[stormtech]

I'm trying to figure out what the advantage of connectivity is with an iPhone when used as a camera.

[normhead]

You can send a picture to your wife proving you are at your mom's and not at the strip club.

[mikeSF]

I'm trying to figure out what the advantage of connectivity is with an iPhone when used as a camera.

maybe the ease of posting pics to facebook, etc, directly from a phone. not sure if the Q does that, though. I know we bought my son a cheap ($40) Vivitar P&S and it will post pics directly to social media, so that seems to be inline with the smartphones.

[stormtech]

maybe the ease of posting pics to facebook, etc, directly from a phone. not sure if the Q does that, though. I know we bought my son a cheap ($40) Vivitar P&S and it will post pics directly to social media, so that seems to be inline with the smartphones.

Ahh - OK - never used or found the need for any social media - guess the connectivity goes along with the newer generations attitudes of needing it NOW type thing.

[monochrome]

iPhone: Open Instagram App.. Touch Camera "Button." Take snapshot. Enter cute or funny or actual location text (or pick up from iPhone Location Services identifier where available). Enter caption. Hit Post. Your data plan is already paid for (probably by your parents - even if you are 30 - because you are still on the Family Plan).

Voila! You have shared your cute photo with your Social Network (and simultaneously made a post in Facebook, if enabled). Put phone back in pocket.

Q: Get camera out of bag. Turn on camera. Check settings. Take (better) photo. Remove SD Card. Insert SD card in card reader or laptop port. Import and Process photo in software or directly import jpeg. UHHHH - Instagram doesn't work on a computer. Post to Facebook (costs a fortune in Cell Data, so find a Starbucks Wi-Fi Hotspot). Export to Instagram (or PicCollage several).. Do all the location and comment stuff, but it is harder. Put camera back in case. Put laptop back in briefcase. Don't lose l;ens cap.

Or link to tablet with a Eye-Fi card (but your tablet has to be a Wi-fi Hotspot, which costs a fortune), or iCloud or upload/download from Eye-Fi Cloud (which costs a fortune),and do Instagram from your tablet, where it is an App, (so it works using Photo Album). Put tablet back in case. Put camera back in bag. Don't lose lens cap.

[monochrome]

The IQ is definitely better on the Q compared to the iPhone. But practically, the iPhone's connectivity makes it so convenient that the ease of doing the job trumps the IQ advantage of the Q.

For his purposes the IQ is surprisingly good with an iPhone - good enough for Insurance Claims and job estimate contracts, anyway.

[Clicker]

You know "strobist dude's" most portable system is

---

Last edited by Clicker; 05-18-2013 at 09:34 AM.

[Mark Castleman]

This kind of shocked me, but then again, any time I go anywhere I see people with one of these smart phones in their fist. But now it has become the world's most popular camera?

New Apple Commercial Touts the iPhone as the World's Most Popular Camera

I will be going to my school's graduation ceremony tomorrow morning and, if past years are a guide, there will be many kids where the only record of their graduation will be the images from someone's phone. For many people cell phone photos are "good enough" and that's all a lot of people demand.

[ve2vfd]

For many people cell phone photos are "good enough" and that's all a lot of people demand.

I agree, and "Good enough" is a very relative term...

Personally I remember that while growing up most of our parents had Kodak Instamatic or 110 cameras... only a few "rich uncles" had those fancy 35mm interchangable lens cameras and only pros had medium format gear. For most of us at the time, the Instamatic and 110 cameras were more than "good enough".

Considering a recent smartphone camera produces a much better quality photo than the "average" cameras many of us grew up with, I am really nor surprised that for many families it really is good enough.

Pat

[jogiba]

After just one month of being on the market, Samsung has announced that it will sell its 10 millionth Galaxy S4 sometime next week. While that may not sound very impressive, consider that it took Samsung almost double that time to sell 10 million Galaxy S3 devices after launch.

Going even further back, five months passed before 10 million Galaxy S2 smartphones were sold. Like it or not, Samsung is the new Apple, albeit with less overpriced hardware and more feature rich smartphones. Industry analysts say that Samsung managed to capture 95 percent of the $5.3 billion in profit that Android generated market wide in the first quarter of 2013.

Samsung earns more off of Android than Google does, and while you may think that would shake Google to the core, it has done quite the opposite. Google could not be more happy, and to prove this point, we saw the search giant unveil its own version of the Galaxy S4 during the Google I/O keynote earlier this week.

Samsung will sell its 10 millionth Galaxy S4 next week :: TweakTown

Looking at the samples on the previous pages and above it is clear that not even these high-end smartphones can keep up with decent dedicated compact cameras. Nevertheless there is no doubt that mobile devices are getting better at capturing images with every generation and the phones in this comparison are arguably among the best you can currently get for this purpose.

