[bradlys]

I disagree. I have an A9 + GM glass. I'm constantly surprised by what a modern smartphone can take compared to what I get out of my camera. Yes, you can get way better photos if you do everything right with a traditional camera (and certainly much more real bokeh) but that usually involves a lot more editing than you have to do with an iPhone 12 Pro or similar.

For the amount of time it takes - the iPhone 12 Pro and similar can really outperform a camera. One you get a snapshot you'd be okay with sharing with others immediately - with the other, you're like, "Yeah, the exposure is a little off but maybe that's just because of the dynamic range limitations? And I need to adjust the contrast, maybe sharpen a little bit, colors aren't really there, and it would've been great if I had done bracketed exposures because the sky is just too blown out to recover properly..." A lot of that stuff is gone with smartphones because they do it all for you.

It's what annoys me about modern cameras - they don't have any of that built in as an option. You have to do all the work by yourself and bracketing is just way too much of a PITA for me to deal with for most photos. Computational photography is a huge breakthrough that many cameras just don't utilize almost at all.

[dingaling]

> For the amount of time it takes - iPhone 12 Pro and similar can really outperform a camera

It's not the camera that makes the difference but the lens. And a smartphone just can't make up that difference with software tricks.

A smartphone will be fantastically practical and convenient as a camera in a specific set of use-cases. Outside those it's pretty useless.

[bradlys]

I'd argue it's the photographer beyond all else that makes the picture good. Camera vs lens - who cares. The lenses and sensors are good enough on these smart phones for their use case. They aren't meant to replace pro gear.

That's why I think smartphones are great. They lower the barrier for taking pretty good pictures. You don't have to worry about balancing exposure or figuring out how to merge multiple photos into one - etc. The smartphone does it all for you. It's an automated photo editor with some intelligent tricks that are very hard (or impossible) to do on a traditional camera.

No one is saying a smartphone is going to replace a pro-camera. If you want to do birding with a 1200mm equivalent, you're going to have a hard time doing that with a smartphone. But if you know the limitations (in the same way that all cameras have limitations) then it can do really well in those parameters.. and I find those parameters are more than enough for 90%+ of consumers out there.

Most people are fine with zooming with their feet.

[jdxcode]

I would guess that camera manufacturers can't afford computational photography—certainly not in the same way Apple, Samsung, and Google can.

[panpanna]

This is about to change.

Sony and Samsung have already started using much beefier hardware, now that their custom Asic is falling behind.

[fomine3]

Intelligent Auto Mode isn't enough?