Has mobile phones gotten good enough?

You can always have them replaced? Wow! I did not know that. But here speaks an ol’ geezer who is profoundly deaf, and hates mobile phones. I have one though. Bought it about 3 years ago when I got the e-car. Its only use is to plug it into the car USB port, and tell Google to “navigate to…..” After which “Take me home.”
I did make a telephone call once upon a time. That was to the hospital audiology department, about 3 months back, and was greeted with a machine that I told I wanted to make an appointment. I’m still waiting upon a response. Early days yet. Anyway, I digress; for when inspecting said phone I could see no way in. Seems very much a sealed unit. Hence my initial post about what to do when the battery fails to hold a charge.
I like it this place. It’s a bit like DPReview, only better. 😊

Mobile phones definitely have their usefulness but they will never replace completely pro cameras (e.g. birds in flight). However, mobile phones can replace pro cameras in many ways: lack of space in your luggage, risky areas, etc.

I ride a Sea-Doo in the summer and despite the fact that I purchased a sealed container, the risk of dropping the camera in the lake is too big. Once at destination however, I can use it.

I wanted to post a sunset photo but direct uploads don’t seem possible here so I tried a OneDrive link that didn’t work as well (invalid address).

This is my first post on this site so how can we post photos here?

Have a look at this post, hopefully it helps: dprevived.com/t/how-to-embed-photos-into-your-post-directly-from-flickr/456/#post-2940

quoted: I looked at the iphone 14 pro before deciding on the Pixel 7 Pro, but landed on the latter because it was 20% off the original price. Now I am just hoping for more time and better weather to be able to properly test it out. :)
Dan

Dan,
I would be interested in your opinions and any samples of the Pixel 7 Pro. My wife needs a new phone and although I was thinking of a newer iPhone, the cost differences are quite significant. She already uses an Android phone. I also want to update from the iPhone XS and use the camera function more.

I assumed the same for years, but I’m less sure these days. Sensors are still improving and still getting better at capturing more detail and more light; at the same time phone manufacturers are finding ways to cram in bigger sensors, and processing ever more complex and mind bending computational tricks. I don’t think it’s beyond imagining that - in the near future - they’ll be able to do a competent job at most if not all the things we currently rely on “pro” cameras for.

What they won’t ever do is handle like a pro camera, and I suspect there will always be a perceived value in producing good results natively and without the artificial help from Apple or Google. But, ever more great photos will be coming from the people standing around you with their smartphones.

In the short-term, I believe that @benjilafouine is correct: a smartphone will not be able to replace long telephoto glass, or “easily” trigger strobes, or…. Essentially, in the short-term, there are many things that a legacy camera body can do that smartphone cannot.

However, I rarely use the word “never” - as in “never replace completely” because I just don’t know the future. With bent optics and the likely successor/generational refinement to them coupled with sensor tech and software tech, it is imaginable to me that smartphone could, at some point, have the ability to capture birds in flight (or sports, or, or, or… anything that requires fast shutters and long glass) that cannot be captured now. Will that happen? I have no idea.

There are other niches as well: studio work with strobes. Will a smartphone work in that environment? Well, there is already a few ways to do that…. Including Profoto. Will it become more than a novelty? Only time will tell.

Super low light? It’s coming. How good will it be? Only time will tell.

For now, I’m keeping my legacy camera bodies and long glass (for birding, actually). The future of smartphones may nor may not make this setup duplicative to me. For everything else that I do, the iPhone 14 48mp camera in Proraw is quite amazing ….. and, it will only get “better” from here.

Hi Elliot,

I've only owned the phone for little more than a week now and due to real life commitments, I've not had enough time to test it out more than pictures of my family around the house, but I'll try to share a few first impressions.

• The SOOC jpegs looks pretty good in good lighting, but has a tendency to be inconsistent sometimes, applying too much sharpening by the software. However, if you shoot RAW (dng) it's not so much of an issue.
• The colors looks neutral and not oversaturated ,which i like.
• "Top shot" is an automated feature where the camera will record a series of images and suggest the best one based on the algorithm.
• The 5x (120mm) Tele lens looks a bit soft, but from my understanding it's using a smaller sensor than the excellent 50 mp main camera. The image quality falls apart pretty fast in less than ideal lightning. Could be improved in future updates or sharpened further by shooting RAW?
• The ultra wide camera is okay.
• If you shoot a lot of selfies then you will probably be disappointed by the front facing camera. It's low resolution and not very sharp. Not been an issue for me as i rarely take selfies but worth mentioning.
• You can shoot both RAW and jpeg which gives you the best of both worlds.

