[vvrm]

> another victim of the rapid pace of improvement in smartphones

It's not just the pace of improvement, but also the marketing spin. I find the strengths of smartphone camera and ILCs pretty complementary. Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions. Coincidentally it is also easier to find your ILC indoors at home when you need it, rather than lugging it around on a hike. When we didn't have kids, we used to spend more time outdoors and so most of our memorable pictures are from a phone. Now that we have restless young kids and are spending more time indoors, almost all of the memorable photos are from a mirrorless camera. But the marketing spin makes it seem like ILCs are completely redundant.

[akho]

> Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions.

I find the opposite. Proper cameras are much more flexible and plain better when there's enough light. Inside, without a flash, you'll not get a great photo anyway, so might as well benefit from “computational” fakery.

[radicaldreamer]

Lots of software tricks make it easy to take low light photos on phones today but require quite a bit of manual tweaking on a DSLR.

[digitallyfree]

The thing about this is that the manual tweaking allows you to take the picture you're envisioning. Whereas the processing on the phone provides a clear picture in poor conditions, but it's not necessarily the picture I want.

For instance a phone can do a great job in a backlit scenario by intelligently cutting the highlights and boosting the shadows. The resulting image shows both the subject and background clearly but it doesn't represent the real-word lighting conditions. As a result it's great for a quick snapshot but is less useful in an artistic sense.

[midoridensha]

>For instance a phone can do a great job in a backlit scenario by intelligently cutting the highlights and boosting the shadows. The resulting image shows both the subject and background clearly but it doesn't represent the real-word lighting conditions. As a result it's great for a quick snapshot but is less useful in an artistic sense.

This seems completely backwards to me. Artistic photography isn't about representing real-world lighting conditions as perceived by humans. Just putting a polarizing filter on a camera changes how the image looks from the way the scene actually appears to humans. Artistic photography routinely does very bizarre stuff with colors to achieve an artistic effect. Even Ansel Adams experimented with solarization, one of the earliest photographic effects: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solarization_(photography)

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that photography has never been about accurately showing real-world lighting conditions, but rather either an artistic or at least idealized version of a scene or subject.

[digitallyfree]

I guess I didn't really word this clearly, my intent was to state that the manual camera generally captures real-world conditions as a baseline. Then the photographer could in camera or in post manipulate the image to fulfill his artistic vision. While there are certain cameras which have inherent distortion for artistic purposes (e.g. Lomo camera) the majority of them are designed to realistically capture the scene in front of them.

In contrast the phone produces a specific artistic decision influence by the software. For instance in the backlit scenario the phone purposely boosts the highlights and cuts the shadows to create what it perceives as a more balanced image.

[midoridensha]

I'm not so sure about this. Even very old cameras have many lens settings, such as f-stops, which change the depth of field and can massively change how a scene looks. I fail to see how boosting highlights and cutting shadows, so the viewer sees a more balanced image, is really any different than using a wide-angle lens to capture much more in the image than a human can naturally perceive (human vision supposedly looks like a 35mm camera with a 50mm focal length lens setting; telephoto and wide-angle focal lengths are showing things quite differently from how humans would perceive it), or arranging a hyperfocal shot (so that both near and far objects are in-focus, something human eyes are incapable of).

[grogenaut]

Sure, if you have the camera correctly setup and can remember all of cryptic settings, which using it infrequently I never could. I got once where i knew how to setup the my canon rebel after taking a class. But I just set it to automatic 99% of the time I used it. Any time it was manual it would 20% chance mess up and I'd miss the shot. I took mostly action stuff.

The setup on a phoen is so much simpler and easier esp where it makes suggestions. Phone is bad menus, no touch, dial wheel, ok buttons.

[Clamchop]

A camera with a swiveling flash (almost always a separate unit) can yield stunning photos in dim indoor conditions. If you have a white wall or ceiling, bam, tons of diffuse light without any more props.

Only available on a traditional camera.

But even fewer people will bother with all that.

