Smartphone cameras have quickly gone from taking simple snaps to highly capable image processing and capture devices. Several phone manufacturers are building very specialized digital camera capabilities into their devices. Apple, Samsung and Google are all offering phones with advanced processing features and camera functions including image stabilization, time lapse, picture stitching, and massive megapixel image capture. The Google Pixel 4 offers amazing night capture features. And now, Samsung is announcing their new flagship device, the Galaxy S20 Ultra, that supposedly offers 100X digital image zoom rivelling the most advanced DSLR cameras on the market today.

With huge resolution, zoom, and specialized capture and processing features, your next DSLR might be a smartphone.

Digital zoom will never replace optical zoom!

My iphone takes fantastic photos close by.

But is totally useless at anything further away.

A friend has one of the new Samsungs, it has some sort of zoom, but nowhere near anything like even a small pocket camera.

I have taken pictures for too long to think that a non-interchangeable lens camera would even come close to giving me the options I want to have in terms of results. It could be a mirrorless, or a DSLR (I'm pretty ecumenical about that) but if I can't change the lens then it will never replace one that can.

Wink, I was not advocating for us to lay down our current DSLR just yet.

But the fact is, many new to photography are bypassing multi-lense cameras and choosing smartphones. I recently added a smartphone to my terrestrial and aerial camera mix due to capabilities not possible on any other platform.

It always amazes me to see tourists travel all the way to Africa and only use their smartphones and tables for documenting their trip. It also is amazing to see folks traveling with 1200mm lenses, but that's another discussion...

You know what’s funny..yesterday at the VA gun rally I saw two reporters with film cameras in addition to their DSLRS. One a Canon AE-1, the other a Pentax K1000 if you can believe it!

The guy with the Canon took so long to compose and execute the shot the subject damn near walked away. He weren’t no Henri Cartier-Bresson...or Garry Winogrand...

Well with film format cameras you only have 32 chances to get the correct picture. With digital you have about 6,000 chances and most of the time you can fix it in post production.

Welcome to the digital age!

I don't miss film one bit and I certianly don't miss the cost and the processing time.

Digital cameras are certainly much better than film cameras.

But cameras on things like the iPhone are nowhere near as good as dedicated cameras.

They are convenient, especially as one might wish to send his photos by phone.

I do that quite often, as it makes like much easier than taking a photo and then transferring it to the phone to send.

But for serious, good quality photos, nothing beats a real camera!

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But for serious, good quality photos, nothing beats a real camera!

Truer words have never been spoken or written! If you severely crop a photo from a dslr with a good lens, the difference would be very apparent!

quote:

Originally posted by Opus1:
Wink, I was not advocating for us to lay down our current DSLR just yet.

But the fact is, many new to photography are bypassing multi-lense cameras and choosing smartphones. I recently added a smartphone to my terrestrial and aerial camera mix due to capabilities not possible on any other platform.

It always amazes me to see tourists travel all the way to Africa and only use their smartphones and tables for documenting their trip. It also is amazing to see folks traveling with 1200mm lenses, but that's another discussion...

I agree with you that some of the technology available now on the new iPhone and other cellphones will eventually be included in DSLR cameras. The reason why cellphone cameras are getting increasingly popular, specially with travelers or just the average person on the move is portability and performance.

The phone cameras are quite good, not noticed by most people when one is taking a photo (somebody can take a photo of you and you don't even know it). In reality war photographers use cellphone cameras in addition to their pro cameras.

Also, some cellphone cameras include post precessing software. For example, you can edit and image taken with the iPhone 11 within a few seconds, and then send it across somewhere.
https://www.digitalcameraworld...es/best-camera-phone

As you can see in the article, some of the late cellphone lenses aren't just digital zooms.

There is something else that makes a cellphone camera very handy, specially in the inner cities, and that is not having to carry a big camera and lens that causes a lot of attention... And... the chance of a mugging

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Digital cameras are certainly much better than film cameras.

But cameras on things like the iPhone are nowhere near as good as dedicated cameras.

They are convenient, especially as one might wish to send his photos by phone.

I do that quite often, as it makes like much easier than taking a photo and then transferring it to the phone to send.

But for serious, good quality photos, nothing beats a real camera!

Saeed,

I imagine that you have the iPhone 11 Pro? Try the portrait feature on some of your friends and family. It does quite a good job.