I'd will try to provide some sample images as soon as I've got the time to get out and shoot, but I will provide the images in it's own thread. Thanks for reading

Dan

I agree with you. Phone camera can not completely replace DSLR, but depends of the need the results can be more then sufficient. I have images excepted from Shutterstok made with Samsung S7 and they are sold without problem. Few days ago I bought Samsung S23 and I hope that the result from its cameras will be even better.

A. I'm older than most trees. I've never had a camera that didn't require me to adjust to shortcomings in the hardware.
B. I am not a pixel peeper. I'm with Edward Weston in his comment on the flawed portrait of President Orozco of Mexico. "It is practically acceptable."
C. A gallery guy came over to select photos for a charity auction and saw some prints I'd rejected sitting on another table. He asked to see one. I got it for him and started pointing out the flaws. He listened and said, "And no one but another photographer would notice. This is a great photo." It did sell well at the charity auction. I think pixel peeper sometimes miss the point.

I have been amazed at how rapidly cameras on phones have evolved. The AI capabilities are amazing and I want nothing to do with them. That's why I stick with the Sony Xperia.

Thanks, Dan. I am still on the fence about which system to choose. Some newer iPhone reviews suggest that the photos are overprocessed, which is not very appealing. I still am interested in samples whenever you get around to it.

Elliot

You’re very welcome Elliot. Most of my images made on the P7P has been of my family, but I have a few other sample shots in jpg and dng which you can access here. Feel free to have a look and play with them as you like. I will add more images to the folder as soon as possible.

A little less known feature that is lacking from the P7P is that you can’t fully shoot it "manual" mode, ie. no settings for iso, shutter speed etc. I haven’t really found this a limiting factor for my type of photography though. Not sure if google will add it to the phone in future updates.

Edit: The image below is a collage of the ultra wide lens and the moon at 30x digital zoom.

Dan

Thanks for posting photos. The camera is pretty impressive. The details on the building, the keyhole photo, the watch, etc. all would be perfectly usable for general purposes (or should I say specific purposes for which you might want to use them?).

Thanks. Happy to help.

Absolutely. 9 out of 10 times the camera quality is pretty consistent and doesn't over process things when you're shooting jpgs. With the Pixel 7 Pro I find the jpgs more than good enough for general photography and I think that is what Google nailed with this phone.

Yes at least for still /landscape /portrait photography if you install the Gcam apk and use the HDR+ mode and shoot raw -no it does not give the horrible "HDR-look", only more information in highlights and shadows, AND it also works with the Raw files, giving more or at lest equal raw dynamic range as my mirrorless aps-c camera. You can even fake a shorter depth of field quite realistic in some situations with the free Snapseed app - but if you want to edit the raws on you phone there is sadly only one alternative which is Lightroom Mobile and that does not work with raws if you do not have a paid Adobe subscription.
Of course you can also use your phone for Street photography as that is a genre where the resolution of the image is of less concern. I will propably use only my phone even for commercial work in few years. I currently shoot with a Moto G30 (16mp raw files but no OIS) and a Moto G41 (12mp raw with OIS). My dream camera phone at the moment is the Xiaomi 13 Pro, 50mp 1" inch sensor 🤤, but that will have to wait, I have a stock-emission in June I need to take part in instead 😂

Yes, for me it’s totally good enough. I’m constantly surprised by the quality of the iPhone 13 Pro Max pictures. The sharpness of the telephoto lens is really good.

If you like the iPhone 13, I think that you will be blown away by the iPhone 14 and the main 48mp sensor using proraw. Whenever your next replacement cycle comes up - 15, 16, etc, I think that you will be surprised at just how good the raws are. Hopefully in the 15, Apple adds that 48mp chip to the telephoto lens too. That would be AMAZING.

Furthermore it will have USB-C charging!

Regarding the topic, yes phones are good enough, except for telephoto.

It depends on your lighting.

I have a photo I took in 2013 on an iPhone 5s that made a wonderful 11x14" print. That is from an 8 MP image.
Now I use an iPhone 14 Pro Max and the RAW files (48 MP) are really good even in fairly low light.