[chrismorgan]

You can manually rotate the built-in flash in Sony’s α6000-series cameras: it uses two spring-loaded hinges, and still operates if you push/pull it backwards. This gives a range of motion from full-forwards to full-upwards to somewhat-backwards.

[jollyllama]

For 'proper cameras', it depends on the size of the sensor and lens, largely.

[lambdasquirrel]

I think the reality is that most people who were doing photography don’t need what ILCs offer. I was talking to a sweet old lady on one of the last days I was in California. She was showing me some of her work, and TBH, small-aperture landscape / portrait photos that are to be viewed on a smartphone don’t need to be taken on an ILC. Even bokeh can be hacked for a base class of photos.

To put it in another way, ILCs were bought because saw people had to buy them, back in the day. If you wanted anything that wasn’t potato-quality, you needed an ILC.

A lot of photography was enjoyed as an accessible art. It was about being able to capture things. You don’t strictly need an ILC for that, and I think photography will evolve and adapt in that regard. There will still be a market for folks who e.g. need aperture or shutter control, simply because of market segmentation reasons. As an art-art, photography will be about being able to see things differently, and for that reason, there will be people drawn back to the knobs, switches, and lenses that ILCs offer. Some folks will say it’s about the bokeh, or the low-light, or whatever, but it was always about being able to see differently than what other cameras could see, or even what the human eye can “see.”

To which end, the marketing spin is just that. We shouldn’t discount creative folks being able to see differently with a smartphone. It’s just that there are shots that you won’t get be able to take with a small-aperture fixed lens on a smartphone sensor.

(This, and of course, applications where the bleeding edge of image quality matters.)

[twoWhlsGud]

I used to think that, but the more I take pictures with my phone the more I disagree. My iPhone is very very good at taking iPhone pictures. That is to say all the places and people I take pictures of with my phone look the same. It's a lovely seductive sameness, don't get me wrong. But my phone "knows" what pictures it wants to take and takes them. It needs me less and less.

I don't think we're all that far away from having some sort of always on camera that cuts us as directors out of the "picture" entirely.

Eventually, your phone equivalent will tell you and your friends where to stand, what to do and what to say to get the most out of the location, people and activities you have at your disposal. You won't have any choice (unless you are in that small group that is effectively allowed to self direct your own videos for Tikstagram) if you want to be competitive at projecting a successful image.

Great for the folks shoveling content around, but maybe not what you want if you are trying to develop an individual vision.

That said for a quick snap where I'm just trying to document something my iPhone is awfully handy ; )

[RcouF1uZ4gsC]

I actually think cameras in general take photos that look the same.

Painting on the other hand, that has individuality. The different pigments and brushes and brush strokes in the painting, that gives a sense of uniqueness.

In addition, you are more free to position people in paintings than with photographs.

Cameras are great for the folks shoveling content around, but maybe not what you want if you are trying to develop an individual vision.

[kevstev]

Whats the most recent phone you have tried to use in low light? The last two years of Pixels and Iphones (and maybe others, these are just the ones I have seen firsthand) are amazing in low light for a typical use case. I mean sure if you have a tripod and do a long exposure, its a different story, but thats a very different user.

I beat the crap out of my Canon Rebel T3i, I literally wore out the shutter after about 150k pulls on it, and replaced it with a Sony A7 III with a "G" lens, and while the pandemic was a large reason for it collecting dust, I am going on a "big" trip to a scenic place for the first time since prepandemic in a few months, and I am not sure its going to find a place in my bag. For the space and weight, my P6 Pro does a fantastic job.

The overlap in quality is enough that I see myself rarely using an ILC in the future, and the A7 III is likely the last one I will own unless they make some leaps forward to compete with smartphones.

[matmatmatmat]

It so happens I recently took a Pixel 6 Pro and a Canon 80D on a trip abroad. I used a rebuild of the stock camera app that does away with the automatic over-sharpening that the stock camera app has, and with the 80D, I used the EF-S 15-85 mm lens that (I believe) used to be the kit lens for the 7D. I also used the EF 70-300 mm non-L lens.

