What Separates DSLR Photos from Smartphone Photos

[flashback]

This was shot with and iphone, pretty good in my estimation.








oops, did I forget to mention it was a crop from another photo?



I'm not a fan of iphone or apple but I think this ad campaign does kinda prove a point.

[Dukatum]

I write this knowing that I might get a few people's backs up. That is not my intention and I apologise in advance if I cause this. But I simply read through the first page of replies and came to realise that many people are posting their thoughts without being aware of what is actually available to them.
Just to set the record straight, I shoot Nikon and Sony (Wife owns Sony A6000, it's great). I hate using phones even to make a call, let alone take a picture, and I find the way you hold the device to take a picture is awkward. Although I know a phone can easily be manufactured to support commander flash mode, or allow devices to be "hotshoed" on (probably best via usb, not camera hotshoe) the market need isn't there.
I guess that's my reply to the original post. A large part of the separation is knowing what you can do with a smart phone, and thats driven by nothing more than market demand. There are things like lens length for wildlife and sport photography that put interchangeable lens cameras at an advantage but even Sony show this could change with their lenses for smart phones.

Below I write my own replies to some of those posts, pointing out how a smart phone can shoot raw, can control the 3 pillars of exposure, and can control DOF or be remotely triggered.

What people seem to have missed (and I apologise again if this is covered in later pages but I lost the will to read through more replies) is a lot of it is driven by market demand. The majority of users in the smart phone market don't care about straight lines, DOF, or what an aperture is. So why would the manufactures bother building these features in. If every DSLR owner said "Thats enough, I hate the high prices we get ripped off for, I'm going the smart phone way" you'd see things change.

Add to your points, versatility of a Dslr.

I'm interested to know what you me by versatility that a DSLR can do that you can not do with a smart phone? I think a phone is pretty versatile, you can put it in my pocket and take it anywhere without getting backache, or having to go over the weight limits on the aeroplane, You have zoom on it, and many apps/features for pano-shots, capture movement etc.

Ability to control shooting parameters (sensitivity (ISO), aperture and shutter speed), large sensor (and the link to DoF you get with that), good glass (fast and sharp (if should say something when your camera lens costs more than your smartphone)), a decent viewfinder, etc.

My wife has the big yellow phone called Nokia 1020, you can load up their camera app and have complete control over the ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. It's surprisingly really nice to use. You have complete DOF control including the ability to post-processing of it if needed, plus got manual focus.
I think most people in this world would rather use a big smart phone screen over a tiny viewfinder. Photogs are trained to use a viewfinder and it's a habit that's hard to break, but watching BTS video's of other photogs I've seen quite a few now using LCD more, especially on Fuji and Sony brands.

Being able to reasonably easily see the scene being photographed when using a DSLR is clearly the single most important characteristic of that device for me. Probably the second most important advantage is that the shutter on a DSLR can be released remotely using a very small, inexpensive device.

Look into triggertrap, you can remotely trigger your phone, or most smart devices on Android or IOS. These guys are doing some great work. Just put one device in master mode, other in slave and search for each other.

I find the biggest difference comes in pp. There is virtually nothing that I can do with her photos whereas I have RAW photos with endless options.

Nokia 1020 offers raw image files, so no limitation there. If the market need was there, then all/most phone companies can easily add this.


I am not pro-smart phone. I love my SLR and currently got bad GAS as I look at Nikon D750, the new 300mm and torn between this or Sony A7ii (or the rumoured A7rii in a couple of months). I have never liked phones anyway, before cameras were placed on them, and I'll be stuck in my ways for life. Habits are hard to change. Society trained me to think that if I want to make good pictures, I had to buy an DSLR, but society is often misled by marketing and uninformed people.

[jcuknz]

The other rather silly bogie raised several times in this thread is that you have to shoot RAW to post process which of course to me and others that PP their jpg files is a load of codswallop Awhile back I was influenced by CiC and thought it might be a good idea to shoot RAW+jpgFINE but after not using any of the raw files I have reverted to shooting jpgFINE equivalent ... seven dots in Panasonic speak.

[dem]

This was shot with and iphone, pretty good in my estimation.

If you like flat images with a blue tint that look soft and oversharpen at the same time, this image is perfect.

I'm not a fan of iphone or apple but I think this ad campaign does kinda prove a point.

The point being that phone cameras can produce decent image quality when shooting a wide-angle static low-DR scene in good light. Are there many examples of macro/wildlife/sports or low light shots in this campaign?

