As a photographer, it deeply hurts to share 5 ways a mobile camera outperforms a pro camera.
Say it isn't so!
When it comes to upsetting a photographer the following will do the job, your photo looks ordinary, what camera did you use to take this photo, what photo preset did you use, although these statements or questions will not capture a positive reaction the ultimate cardinal sin is suggesting a camera phone is better than a professional camera.
Although professional cameras overall are of better quality than the latest Samsung mobile or iPhone, smartphones are no longer smart and have upgraded to intelligent phones. Today we will uncover which topics have camera phones outsmarted and eclipsed a photographer's prize possession toy.
Portability
The biggest advantage a phone camera has over a pro camera is the portability aspect which will impact the types of photos taken regardless of persistent efforts in overcoming the weight of a heavier camera.
Wanting to take a selfie...a pro camera is out of the question, need to snap some pictures of the lobster platter the waitress brought out...completed with an iphone before grace is said, inject some creativity by photographing a subject and experimenting with different angles...the lighter smartphone camera definitely comes in handy.
The bottom line is due to having access to a smartphone certain photos will be captured that otherwise would not have been taken with a pro camera as the inconvenience hurdle at times will be to difficult to clear.
Convenience
A mobile phone is more than a camera and this helps to provide quality photos in a convenient manner. Samsung and Apple have invested the world in making the photo creation experience out of this world. A mobile user can snap a photo, have it completely edited, and upload it to Instagram for everyone around the globe to see in 5 minutes. With a pro camera in the space of 5 minutes it's possible to show your captured photo to your neighbour, however there are several longer steps involved to share it with people in neighbouring countries.
The slideshow below shows photos captured on the Samsung s23 along with a colour accent edited that was completed in the camera phone app.
3 Lenses
A professional photographer travelling to the south of France to enjoy some nice sunshine and wine would ideally be carrying 2 or 3 lenses - perhaps a wide angle lens, an standard focal length lens, and a telephoto lens. These lenses will need to be swapped out depending on the zoom required for the shot. At times it can be stressful exchanging lens particularly when there are no benches correctly rest the camera. A smartphone does the same however the 2-3 lens are carried in the actual smartphone and automatically switch between each other depending on how much the user is zooming in.
Although the quality of lens on digital or DSLR camera is far greater than a camera phone, the size of the lens is the price paid for an expensive large protruding lens.
A positive factor with the camera phone lenses is that the telephoto lenses have really low f stops (f stops with in the "2" range) which is great for allowing more light in and producing sharper photos. There some camera lenses that have a wide focal range of 35mm to 200mm, however these lenses may have some drawbacks in quality and will likely have a higher f stop when well zoomed in.
Digital Zoom
A camera phone has an unintended benefit surrounding its digital zoom. A digital zoom is essentially a camera that cannot properly zoom in, with smartphones the image is cropped, expanded, and upscaled which is all done in real time. This method does deteriorate the image quality, an unintended consequence is it helps to capture everything in focus.
The Canon R5 here captures rich natural colours and recreates a cinematic vibe that adds a professional touch to the scene. In contrast to its lower priced counterpart the pro camera does not capture everything in focus which is perfectly normal when naturally zooming in. Quick exercise, hold your finger close to your eyes and you will notice your finger is sharp but your surroundings are blurry.
Professional cameras can have a "movie crop" mode, however the crop magnification is quite limited compared to a smartphone.
📸vs📱
Slow Motion
The overall quality of a slow motion video on a pro camera is better than smartphone in terms of picture quality and smoothness, however smartphones outperforms when the discussion is framed around frames per second.
A video is a stack of pictures taken and played back in a really fast slideshow that looks like a video. Most standard videos you watch and record on your smartphone will be played back at 30 frames per second or in other words 30 photos per second.
Most smartphones can capture 240 frames per second meaning the video will be 8x slower than normal speed. The recent Samsung phones have super slow motion produces 960 frames per second unlocking a new world of slow motion - to put this into perspective if you recorded for one second this would be stretched out into a 32 second video.
Top end cameras pay be able to provide 240fps which is nowhere near the benchmark Samsung has set. There are strong limitation with the Samsung slow motion 960fps videos including there is no zoom feature when in this mode, recording time in real life is limited to 0.4 seconds, and a great amount of light is needed for the video to be a success.
When this 960fps slow motion feature is used correctly the results can be breathtaking to the point where majority of people will assume it was captured on a high end expensive camera.
Thank you for your time and effort :)
comment below in english, french, spanish or another language about your experience, opinion, or a question you may have.