For those who used to take a digital camera on holiday, do you now use your smartphone instead?

Forums › Digital Imaging › For those who used to take a digital camera on holiday, do you now use your smartphone instead?

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#1769128 23-Apr-2017 08:59

I have an SLR which I used to take almost everywhere. I took a tremendous amount of photos with it. It was always in my car and I took it on several overseas trips. Then I got tired of always lugging it around along with the flash unit and the second lense.

I bought a digital compact camera which I took everywhere until it was stolen. For several years I made do with just the camera on my phone and every so often using the SLR.

The phone cameras are very good BUT can never match the results of a good dedicated camera. Just recently I got another compact camera with 40 x zoom. I still use the phone camera but for that long distance shot or where you want to achieve something extra like depth of field etc a phone camera cannot compete.

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#1769184 23-Apr-2017 12:27

I used to lug my 5kg bag of slr & lenses everywhere. Now i don't. Not sure what to do with the $10,000 bag ...

Geektastic

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#1769443 23-Apr-2017 22:59

Never. No phone has more than a barely adequate camera. Most are useless. I take a few snaps with a phone but it's the equivalent of trying to replace a car with a skateboard.

BTR

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#1769503 24-Apr-2017 08:59

Smart phone camera for taking pictures of random stuff but DSLR for taking real pictures.. I've even used it to take selfies at popular spots!

amiga500

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#1770385 25-Apr-2017 23:26

Geektastic: Never. No phone has more than a barely adequate camera. Most are useless. I take a few snaps with a phone but it's the equivalent of trying to replace a car with a skateboard.

On one of his Iphone reviews Ken Rockwell states that in good light the Iphone lowers its iso setting down to 25, so photos are noise free and really good. Many cameras have 80 or 100 as their base iso figure. What I am trying to say that the latest smartphones

are really really good in bright light. HIs iphone reviews and sample shots are worth a look if you have time. www.kenrockwell.com

http://www.kenrockwell.com/apple/iphone-6-plus.htm

On that page there is a good mix of photos taken in good bright light and some in low light.

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#1770393 26-Apr-2017 02:00

Ken Rockwell is the antithesis of photography :)

But apart from that yes we use the iphone when I can't be bothered lugging the sack of potatoes around.

Jaxson

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#1770411 26-Apr-2017 08:26

amiga500:

the latest smartphones are really really good in bright light.

That's kinda the point though. You need a more capable camera for the fringe aspects, outside of the ideal, but as phone cameras improve, the need for specialist gear reduces, unless you're working even further out to the extremes.

Given most users still view their photos on a 2MP or less screen, and a cell phone is small, usually on you and can start up quickly, for many people/uses it will suffice.

If you're looking to retain the maximum detail of a landscape, looking for long exposures using ND filters, wanting a shallow depth of field, low noise photos in dim light, anything with a zoom such as bird pictures or animals on a safari/zoo etc, fast action -especially from a distance, need max detail/depth of information to process/develop in an editing program later on, then you're talking a 'real' camera, from micro 4/3's to APC-C to FF to MF sensor sizes.

If you're after happy snaps, and want to post to Facebook, print a few small sized photos later on, send via WhatsApp to family etc, as well as having video on demand in your pocket, then cell phones are fine. They're getting really good, lets be honest about that, but they do have their limitations. You're trading off quality for the convenience of a smaller size, but depending on what you're doing, that may be just fine.

Personally though, I'd look for one of the very capable high end compacts for travel now. The bottom end compact point and shoot camera market has been dominated by the cell phone, but there's still a market sector for quality images in a small package.

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#1770644 26-Apr-2017 13:49

Yeap - just smartphone nowadays.

Who cares about quality anymore. Mostly I end up just keeping them on the digital album anyway.

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#1770969 26-Apr-2017 22:43

The best photo is the one you have.

Mind you I guess the main reason I am not lugging my sack of potatoes is because I covet the competition- the d810 ... Keep telling myself Canon will catch up one day, but i probably won't afford it.

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#1771009 27-Apr-2017 06:12

I use my iPhone7 as my only camera, even with a new baby who has had about 1,000,000 photos taken of her I use that camera.

I haven't owned a digital point and shoot for some time but don't remember them being as good as the camera on my phone since the iphone6.

My last big holiday some 4 years ago I took a DSLR and have some amazing photos, but missed a lot of the experience stuck behind the view finder!

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#1776910 6-May-2017 17:47

No doubt in my mind that cameras have got too complex. With my old Pentax K1000 you framed up the shot turned the lens to focus, made sure that the exposure needle was more or less in the middle & pushed the shutter button. Even when using slide film I had almost no over or under exposed shots.

One fun feature would be something like some Canons which apply a random filter or filters to each shot in some mode. That would be fun on holiday. If you could preselect say normal, monochrome, vivid, sepia, and then have the camera save all those versions automatically. I am one of those people who like getting a nice photo with a minimum of effort. That is why I leave Panasonics on iauto & accept what the camera gives me!

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#1777036 7-May-2017 08:51

Recently did a 3 week trip in the USA.

I took my phone and my old Sony H-7 camera (not DSLR, but with good zoom).

The phone was useful for quick point-n-shoot shots, the camera great for more thoughtful photos where I had time to compose the shot. Also better for low-light and other difficult shots.

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#1777054 7-May-2017 09:59

By the by, I am far more impressed with the camera on my Samsung S8+ than I was with the iPhone ones, including the dual lens one.

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#1777092 7-May-2017 11:01

I dare say an iphone 7+ would be the best mobile phone to replace a proper camera, and we did that because we didn't want to lug my sack of potatoes. This is what we found

1. Did not need to lug sack of potatoes everywhere

2. Did not spend the entire holiday as a third party hiding behind the prism, changing lens, protecting heavy sack from weather, can't help carry anything else

3. Did not spend a month after the holiday processing my humongous RAW files

4. Got very sharp photos instantly

5. Got very sharp videos instantly (not possible on SLRs)

6. Got very sharp panoramas instantly (now - I would spend literally hours stitching easy panoramas that were shot multiply on a dSLR!). Note a panorama is my indoor wide angle lens, don't need a wide angle if you just sweep the room - if you know how to do it of course)

7. Lens focal length choice was limited

8. Low light action shots limited due to limited ISO range on phone (not: not due to aperture or image stabilization)

9. Night shots were fine if you had manual control of the exposure length (which i found an app that did) and a tripod (which I didn't - remember the travel light mantra -see 2).

TL;DR

If you know what you're doing and understand the strengths and limitations of your tool and can work with and around them, you will do well. (Your tool needs to have at least some strengths!)

If you don't, then I could give you a $100,000 professional kit and you will not be able to take good photographs.

Technofreak

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#1777096 7-May-2017 11:08

joker97:

I dare say an iphone 7+ would be the best mobile phone to replace a proper camera,

That is a very bold statement.

I think there's a lot of other mobile phones that would at least match the iPhone 7.

Horses for courses, but for my purposes a phone doesn't match many of my photographic needs.

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