the photos very simple too.

Except they can only record a memory in decent light, otherwise they are so bad they are not worth even using to just record a memory.

An X Pro 1 goes everywhere with me if my days going to be interesting, because of this.

There seems to be a rise in the number of people carrying proper camera around though.

yes, always raises an eyebrow for me. Go to a stately home (etc) and you see squadrons of middle-aged blokes with £££ worth of pristine DSLR & lens round their necks. I’m sure this never used to be such a thing!

I’m still using my Lumix TZ10, but it only really comes out when I’m on big days out (or when I’m at work and it’d be cheaper to replace the camera than my phone if I were to drop it into a tank and it’s also easier to use with gloves on).
The improvement in camera phones has meant that I have not really felt the need to update it as it’s not used often enough to make it worthwhile.

If your picture is of a posed or static subject, in good light, with very little tonal or dynamic range and you are only shooting something from a specific fixed distance and you don’t intend to print it or care too much about the IQ, then yes, the ‘image recording devices’ on smart phones are a fine substitute for any kind of camera.

My point is this. You can make a decent image with a smart phone camera but if you consider the entire gamut of images that are possible to make and that a ‘photographer’ aspires to make, then the smart phone can only a small fraction of that gamut (and I use the word ‘gamut’ here quite deliberately).

Some of the things you a smart phone camera cannot (yet) do (and in many instances will never be able to do) are:

– Low light photography (i.e. above ISO 3200)
– High dynamic range photogrpahy (e.g. 14+ stops)
– fast AF that tracks fast moving subjects
– ‘the decisive moment’
– focal length compression effects
– bokeh (period) let alone smooth dribbles off the page beautiful bokeh
– snap focus
– 1 second shooting
– colour depth and gamut
– weather proofing

For reference, there are pocketable cameras that will do all of the above, for example the Ricoh GRII, the Sony RX100 and RX1rII, the Fuji X70, X100 and, to a much lesser extent, XE-2 and X-Pro 1,

More photo snobbery content coming up!!

The difference is between “snaps” that are passed off as photographs and proper photographs. If you want total control over shutter speed, aperture, ISO settings etc then it’s got to be a camera

I’ve got a Fuji XP (something or the other) waterproof camera which has taken more abuse and dunkings than any smartphone would take. Also has a much longer battery life.

Results wise? … far better than any smartphone, no too far off a DSLR but far more robust.

I don’t even know what half that stuff means geetee 🙂

Maybe I’ve misunderstood what dynamic range is, because it’s (what I think is) the dynamic range that so impresses me on my iPhone. I can “point and click” at a mountain with a cloudy sky and still see the clouds in the resultant image along with the detail in the mountain. Do the same with my TZ40 and invariably the sky is washed out. My TZ40 has plenty of settings to play with but when I’m out riding with mates who just want to keep pedalling, stopping and faffing with settings is a bit of a pain.

I’ve always bought compacts with lots of settings to experiment with, but invariably don’t bother.

geetee, all very interesting, I’m sure, I care as much about all that stuff as much as I care about the contents of this month’s Marie Claire, or the Tajikistani constitutional referendum…

stilltortoise – Member

Interesting. Can you explain a bit more? I would have thought that if the sensor hasn’t captured the detail (e.g. an over-exposed sky), no amount of processing can bring that detail back convincingly. My iPhone seems great at capturing that dynamic range and that’s without even using the HDR setting.

At a guess, the iPhone will be taking multiple exposures without telling you and you merging them together to increase the dynamic range. The HDR setting, will just do more of it.
I think more & more compact cameras are doing this kind of thing now too.

If the sensors on these wonder phone cameras are supposedly so much better than those in compacts, why wouldn’t the camera manufacturer’s just stick a sensor from a phone into their compacts??
As alluded to above, you’ve got a lot of memory a processor power in a smart phone, which the manufacturer’s are using to get good results in spite of the limitations of a teeny tiny sensor & lens.

kimbers – Member

Our Niton SLR is very rarely used these days, 2 kids(now 4!) plus paraphernalia and a bulky camera?
Nah I’ll loose a bit of perspective in family snaps, for the ease of using a camera I have on me 24/7

But a DSLR isn’t and never has been a compact camera…..

doris5000 – Member

yes, always raises an eyebrow for me. Go to a stately home (etc) and you see squadrons of middle-aged blokes with £££ worth of pristine DSLR & lens round their necks. I’m sure this never used to be such a thing!

Are you sure they are all really expensive SLRs? You can pick up a decent DSLR & lens for much less than the latest smart phone.