There is, in my opinion, no question that the 80D takes sharper pictures in daylight. It's just hard to beat a sensor that's that much bigger. The lenses, also, just have way, way more light gathering power.

Now, in dark places, at night, I used the P6P more, and that worked better than the 80D. But I'm glad I had the 80D for the big landscape shots and for the tight shots of people's faces.

The A7 III is way lighter and smaller than the 80D, and takes way better pictures. I would suggest considering finding a space for it in your bag. At least take a few pictures with both the P6P and the A7 III and view them at 100% to see if you're happy with the results.

[max51]

If you're willing to post process your images, the 80D will look way better for night pictures.

The problem is that there is no built-in function for it and you have to manually process each pictures. You might even need more than one tool if you want to take advantage of the same type of AI fakery that phone have.

[ajolly]

One thing I love about my A7S is the ability to tilt the screen and take candid photos of people while we're having a conversation. Also that thing pretty much shoots in the dark so I find that magic.

[max51]

I regret not buying a Sony when I got my Canon 6D. Almost all of the lenses I use now are old/vintage and it sucks not having image stabilization for the extra 2 stops and a digital viewfinder to properly focus the lens. I almost resold my 6D many times in the past but I got too attached to it to ever pull the trigger.

[kelnos]

Respectfully, I think you're still in the minority. The vast majority of people I know with young kids don't even own a dedicated camera, or rarely pull it out. Their phone camera is more than sufficient and much more convenient to use for them.

[egman_ekki]

> Smartphone cameras work pretty well outdoors where there is enough light. DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions.

I was sightseeing in the night and had my Nikon D7100 (crop sensor) with a good lens (up to f/1.8 iirc) and Samsung Galaxy S8+. After the first few shots, I put the dslr back to my backpack, the photos from the phone were much better. And that’s a pretty old smartphone!

I know newer Sonys have crazy ISO, also own a fullframe, but it’s just so easy to mess some setting up and end up with crappy photo from a dslr in those challenging conditions, and I’m no beginner when it comes to dslrs.

[coldtea]

>DSLR and mirroless are hard to beat indoors in low light conditions.

That's exactly the area where smartphones have been killing DSLR and mirroless for years now.

That's because of internal DSP processing, combining multiple frames, machine learning AI, etc, but to the consumer it doesn't matter: they get a clearer, more stable picture than what comes out of the DSLR/mirroless and with way less effort.

[75dvtwin]

Some DSLRs have function of combining of multiple frames together as well (I think Nikon D500 and latest Olympuses as examples).

This is often called HDR.

The issue with combining images together is that it works for static objects well, but if things move -- it does not. So low-noise digital sensors still seem to offer much better results.

And certainly, startup-time (or app selection time) + focusing speed, is simply unmatched by phones compared to DSLRs or mirrorless with phase focus detection

I do think that Denoising images with AI/ML will be common place even in open source Image processing tools like Rawtherapee.

So DLSRs having APS-C or full frame sensors with lower megapixel count will do well if images are post-processed (or in camera processed) wit these AI tools.

In fact, I was thinking that buying a used DSLR from 2012 circa for 150$ bucks -- will yield similar results as a 2K camera or a 1k smart phone.

Phones are easier to transport/carry. That's has been their reason to take over the lens+camera systems.

But I think camera makers can make photo gear fashionable again :-). I am working on some ideas in that area :-)

[coldtea]

>The issue with combining images together is that it works for static objects well, but if things move -- it does not. So low-noise digital sensors still seem to offer much better results

The problem is mirroless/dslrs have much bigger sensors with slower readout, and much worse DSP capability than say an iPhone. They also use it much more conservative that a mobile phone marker too (which just cares to get a nice looking image to the casual user, not for fidelity and ultimate control).

So, mobile phones for low light can still get better post-processing results for moving subjects compared to any mirrorless/dslr "HDR" mode, through quicker intermediate shots taken and combined, and more DSP resources to devote to the task.

(Samsung, Google, and Apple also have much more money than Sony and Canon to spend on state of the art AI/ML applied research and DSP developers).