I have the regular 11, but mostly use my cameras for photography. Although I have seen some outstanding photos taken by the students I work with using their iPhones. I will have to give it a try one of these days.

quote:

Originally posted by Ray Alaska:

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Digital cameras are certainly much better than film cameras.

But cameras on things like the iPhone are nowhere near as good as dedicated cameras.

They are convenient, especially as one might wish to send his photos by phone.

I do that quite often, as it makes like much easier than taking a photo and then transferring it to the phone to send.

But for serious, good quality photos, nothing beats a real camera!

Saeed,

I imagine that you have the iPhone 11 Pro? Try the portrait feature on some of your friends and family. It does quite a good job.

I have the regular 11, but mostly use my cameras for photography. Although I have seen some outstanding photos taken by the students I work with using their iPhones. I will have to give it a try one of these days.

I do have the Max, and it is great.

I like the big screen, shows photos and videos very well.

But it is not replacing my camera anytime soon.

quote:

I do have the Max, and it is great.

I like the big screen, shows photos and videos very well.

But it is not replacing my camera anytime soon.

Me too! Agree all the way around!

Also,

When you see a photo taken with an iPhone, that doesn't mean it wasn't post-processed, meaning it wasn't just an in-camera jpg. It is possible to take a RAW file with the recent iPhones, but that of course means you have the software, whether an in-camera app or the Lightroom mobil app which requires a Creative Cloud subscription. But if you take a bunch of pictures the iPhone RAW setting you cannot upload a bunch of them for post-processing, you have to do them one at a time.

So, it is probable that some of them, especially those used for advertizing the iPhones potential, are in fact RAW files that have been post-processed. And that is a cumbersome way to work.

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:
Also,

When you see a photo taken with an iPhone, that doesn't mean it wasn't post-processed, meaning it wasn't just an in-camera jpg. It is possible to take a RAW file with the recent iPhones, but that of course means you have the software, whether an in-camera app or the Lightroom mobil app which requires a Creative Cloud subscription. But if you take a bunch of pictures the iPhone RAW setting you cannot upload a bunch of them for post-processing, you have to do them one at a time.

So, it is probable that some of them, especially those used for advertizing the iPhones potential, are in fact RAW files that have been post-processed. And that is a cumbersome way to work.

I download the iPhone photos to my computer and do post editing using any of these apps: CS6, OneOne Software, or DXO Photo Lab 3. However, the iPhone camera has a photo-editing app you can use to edit the photo, and then crop. There are other apps you can use, but the free one above is quite good.

quote:

Originally posted by Ray Alaska:

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:
Also,

When you see a photo taken with an iPhone, that doesn't mean it wasn't post-processed, meaning it wasn't just an in-camera jpg. It is possible to take a RAW file with the recent iPhones, but that of course means you have the software, whether an in-camera app or the Lightroom mobil app which requires a Creative Cloud subscription. But if you take a bunch of pictures the iPhone RAW setting you cannot upload a bunch of them for post-processing, you have to do them one at a time.

So, it is probable that some of them, especially those used for advertizing the iPhones potential, are in fact RAW files that have been post-processed. And that is a cumbersome way to work.

I download the iPhone photos to my computer and do post editing using any of these apps: CS6, OneOne Software, or DXO Photo Lab 3. However, the iPhone camera has a photo-editing app you can use to edit the photo, and then crop. There are other apps you can use, but the free one above is quite good.

Ray, Do you take iPhone RAW photos and upload those files for post-processing, or are you post-processing jpgs? I don't have any opinion about final output from an iPhone RAW file (such as making large prints), I've never tried it.

Have you found your results acceptable for enlargements? Is your output primarily internet posting? I would guess that for internet sharing, which most photos get used for these days, they could be equal in many ways to DSLR results. I wonder about large prints, where initial resolution, noise (iPhones have very small pixel pitch) and lens quality can make a real difference.

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:

quote:

Originally posted by Ray Alaska:

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:
Also,

When you see a photo taken with an iPhone, that doesn't mean it wasn't post-processed, meaning it wasn't just an in-camera jpg. It is possible to take a RAW file with the recent iPhones, but that of course means you have the software, whether an in-camera app or the Lightroom mobil app which requires a Creative Cloud subscription. But if you take a bunch of pictures the iPhone RAW setting you cannot upload a bunch of them for post-processing, you have to do them one at a time.

So, it is probable that some of them, especially those used for advertizing the iPhones potential, are in fact RAW files that have been post-processed. And that is a cumbersome way to work.