[shreds]

"http://triggertrap.com/"]["http://www.dpreview.com/articles/5327308651/triggertrap-mobile-adds-wi-fi-control-for-remote-smart-camera-triggering"]trigger your phone, or most smart devices on Android or IOS.

Triggertrap have just managed to lose just under £200000 from Kickstarter backers without any reasonable explanation or production of accounts of what they spent the money on. There are suggestions that all was not above board which needs investigating. I won't say any more as there is likely to be legal action by the backers who were left high and dry with only a nominal refund. Personally I wouldn't touch anything from Triggertrap with a bargepole for that reason.

There are other triggers out there without the 'taint'.

[Manfred M]

Rob - The limited success and following that the Nokia 1020 has should tell everyone how well that worked out. I think it would make a tremendous backup camera for travel.

Let's face it, Nokia has "faked" some functionality with it; for instance the camera uses a fixed lens and digital zoom (hence the 41MP sensor). I'm not convinced that the camera actually has a physical iris as I can't find any details on it.

Regardless, the biggest weakness is still the viewfinder. I know you suggest bigger is better, but holding a dim viewfinder at arms length is not a good way of taking pictures. The tight arms braced across the body makes a much more stable shooting platform. In fact one of the main reasons I went to a FF body is the viewfinder size.

[Manfred M]

The other rather silly bogie raised several times in this thread is that you have to shoot RAW to post process which of course to me and others that PP their jpg files is a load of codswallop Awhile back I was influenced by CiC and thought it might be a good idea to shoot RAW+jpgFINE but after not using any of the raw files I have reverted to shooting jpgFINE equivalent ... seven dots in Panasonic speak.

Agree 100%, John. I would say I can easily get away with jpegs for virtually all my shooting (including the shots I post here). As all of my images that end up on the internet are posted as jpegs (usually no more than 16oo pixels on the short side), I don't need all that extra data in the RAW file. There are theoretical reasons to shoot RAW, but practically I find no one actually can tell with the end product.

The only time I go exclusively with RAW is when I prepare to print to a large format and I want to bring out the subtlety that the camera has captured.

[DanK]

seems to me that this thread has at times lost track of the original question, which was what if anything an SLR can do that a smartphone can't. The question wasn't about versatility in the sense of convenience. The answer is simple. My SLRs allow me to change in seconds from what I need to take this:



to what I need to take this:



or to what I need to take this:



or what I need to take this:



and so on. That doesn't mean that a smartphone camera isn't useful. I use one often. It just isn't remotely a similar tool.

[Mike Buckley]

The other rather silly bogie raised several times in this thread is that you have to shoot RAW to post process which of course to me and others that PP their jpg files is a load of codswallop

Agree 100%, John. I would say I can easily get away with jpegs for virtually all my shooting (including the shots I post here).

Both of you surely realize the heresy in your thoughts. I use the word, heresy, because the so-called advantages of RAW files is more like a religion than a fact. It has been years since I have publicly mentioned this but there has been no new evidence in the years since then to make me think otherwise. Ironically, I shoot only RAW files but not for any of the reasons typically given for doing so.

[Mike Buckley]

sthis thread has at times lost track of the original question, which was what if anything an SLR can do that a smartphone can't.

That's not remotely the original question of the thread, Dan, and your change to the original question perhaps reflects your own bias about that. The original question of the thread is exactly the same as its title: "I wonder what separates Smartphone Pictures and photos taking by DSLR."

As I have already mentioned, smartphones can take photos that can't be taken by DSLRs. Though the opposite is obvious and is usually assumed, my experience is that it's not generally understood that smartphones can indeed take photos that can't be taken by DSLRs.

[flashback]

If you like flat images with a blue tint that look soft and oversharpen at the same time, this image is perfect.



The point being that phone cameras can produce decent image quality when shooting a wide-angle static low-DR scene in good light. Are there many examples of macro/wildlife/sports or low light shots in this campaign?

The image was enlarged and crop to prove a point, that apple is using these photos as an ad promotion. I make no claim that I have reproduced the colors exactly, nor do I care. Parsing a post is a fools errand, my point was to show a huge billboard in NYC promoting iphone6, nothing more.

What kind of images iphone or any cell/smart phone can deliver is incidental, to me my cell is with me, if something comes up that interests me I shoot it, simply as a means to capture a moment that would otherwise be loss. I prefer my Nikon but don't often have it with me.

I don't know if there are examples of macro or wildlife, there may be, or maybe not, that was not my point. A cell phone can serve a function, simple as that. I'm pretty sure I have never said that a cell phone camera is as good, or a good substitute for a DSLR. I was responding to the OP. My point, possibly lost, was to show a billboard in NYC that was taken with an iphone. That's pretty much it.

