An article stating the rush for camera manufactures race against smartphone manufactures. Obviously not going to displace the high end DSLR's just the loss of business to the many average shooters.
Head to a national park and a huge number of people are photographing (everything is sight) with their phones. I see a few point and shoots, but fewer and fewer.
If you are only going to email the images to your friends, the phone images are good enough for the vast majority of people.
I agree with Harley, for many, many people, the camera in their smart phone is just fine. The camera in my smart phone drives me nuts!!!!! I have no control, and I swear they made it more for taking selfies than anything else. All the reviews of this phone say the camera is good, but I don't like it at all. Give me my 5d mk ii.
Posted by Greg Vaughn on April 29, 2015 at 8:18 PM
"Head to a national park and a huge number of people are photographing (everything is sight) with their phones. I see a few point and shoots, but fewer and fewer.
If you are only going to email the images to your friends, the phone images are good enough for the vast majority of people."
I see a lot of people taking photos with their tablets/iPads, also.
The quality of the cameras in some of these phones is quite remarkable, and will surely get even better. Even now the quality is fine for much more than email and blog posts. One of my iPhone 4s photos is the cover image for a print telephone directory, and the image holds up very well at 8x10"
Although I carry my iPhone EVERYWHERE, I only use it for grab shots. For that it is way too easy over anything else for those types of needs. For the most part mine is used for calls, emails, internet access, camera, and apps in that order.
I do have a buddy who is also a long time Canon digital user, who has really gotten into this. He graduated from an iPhone 4s up to a iPhone 6 Plus. Not only that but he has a desk top tripod for it as well as an assortment of Velcro held on lenses for the darn thing. So for those into that kind of approach there are accessories and users willing to buy the stuff.......
who would've ever guessed? ....
Now here's a function for smartphones with cameras: Here in Uganda, we're working with the Uganda Wildlife Authority to reduce wildlife crimes - including the killing of elephants for illegal trade in ivory. Using a smartphone with a camera, a patrol can snap an image of, say, an elephant carcass or an arrest of alleged poachers. The exif data include date, time, location. The GPS function also tracks the progress of the patrol so that we can work out i) the spatial coverage of the patrol as well as ii) the effort that is being made by the rangers. The rangers can send off an image by SMS/MMS to call in back up, as necessary. The prosecution rates have climbed from low teens to 100% now that there is photo evidence of crimes (arrests are photographed and all evidence is photographed - again, all these contain date, time, location data: it no longer is a case of two people's word against each other). Further spatial analysis (corrected for biases in patrol coverage) show hotspots of illegal crimes and thus allow the rangers of improve efficiency and effectiveness of their patrol effort.
And I still predominantly use a camera that doesn't even have a battery ... !!
Stuart, if there ever was a need for the multifunction of any device your comment outlining the usage would be tops on any list. I'd forgotten about the GPS ability in my own usage, but it gets used often by my wife and I when trying to track each other with the "Find Friends" ap. Although my cell does not work in remote areas I go, the GPS can still find me if necessary.
Glad to hear about the success of usage you've outlined with wildlife protection overall.
paul, i'm tickled to hear that you lose your wife sufficiently (and, perhaps, sufficiently often) to need to find her again using a GPS and "Find Friends" ... !
Interesting article, Paul. Smart phone cameras, and the capabilities of these them in general are redefining photography and computing for an increasingly large number of people.
Microsoft's current efforts with Windows 10 to scale across various platforms will make a huge difference. More on this here
And, speaking of smartphone cameras, LG will soon launch the G4 which has a 16Mpx camera with an f-1.8 lens. More on this, here
I don't own a smartphone, and I likely won't until I'm forced to upgrade.
paul, i'm tickled to hear that you lose your wife sufficiently (and, perhaps, sufficiently often) to need to find her again using a GPS and "Find Friends" ... !
.... ....actually, quite the opposite. I'm the one out and about all the time.
@ Preston, yep there is an ongoing R&D as always. The manufactures need to keep the revenue flow going and we all seem to "buy" in on it, to a point. Personally, after working in the digital world of telecommunications for very many years, it was nice to retire from all that and enjoy my analog work.
Sadly, the one down side is trying to remain just current enough not to lose "connection" so to speak. As we know the support starts to thin out and die off for some of this hardware / software and then we have a MAJOR upgrade to remain on line. Oh well, still able to hang in there to date.....
I love my Canon dslr! But, I do use my smartphone for family gatherings, as it is less noticeable. But, my main purpose for my smartphone is for video of my grandson. It does fill the need and replaces a movie camera. But, it does not replace a good dslr and L lenses!.
When people ask me about which camera they should buy I always tell them to think about a camera as a tool and go from there. What tasks do you want to perform? For the vast majority of folks who once carried a p&s camera for documenting life their phones/tablets are more than adequate. The cell phone/tablet image quality, processing apps and instant sharing capabilities are improving every day so it's easy to see why low end p&s sales are circling the drain. It's all about picking the right tool for the job..
Discussion
11 repliesAn article stating the rush for camera manufactures race against smartphone manufactures. Obviously not going to displace the high end DSLR's just the loss of business to the many average shooters.
Smartphones
If you are only going to email the images to your friends, the phone images are good enough for the vast majority of people.
If you are only going to email the images to your friends, the phone images are good enough for the vast majority of people."
I see a lot of people taking photos with their tablets/iPads, also.
The quality of the cameras in some of these phones is quite remarkable, and will surely get even better. Even now the quality is fine for much more than email and blog posts. One of my iPhone 4s photos is the cover image for a print telephone directory, and the image holds up very well at 8x10"
I do have a buddy who is also a long time Canon digital user, who has really gotten into this. He graduated from an iPhone 4s up to a iPhone 6 Plus. Not only that but he has a desk top tripod for it as well as an assortment of Velcro held on lenses for the darn thing. So for those into that kind of approach there are accessories and users willing to buy the stuff.......
who would've ever guessed? ....
And I still predominantly use a camera that doesn't even have a battery ... !!
Glad to hear about the success of usage you've outlined with wildlife protection overall.
Microsoft's current efforts with Windows 10 to scale across various platforms will make a huge difference. More on this here
And, speaking of smartphone cameras, LG will soon launch the G4 which has a 16Mpx camera with an f-1.8 lens. More on this, here
I don't own a smartphone, and I likely won't until I'm forced to upgrade.
--P
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@ Preston, yep there is an ongoing R&D as always. The manufactures need to keep the revenue flow going and we all seem to "buy" in on it, to a point. Personally, after working in the digital world of telecommunications for very many years, it was nice to retire from all that and enjoy my analog work.
Sadly, the one down side is trying to remain just current enough not to lose "connection" so to speak. As we know the support starts to thin out and die off for some of this hardware / software and then we have a MAJOR upgrade to remain on line. Oh well, still able to hang in there to date.....