I download the iPhone photos to my computer and do post editing using any of these apps: CS6, OneOne Software, or DXO Photo Lab 3. However, the iPhone camera has a photo-editing app you can use to edit the photo, and then crop. There are other apps you can use, but the free one above is quite good.

Ray, Do you take iPhone RAW photos and upload those files for post-processing, or are you post-processing jpgs? I don't have any opinion about final output from an iPhone RAW file (such as making large prints), I've never tried it.

Have you found your results acceptable for enlargements? Is your output primarily internet posting? I would guess that for internet sharing, which most photos get used for these days, they could be equal in many ways to DSLR results. I wonder about large prints, where initial resolution, noise (iPhones have very small pixel pitch) and lens quality can make a real difference.

I don't know if the iPhone can be set for taking RAW photos, just Jpg's. But you can post process the jpg images using one or more of numerous apps available for your computer. The problem i have found with cellphone photos is that one can only crop them (zoom, and then crop) not very much before they lose sharpness, but all depends on the type of photo you take. For example, I have taken some portraits of a couple of students who work with me, where mostly their faces are shown in the image. In this case I have plenty of room to post process the photos to remove skin imperfections, etc., and the results are quite good. One of these students took a selfie or herself and I, then edited the image on her iPhone 11, and I was amazed.

You are correct about the reasons for me to edit cellphone photos on my computer. I edit them mostly for posting. As such they are very small in size, something around 400-600 kb in size. These photos look quite good on a computer screen, but aren't good for printing. Now, if I edit an iPhone photo using my computer, the final image is around 5MB in size, and this is too large to post on any forum, but great for printing or archiving. But lets say that I take a photo with one of my cameras and then post process it, in this case the final image (if I don't crop it) could be from 100MB to perhaps 300MB saved as TIFF format for archival. The more layers you add to the photo, the larger or denser it becomes.

There are some articles about printing iPhone photos all over the Internet. For example, this one:

https://davidmolnar.com/iphone-print-sizes/

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This means you’ll be able to print a photo that’s at least 14.29 x 9.49 inches at 200 ppi. At best quality, you’ll get a print up to 21.44 x 14.24 inches at 200ppi. Probably not good enough for a photo exhibition but suitable for at home prints and small wall displays.

If I understand correctly you can access RAW files from an iPhone if you have one of the apps made specifically for that. Among those apps, if you have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription then you already have it with Lightroom CC (although apparently you don't even have to have a CC subscription). I've never tried it, the reason for my question to you.

This link is one of the many I have seen on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cULn_uq28s

Nasim Mansurov shoots in the HEIF format since he always has cameras with him for DNG or other RAW formats, but he does not think jpg is the best choice among the three options.

https://photographylife.com/re...hone-11-pro-camera/3

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:
If I understand correctly you can access RAW files from an iPhone if you have one of the apps made specifically for that. Among those apps, if you have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription then you already have it with Lightroom CC (although apparently you don't even have to have a CC subscription). I've never tried it, the reason for my question to you.

This link is one of the many I have seen on the subject.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cULn_uq28s

Nasim Mansurov shoots in the HEIF format since he always has cameras with him for DNG or other RAW formats, but he does not think jpg is the best choice among the three options.

https://photographylife.com/re...hone-11-pro-camera/3

That is very interesting, and I downloaded the LR free mobile app on my iPhone. Maybe the app is free, but knowing how Adobe does business, I don't think it will be, because I see an "in-app purchases" feature on it.

I don't use any of the Adobe CC products where one has to pay a monthly fee. Instead I have PhotoShop CS6 and CS5, both of which I purchased before Adobe took its apps online. Adobe not longer supports CS6, but several photo apps work with any of the standalone adobe apps such as CS6, Elements, and so on. For example OneOne Photo Raw 2020, and also DXO Photo Lab 3, plus DXO's Nik Software package. The Nik software works within the PS apps as "plugins," and are found in the Filters folder of CS6.

Wink,

More than likely the use of the LR app that's supposedly free, has some contract rules that one must follow. I was reading somewhere that one should carefully read the user terms or contract at Adobe.

Ray, there are apparently several apps not connected with Adobe that access the RAW file on an iPhone.

https://www.imore.com/best-apps-editing-raw-files

Are all cell phone camera still right angle (aka prism) lenses?

quote:

Originally posted by Wink:
Ray, there are apparently several apps not connected with Adobe that access the RAW file on an iPhone.

https://www.imore.com/best-apps-editing-raw-files

Thank you for the link.