Last edited by jgl; 01-05-2016 at 01:26 PM.
I have about $30K US in pro camera gear (I'm a Nikon guy). These days I take 80% of my photos with my phone. It's just more practical and perfectly suitable for social media. The pro gear is too damn heavy, conspicuous and intrusive for everyday use. If I were to buy walking-around camera gear, I'd get the Sony setup.
You seem to have underlying belief that social media is a worthwhile area for photographic effort
Personally my photos are for memories, and I'd prefer to be able to share slightly higher quality memories than what's produced by a smartphone.
My phone is used to take photos of jokey shit that I find in HK that I will forget about after a week and never return to.
It's a belief that most things posted on social media are transient and forgotten within days so image quality is secondary to convenience or timeliness. There can be good stuff, but it's infrequent.
The % of images that go from smartphone sources into my image library are pretty tiny. The vast majority of my long term images are from bigger cameras which are a pain to carry around. Even if 'bigger' means the size of a cigarette packet.
And stuff that's got a better chance of being 'good' is less likely to make it on to social media, because it's a pain moving from 'real camera' to Internet.
Edit: Oh, on this topic, I walked past a new Huawei exhibition in Taikoo today that was showcasing their latest phone with a Leica branded camera. The stand was set up as an art gallery so the entire marketing exercise was pushing the photography angle. Plenty of artsy, moody stuff with overly saturated colours, but not a single one of the A4-A3 sized images actually met my criteria for "sharp".
I do realise that smartphone cameras can do better than this, I was just amused and disappointed by the common attitude that generic 'artsy' could make up for technical flaws.
Last edited by jgl; 01-05-2016 at 08:24 PM.
That's just taking things to the extreme and that's your choice. Personally having a DSLR does not affect how I photography or store or put on social media, there's pros and cons for both.
With most modern DSLRs there's wifi functions that allows you to post to social media without much hassle.
There's plenty of 'good' photos shot by smartphone, just take a look at the Apple photo competitions.
Some of it is impressive, but at the same time completely not my cup of tea. For starters, most things rely on heavy handed post processing and weird colours.
Photography is largely personal, and my own preferences are tilted towards low light (sunrise/sunset) landscapes, long focal length portraiture and fast sports photography. None of which work well with smartphone technology.
I might be coming across as against phone cameras, but I really don't care. They just don't work for me. I reserve my disdain for Lomography.
Last edited by jgl; 01-05-2016 at 09:35 PM.
+1 and Well Said!
The only good thing I can say about Lomography is that it supposedly helps keep film production alive.
Regarding cellphone cameras:
It's certainly true that the best camera is the one you have with you on the day. Yes, one can take some amazing photos with phonecams, but as poster above just said, they do often rely on rather too much post-processing trickery. Personally the only things I use them for are selfies, documenting random things, table level food closeups (that small sensor big depth of field has to be useful for something).
As for Image Quality:
Until I got involved in photography, I simply didn't pay much attention to this at all. I think this is why many people are satisfied with small sensor images out of cellphone cameras. Now that I know it when I see it, I'm hooked.
For full frame look at the systems that you are buying into. Right now, nothing compares to Nikon or Canon, so i would stick to those two unless you have compelling reasons eg you're a Leica snob. Now my pet peeve - evf - hate it - nothing like looking through an optical viewfinder. BTW f2.8zooms are expensive and heavy. Canon has a 24-70f4L that is fantastic lens if you don't really need f2.8. Big difference between the 5dIII and the 6D, I would not get the 6D. Plus you can now get the 5DIII in 3 flavours.
Nikon sensors have surpassed Canon's in terms of dynamic range captured. Their AF and flash systems have always been the best out there. However, I find the Canon lens lineup to be more extensive and slightly cheaper across the board. Plus Canon does IS really well.