Camera with the most iPhone-like shooting experience

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Sounds like you have the perfect camera. Keep using it.

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Click to expand...

Then you should buy a Google Pixel?

To be serious, here are my thoughts:

- For framing with a viewfinder... it occurred to me that my framing improved a lot when instead of just 'looking through the EVF' I imagined a huge screen (23" for stills and a 40 ft cinema widescreen for video) in front of me when using the viewfinder. The LCD on my a6000 on the other hand isn't quite useful, I only use it for difficult angels where I can't use the EVF.

- I also tend to turn of the plethora of information on my a6000, luckily it's only one button press to switch between overlays!

- I'm afraid that there is no camera with the weight and size of a phone ... which isn't a phone. That said, some mirrorless models come quite close (Olympus OMD-EM10II with 14-42 lens). On the other hand, the Pentax 645Z doesn't seem to fit into this category .

- A small (but expensive!) camera that has good IQ is the (full frame!) Sony RX1RII.

iPad Mini; same camera, more display (which makes more sense for editing with Lightroom CC..)

Panasonic CM1 and CM10.

iPad.
And don't block people view, would you?

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Click to expand...

In your singular other post on this website, you say:

"I hope you don’t take it personally, but you could focus on the content and technique first, before upgrading your gear."

If the iPhone is giving you the best creative result, then why do you care about using a different camera? In your own words you seem to think that gear is secondary to content and technique.

If you have used all of those cameras you state, it is pretty clear that you are intimately aware with the cameras that are available and none of them work like an iPhone. Perhaps you want a iPhone that can swap lenses, or just trying to make a veiled statement about the camera industry posed as a question?

Regarding your points, I respectfully disagree. I find the phone camera experience to be limiting to my creative intent rather than supporting it. Having to hunt down aperture/shutter/iso settings in the touch camera interface is far slower than storing them into custom functions so I can switch quickly according to the situation. It may work for you and I think that it is great that you found a solution that matches your natural workflow, but definitely doesn't work for me. I find a viewfinder of some kind of critical for compositional framing and generally I prefer the EVF kind.

Why would you feel self-conscious about photographing something with any camera? People tend to look down on phone shooters more than camera shooters in my experience, but who cares what other people think?

Are you aware that you can turn off the information superimposed on the LCD screen on most cameras?

If a phone camera is the right weight, then keep using it, no other camera is going to compete with that.

If you want the bigger screen to frame shots, you could always get a rig with a hdmi monitor and mount the camera with the monitor directly on top. This is going to be bigger obviously, but the only reason I can imagine you want something other than the iPhone is that you still want interchangeable lenses.

Regardless, best of luck to you in finding the perfect platform.

techjedi said:

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Click to expand...

In your singular other post on this website, you say:

"I hope you don’t take it personally, but you could focus on the content and technique first, before upgrading your gear."

If the iPhone is giving you the best creative result, then why do you care about using a different camera? In your own words you seem to think that gear is secondary to content and technique.

Click to expand...

From the OP: "if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality."

Erick L said:

techjedi said:

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Click to expand...

In your singular other post on this website, you say:

"I hope you don’t take it personally, but you could focus on the content and technique first, before upgrading your gear."

If the iPhone is giving you the best creative result, then why do you care about using a different camera? In your own words you seem to think that gear is secondary to content and technique.

Click to expand...

From the OP: "if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality."

Click to expand...

I think the rest of my post covers this point, but thank you for pointing this out in the case that I missed it.

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Click to expand...

Quite a few cameras these days can allow your phone to connect wirelessly and actuate the shutter. So you can get the higher image quality of the camera and the framing experience of your phone screen.

The issue is, how you support the camera and adjust its aim to the framing you want to see on the phone screen.

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Click to expand...

I have the same experience, except exactly in reverse - framing on an LCD is horrible (I never get it right without a bunch of pain) and the ergonomics of a phone are intensely uncomfortable for more than a few seconds of use. Using a phone does make me self-conscious because it takes forever to get it to do the job properly, whereas with my SLR, I can usually do the same job in a fraction of a second.

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

I’m wondering if there’s anyone out there with similar experience, anyone who can shed some light as to why that might be, and if there’s any non-phone camera that would allow me to replicate the iPhone shooting experience but with higher quality.

Click to expand...

I replied separately already, but I remembered a few options that might interest you.

DXO makes an add-on camera for iPhone that is supposed to have a very high quality sensor, but uses the phone's interface/touch screen to control the camera. As you might expect, DXO's own sensor grading says its great.


Sony also makes a camera called a "lens-style" camera that you clip to a phone and control it wirelessly. The camera is actually an APS-C sensor with e-mount. You can interchange lenses, etc.

I was a late smartphone adopter (January 2013), but I soon discovered that much of the time my compositions were better with a phone at arm's length than with a camera's optical viewfinder brought to my right eye.

With this revelation gaining momentum in my mind, the pentamirror viewfinders in my Nikons just weren't cutting it, so I switched to live view. Live view with the D3300 and D5100 was clumsy, so I got rid of them.

Probably the closest you're going to get with the iPhone experience is something like a Canon G9XII.

dexone said:

Over the last couple of months I’ve noticed that my best pictures in terms of composition, framing, and overall creativity came from my iPhone. I don’t know exactly why that is, but a couple of things come to mind:

• framing on the huge and gorgeous retina display is such a joy, much better than optical and electronic viewfinders or camera back LCDs
• no information superimposed on the picture while framing
• no physical discomfort whatsoever, because the phone is so light
• not feeling self-conscious about photographing something or someone

Over the years I’ve used all sorts of cameras, including Nikon D800, Olympus E-M5, Canon Eos M, Mamiya RZ67, Pentax 645N, but none of them could match framing on a phone.

Click to expand...

I agree 100%.

Good luck with the search, but I don't think that beast exists.

My Canon 70D in Live View mode came close with regards to the touchscreen experience, and maybe the 80D is even better, but you have the cost, bulk, weight, lenses, did I get a "good copy", constant pixel peeping... no thanks. It was a nice machine, but it didn't "spark joy" in me anymore, and actually caused anxiety.