[narual]

The New Yorker magazine has had a couple of back cover ads taken with a cell phone. Excellent pictures, certainly in terms of composition. Technical quality? How much can be determined from an 8 1/2 x 11 magazine?

Does it matter? The technical quality was good enough for a magazine cover, which means it was good enough to get paid for. Maybe they couldn't print it to 60 inches wide and sell it as fine art... but that wasn't the goal.

[Sagitta]

Does it matter? The technical quality was good enough for a magazine cover, which means it was good enough to get paid for. Maybe they couldn't print it to 60 inches wide and sell it as fine art... but that wasn't the goal.

This.

So much, this.

[Rondec]

The biggest problem with phone cameras is that the ergonomics are a nightmare. The best thing about them is that they are with you everywhere you have a phone. As far as image quality goes, I think they are a mixed bag. What I get are mostly snap shots. I would not print them to any good size and shooting landscapes where there is much dynamic range, they really can't compare to SLR quality. Even at web sizes, most of them don't look that great. (sorry to all of you posting in the phone camera thread)...

[pentaxian_tmb]

I generally only use my camera on my galaxy phone when bike touring in adverse weather or mountain biking (times when I would not bring my Ricoh GR). Images are a mixed bag. No way to really stabilize the phone. The in-camera effects can mask some of that. Also, the instant ability to upload is nice. Will never replace any of my cameras, but it does have its use.

[paulh]

I work part-time as a photo tech at a Walgreens store in an upscale area of DFW Texas. I would say about 80% of the folks printing photos at the kiosks are using phones. Most of these people are young girls printing (sometimes large) batches of selfie pics & snapshots of friends. The rest are usually young parents printing photos of their kids & babies to hand out to family members. The huge bulk of these photos are standard 4x6 size. We do a fairly brisk business, and the two kiosks & internet print orders keep us busy, especially during holidays. It's rare that we get an actual "photographer" come in for prints, and it's refreshing when it happens. I enjoy chatting them up, asking about technique & equipment. So I'm not sure if our store is representative of the US picture-taking public, but as far as I can see, there is still a big demand for prints of casual & family snapshots, which is exactly where a phone cam excels.

[Sagitta]

I work part-time as a photo tech at a Walgreens store in an upscale area of DFW Texas. I would say about 80% of the folks printing photos at the kiosks are using phones. Most of these people are young girls printing (sometimes large) batches of selfie pics & snapshots of friends. The rest are usually young parents printing photos of their kids & babies to hand out to family members. The huge bulk of these photos are standard 4x6 size. We do a fairly brisk business, and the two kiosks & internet print orders keep us busy, especially during holidays. It's rare that we get an actual "photographer" come in for prints, and it's refreshing when it happens. I enjoy chatting them up, asking about technique & equipment. So I'm not sure if our store is representative of the US picture-taking public, but as far as I can see, there is still a big demand for prints of casual & family snapshots, which is exactly where a phone cam excels.

Phone cams are basically the Instamatics of the modern age. Back during the film era, I'd wager a strong bet that Instamatic/cheap 35mm P&S's probably outnumbered SLRs by a huge margin.

[pathdoc]

Exactly. Smartphones are the P&S of the 21st Century and they have the HUGE advantage of always being there and usually being able to take a hell of a lot of photos. Now if only I had a control app that let me get into the guts of my Galaxy S3's camera and control shutter speed and focus manually... (I'm not sure whether aperture is fixed or variable on those things, but being able to control it would be good if that applied.)

The 6" x 4" glossy seems to be sort of a "pass" standard for the general photograph-taking public (while the 5 x 7 arguably represents an "honours" level), and I'm happy to use any camera or lens that will hold good perceived IQ on those.

[stevebrot]

The technical quality was good enough for a magazine cover

Back cover. Apple has been doing an ad blitz on the "Taken with iPhone 6" meme.


Steve

[stevebrot]

The biggest problem with phone cameras is that the ergonomics are a nightmare.