[DanK]

That's not remotely the original question of the thread, Dan, and your change to the original question perhaps reflects your own bias about that. The original question of the thread is exactly the same as its title: "I wonder what separates Smartphone Pictures and photos taking by DSLR."

As I have already mentioned, smartphones can take photos that can't be taken by DSLRs. Though the opposite is obvious and is usually assumed, my experience is that it's not generally understood that smartphones can indeed take photos that can't be taken by DSLRs.

No reason to become antagonistic or disparaging, Mike. That's what I took the OP's question to be. After all, he added:

For me the power of the DSLR over the Smartpohone seems to be:

1. Ultimate control over the entire process.

which is directly what I was addressing. If you don't agree, fine, but you needn't be insulting.

[Mike Buckley]

I didn't mean to come across as being the slightest bit antagonistic, disparaging or insulting, Dan. Indeed, if that happened, I apologize.

I've always enjoyed communicating with you in the threads and I think you know that. I gathered, perhaps wrongly, that the feeling was mutual. I would have preferred to have been given at least the the smallest benefit of the doubt about that.

I still stand by the fact that DSLRs can take photos that smartphones can't take and vice versa. Frankly, I don't understand why that's apparently so difficult for so many people to recognize. That's not being disparaging, insulting or antagonistic from my point of view. It's just my point of view and nothing else. I would say the same thing about the comparison of pinhole cameras and DSLRs.

[Manfred M]

Both of you surely realize the heresy in your thoughts. I use the word, heresy, because the so-called advantages of RAW files is more like a religion than a fact. It has been years since I have publicly mentioned this but there has been no new evidence in the years since then to make me think otherwise. Ironically, I shoot only RAW files but not for any of the reasons typically given for doing so.

I realize that Mike; but as I've said in the past, people who make that claim have yet to present a compelling argument as to why this is indeed the case. There are certainly times where one really does need to use the RAW file to get the optimal image, but in my experience this is not the norm.

As I've said before, a number of wedding photographers I know shoot 100% jpeg. Do they know something us amateurs don't?

[Wayland]

There seems to be a trench war going on here. People have dug into their positions and neither side is prepared to advance or retreat.

I still stand by my first asnwer so perhaps I am entrenched too.

The most important part of any camera is the ten inches behind the viewfinder.

Unfortunately most smartphones are used at arms length...

But it seems to me that as with any craft there are the "right" tools for the job and also the tools that will do the job in the right hands.

I know a superb woodcarver that does all his work with a small knife when working on a Viking age living history exhibit but at home he uses a plethora of modern tools because they do the job more easily.

The situation seems much the same to me with photography, there are certain jobs that would be easier with my 5x4 monorail camera, others that require the qualities of my compact or my DSLR and even a few that could not have been taken without my iPad (I don't own or currently require a smartphone.)

There is an old saying that a craftsman does not blame his tools, but that includes a deeper truth. A craftsman should therefor be able to use whatever tools are available, whatever the situation to produce the best possible result under the circumstances.

The best tool for the job is no use at all if it isn't the tool you have with you. Embrace the capabilities of the tool in your hand and do the best you can with it...

[jcuknz]

I do not have an Iphone but just a common and garden cellphone, rarely switched on because it is my emergency lifeline but on the subject of wild life in reading this thread I have learnt that they can be remote triggered so I suggest that instead of huge and heavy long lens one could place the I-phone in the nest [ what have you ]and get good nature pix ... it is pretty hit and miss as when I tried with my 50ft remote cord for my bridge camera ... so I am sure some lateral thinking photog has or will do it at some stage So I do not believe the nature subject is an unchallenged preserve of the SLR. And just as when I added a dioptre to my simple coolicam way back likewise one could add a dioptre to the Iphone or even my cellphone.

The holder was stuck on with instant glue and the 'dioptre' was a scrap from another project using plastic reading glasses[ 'hobby glasses' sometimes called ] My idea was to help the fixed focus lens take closer shots.
The Coolicam was my introduction to digital and it sold me on digital in the first afternoon of use

I was editing the club magazine at the time so by the time it was printed by Xerox IQ wasn't that important

[jcuknz]

Duplicate post sorry, once was enough, some might say too much once

[jcuknz]

Mike, Of course it is heresy which is why I wrote it but the essential difference between my photography and much here is that absolute colour perfection is of no interest to me and that I believe is the point of shooting RAW and rather than colour treatment my interest is in the imagery I am recording and so long as the colour is reasonable I am happy. A long time ago after tests for colour blindness, first as a railway worker and secondly as a TV editor when we changed to colour transmission, I appreciated that I am colour deficient and kept my trap shut on questions of colour.