None of the devices in this shootout are good at everything. So, if you're planning to take a lot of pictures with your smartphone, you should be clear about where your priorities are. With its 13MP sensor the Samsung Galaxy S4 clearly produces most detail in good light and shows a good overall performance. In low light the S4 tends to opt for higher ISOs than the competition, but in turn that gets you faster shutter speeds and the sensor still captures more detail than the rivals. Having 13MP to start with also means that at equalized viewing sizes the Samsung's higher noise levels will be much less noticeable than at a 100% view. That is important to keep in mind considering that almost all smartphone images are reduced in size for editing and/or sharing. The Samsung's flash performance is decent too and exposure is usually spot on.

The iPhone 5 is still a good option for mobile photographers, with good detail capture and pleasant image rendition in both bright and lower light. However, we were not impressed by the blown highlights in both our sunlight and flash portraits. The Apple device also tends to select very slow shutter speeds in low light which, given the lack of an optical image stabilization system, can lead to shaky images.

The HTC One has put a lot of focus on camera performance and while it generally produces pleasant exposures, the lack of resolution in bright light might be too much for some users. That said, it did very well in capturing the highlights in our sunlight portrait.

The fast lens combined with optical image stabilization means the HTC is a good device for capturing low light scenes -- if you can live with the 4MP output. You also need to keep in mind that the slow shutter speeds in low light won't be useful for capturing moving subjects. Flash performance is definitely one of the HTC's strengths. It did well in our comparison but we've also taken a number of flash exposure while working on our upcoming full review and found its performance impressive. The HTC is arguably the best mobile device for flash photography we've seen so far.

We weren't particularly impressed by the Nokia Lumia 920's image processing in any lighting condition but, like the HTC, its fast lens and optical image stabilization mean the Lumia's strength lies in low light capture. However, some of that advantage is diminished by the Nokia's very strong noise reduction which results in very soft images. That said, like the HTC, the Nokia is a device to look at if you are taking a lot of flash images as it did very well in that comparison.

We are currently working on our full reviews of the HTC One and Samsung Galaxy S4, so watch this space. Please read our full reviews of the Nokia Lumia 920 and Apple iPhone 5 for more information about the cameras in those devices. If you are a BlackBerry user you might find our review of the brand new BlackBerry Z10 worth reading.

Super Shootout: Samsung Galaxy S4 vs HTC One vs Apple iPhone 5 vs Nokia Lumia 920: Connect

[boriscleto]

Samsung will sell its 10 millionth Galaxy S4 next week :: TweakTown

No, Samsung has shipped its 10 millionth S4, not the same thing. Apple sold 5 million iPhone 5s in the first 3 days it was on sale...they would have sold more but all they had was 5 million.

10M Samsung flagship phones in 28 days a 'record,' 5M iPhone 5 in 3 days 'disappointing'

Sales vs Shipments


On top of the disparity in slant on coverage, Apple's announced numbers were not just channel inventory shipments to global carriers; they were actual sales to customers, and those sales were constrained by supply issues.

As Apple's sole chief executive Tim Cook noted last September, "Demand for iPhone 5 has been incredible and we are working hard to get an iPhone 5 into the hands of every customer who wants one as quickly as possible.

"While we have sold out of our initial supply, stores continue to receive iPhone 5 shipments regularly and customers can continue to order online and receive an estimated delivery date. We appreciate everyone's patience and are working hard to build enough iPhone 5s for everyone."

Samsung's channel vastly larger


Additionally, Samsung's inventory deployment counted shipments to carriers in 60 countries, including Korea, China, India and the U.S. Apple launched iPhone 5 in just 9 countries.

Apple launched iPhone 5 in just 9 countries: U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, France, Australia, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. A week later, long after selling those first 5 million units, it added 22 more countries, mostly in Europe.

That was still less than half the launch countries Samsung shipped its initial Galaxy S4 units to, but Samsung also has more carriers in those countries than Apple. That includes carriers like T-Mobile, which didn't get iPhone 5 until April 12, six months after its original launch.

Despite the late start, the carrier still reported half a million iPhone 5 sales in its first month of selling the iPhone.

A research note by Toni Sacconaghi of Bernstein Research observed that "distribution for the iPhone, at ~240 carriers is significantly lower than Samsung and Nokia, which have essentially global distribution, and Blackberry, which is distributed by >2x the number of carriers."

[jogiba]

In the 1st quarter of 2013 Samsung sold over 64 million smartphones and has a 30.8% of the smartphone market vs Apple with only 38 million and 18.2% share.

[normhead]

So what's your take? Why are there more Apple photos on flickr? Why don't Android users use their phones as much as Apple users. You've yet to address the main thrust of the thread.

[Kerrowdown]

using his iPhone and iCloud to MacBook

Aye and worryingly it works really well in the background with no user input from me.

[monochrome]

Aye and worryingly it works really well in the background with no user input from me.

Isn't that the whole paradigm contrast of Apple vs. PC?