Yep

My main complaint!


Stee

[stevebrot]

No way to really stabilize the phone.

Hmmmm...My Samsung Infuse 4G has electronic stabilization that does an OK job...not stellar, but OK.


Steve

[stevebrot]

Back during the film era, I'd wager a strong bet that Instamatic/cheap 35mm P&S's probably outnumbered SLRs by a huge margin.

At least 100:1, though the full range of available camera options was very broad and changed gradually from the mid-60s through the late-80s. The sequence with something like this:

• Instamatics gradually replaced the 127 roll film Brownies from the mid-60s through the early-70s. 126 and later 110 cartridge film cameras were the choice for the masses for about 20 years.
• For those wanting better quality and more control at a moderate price point, 35mm rangefinder sales remained strong through the mid-1980s, though affordable 35mm SLRs eroded sales in the 1980s
• The true killer product of the 40 years prior to phone cams was the motorized 35mm AF P&S. Relatively inexpensive, small, light, and easy to use with great image quality, what was there not to like? The 35mm P&S of the late 1980s replaced everything below the 35mm SLR for small format amateur/casual use. Rangefinder and cheap 126 box cameras literally disappeared overnight and cameras were suddenly everywhere taking photos of very acceptable quality. I owned several and used them pretty much the same way I use my current phone camera.

Steve

(...yes, I did own a 126 Agfa brand Instamatic type camera in 1969...)

[pathdoc]

126 and later 110 cartridge film cameras were the choice for the masses for about 20 years.

These used a smaller frame size, didn't they? I had an Olympus-Pen camera which took half-frame shots on standard 35mm film (so a little went a long way, and a 36-shot roll would last you just about forever), and IIRC either the 126 or the 110 captured a similar image.

Then there were the rare 110 cameras that had interchangeable lenses, almost like the micro-four-thirds cameras of their day. I suspect they died a death because the quality of the medium wasn't up to the performance of the lenses?

[MyTZuS]

Now if only I had a control app that let me get into the guts of my Galaxy S3's camera and control shutter speed and focus manually... (I'm not sure whether aperture is fixed or variable on those things, but being able to control it would be good if that applied.)

You can with the Nokia series. I have the 1520 (last years model- Carl Zeiss optics, f2.4, 20mp ) & you can set all of that. Not saying its going to kill DSLR's but it definitely will kick butt the p/s market!

For iPhones there are lenses available as well if I remember correctly & they just announced radical changes for their 'camera'. HTC just brought out a kick butt camera, um, phone too.

[stevebrot]

These used a smaller frame size, didn't they? I had an Olympus-Pen camera which took half-frame shots on standard 35mm film (so a little went a long way, and a 36-shot roll would last you just about forever), and IIRC either the 126 or the 110 captured a similar image.

Then there were the rare 110 cameras that had interchangeable lenses, almost like the micro-four-thirds cameras of their day. I suspect they died a death because the quality of the medium wasn't up to the performance of the lenses?

The 126 frame size was 24mm x24mm square (a little larger than 1/2 frame 35mm). For black and white manual film development, you could use reels designed for 35mm. 110 cartridges had a frame size of 13mm x 17mm on 16mm stock in a landscape orientation.

There were several high quality 110 cameras including the Pentax Auto 110 interchangeable lens SLR.


Steve

[Clavius]

The biggest problem with phone cameras is that the ergonomics are a nightmare.

I agree with you. Shooting with a smartphone makes me feel like I need suction thingies on my fingers. And that I don't have enough fingers. But just to be fair... Weight and size attribute to ergonomics as well. In the sense that it attributes to how comfortably and easily the equipment is carried. That ballances out the smartphones poor ergonomic performance quite a bit. So much even that it is the worlds most used camera because of it's excellent performance in the ergonomic attributes of size and weight. Most negatives of cellphonescams are easily forgiven by answerring them with "...yes true, but it's here."