[DanK]

This thread has spawned another, which is the debate about raw and jpeg. The properties of the two types of files are well known. Some situations where one or the other is advantageous are also widely known. E.g., some sports photographers value the greater burst capabilities afforded by the smaller jpegs. People who do very intensive edits value the greater information and greater flexibility of raw.

The only part of this discussion I found novel is the discussion about when it makes a practical difference. Clearly, that depends in part on what you shoot, how you want to process, and how you display. Still, I think many of us have a hazy notion of the relevant curve. For example, I have proven to myself that very large white balance changes are trivial with raw files and very problematic with jpegs, but the difference is a function of many things, including the severity of the adjustment, and I don't know what the curve would look like if you plotted the difference in the outcome against the severity of the adjustment. the same applies to other edits. I have recently looked at some large prints done from jpegs that I would have guessed were from raws.

Nonetheless, the choice for me has been clear for a long time. I just don't gain anything from shooting jpeg, so there is no reason to gamble on cases where the difference might be important. when I first started shooting raw, I shot jpeg+raw for a while, but I gave it up after some weeks when I realized that I had simply discarded every single jpeg I had taken. With some raw editors, it is trivial to impose a camera's picture style as a starting point, but after a bit of experimentation, I found no value in doing so. If you have one set of edits you want as a default for everything (which is what a camera does, once you pick a picture style), you can save it as a preset in Lightroom and almost instantly apply it to as many photos as you want. I found I never wanted to do this. If you have one shoot under uniform conditions, you can edit one image and in seconds impose the same recipe on the others. I have done that a few times, but I find that I then want to tweak the individual photos anyway. Unlike wedding photographers, I don't come home with 2000 images on a bunch of cards; I come home with perhaps 20 to 60 images, apart from when I am stacking. So all in all, I found no advantage to shooting jpeg that FOR ME would offset the disadvantages, even if the disadvantages showed up only in a modest proportion of photos.

So, I have exactly zero interest in switching to jpeg, but as a matter of curiosity, I would like to know more about what those curves look like.

[Shadowman]

This thread has spawned another, which is the debate about raw and jpeg. The properties of the two types of files are well known. Some situations where one or the other is advantageous are also widely known. E.g., some sports photographers value the greater burst capabilities afforded by the smaller jpegs. People who do very intensive edits value the greater information and greater flexibility of raw.

The only part of this discussion I found novel is the discussion about when it makes a practical difference. Clearly, that depends in part on what you shoot, how you want to process, and how you display. Still, I think many of us have a hazy notion of the relevant curve. For example, I have proven to myself that very large white balance changes are trivial with raw files and very problematic with jpegs, but the difference is a function of many things, including the severity of the adjustment, and I don't know what the curve would look like if you plotted the difference in the outcome against the severity of the adjustment. the same applies to other edits. I have recently looked at some large prints done from jpegs that I would have guessed were from raws.

Nonetheless, the choice for me has been clear for a long time. I just don't gain anything from shooting jpeg, so there is no reason to gamble on cases where the difference might be important. when I first started shooting raw, I shot jpeg+raw for a while, but I gave it up after some weeks when I realized that I had simply discarded every single jpeg I had taken. With some raw editors, it is trivial to impose a camera's picture style as a starting point, but after a bit of experimentation, I found no value in doing so. If you have one set of edits you want as a default for everything (which is what a camera does, once you pick a picture style), you can save it as a preset in Lightroom and almost instantly apply it to as many photos as you want. I found I never wanted to do this. If you have one shoot under uniform conditions, you can edit one image and in seconds impose the same recipe on the others. I have done that a few times, but I find that I then want to tweak the individual photos anyway. Unlike wedding photographers, I don't come home with 2000 images on a bunch of cards; I come home with perhaps 20 to 60 images, apart from when I am stacking. So all in all, I found no advantage to shooting jpeg that FOR ME would offset the disadvantages, even if the disadvantages showed up only in a modest proportion of photos.

So, I have exactly zero interest in switching to jpeg, but as a matter of curiosity, I would like to know more about what those curves look like.

Raw+jpeg, I find that I can upload to a forum about 5 percent of my images directly from the jpeg captured. I would love to increase that stat, but I find that more challenging shooting conditions (lowlight, fog, birds in flight, sports) require some additional post processing.