The real reason why smartphones are beating dedicated cameras....

Tony D · Jun 17, 2023

If you look carefully you will notice very few new/recent point and shoot offerings (and most of the recent ones have been aimed at bloggers) with many more 'high' end mirrorless cameras, aim at photographers and videographers. The market has changed with point and shoots taking the biggest hit and with some knock on to the high end market.

The real reason for the increasing use of smartphones is multifaceted and not down to a single issue/challenge. The background processing on smartphones is so good most people can get the image they want on one device, with no post-processing skills, prepackaged filters, the ability to share instantly etc.

To me most phone images are over processed but that's what the public wants.

Do I use my phone? Yes but always with raw capture so I can re-process if needed. Generally it gets used when I am not doing a deliberate photo shoot (it alway with me whereas my camera is not always).

gaul · Jun 17, 2023

Because historical camera companies are not listening to consumer needs.. IA

For example, people who buy a 500 $ camera will never comprehend why a 200 $ smartphone absolutely smashes the camera when HDR is involved

bluehighwayman · Jun 17, 2023

We bought our Galaxy S9s from Amazon as unlocked renewed phones in 2019 for about $375 each. If one is willing to buy last year's model used yes it is affordable. The phones have had zero problems and see no reason to upgrade either of them. They also have excellent photo and video capabilities. The real reason these phones are beating cameras is convenience. The AI in these phones used to process photos is making the difference between cameras and cellphone photos almost a non-issue. Most people are happy with the quality and since the photos and videos go straight to social media a camera is overkill. The few photos that get printed can be sent to a commercial shop seamlessly and one gets a beautifully printed and mounted photo. Then there is the issue of portability and let's face it a cellphone on a backpacking trip is what 99% of people will carry. The dedicated camera is starting to look like a dinosaur but I'll still use mine because I'm from a camera generation.

SecondTimeAround · Jun 17, 2023

Eyeris Productions said:
is because no one buys them outright but gets them with a phone carrier for $30- 50 a month plus their plan.

I've always bought my phones outright, as do many people I know.

sportyaccordy · Jun 17, 2023

It's amazing to me that people still don't understand why standalone camera sales have declined. Even at the peak of standalone camera sales smartphones were outselling them by more than 10 to 1. Standalone cameras were always niche.

tbcass · Jun 17, 2023

Smartphone cameras are good enough for most people. They also are capable of numerous tasks beyond taking photos so they are a convenient device to carry around. The fact that smartphones have a camera is not the primary reason people own one. People no longer use handheld calculators, PDAs, landline phones, notepads, and many other devices because smartphones perform many tasks previously relegated to separate devices. Because we are photo enthusiasts we tend to overemphasize the importance of the phone camera for the average consumer.

tbcass · Jun 17, 2023

gaul said:
Because historical camera companies are not listening to consumer needs.. IA

For example, people who buy a 500 $ camera will never comprehend why a 200 $ smartphone absolutely smashes the camera when HDR is involved

$200 smartphone? I didn't know they came that cheap and a $200 phone would have a poor camera.

Fogel70 · Jun 17, 2023

Eyeris Productions said:
is because no one buys them outright but gets them with a phone carrier for $30- 50 a month plus their plan. Imagine if you can buy cameras, even the best of the best, Hasselblad, Phaseone, and Fujifilm, and can buy them on a monthly plan for a four-year plan or more I bet there will be many more cameras out there. Nikon announced a new lens, 100mm f1.4, but it's 2,000 dollars. I only know a few people that can afford that outright; however, if you break that down in two years, everyone can buy it.

It is mainly about the convinience factor. With smartphones you get a camera included in a device you always want to carry with you.

Most people do not see any use of having a dedicated camera, as it would be another device they have to carry with them, which is too inconvinient.

Like it has been in all photographic history, the most convinient format will win in the long run. Like when 35 mm film replaced medium format as the most used format, in the 1960s.

TestTube · Jun 17, 2023

sportyaccordy said:
It's amazing to me that people still don't understand why standalone camera sales have declined. Even at the peak of standalone camera sales smartphones were outselling them by more than 10 to 1. Standalone cameras were always niche.

It's the demographic of this site. Everyone else got it over a decade ago.

MCLV · Jun 17, 2023

Eyeris Productions said:
is because no one buys them outright but gets them with a phone carrier for $30- 50 a month plus their plan. Imagine if you can buy cameras, even the best of the best, Hasselblad, Phaseone, and Fujifilm, and can buy them on a monthly plan for a four-year plan or more I bet there will be many more cameras out there. Nikon announced a new lens, 100mm f1.4, but it's 2,000 dollars. I only know a few people that can afford that outright; however, if you break that down in two years, everyone can buy it.

Phone carriers are not so generous regarding the low price of phones everywhere. People largely stopped using dedicated cameras also in countries where they often buy their phones without carrier discounts. How do you explain that?

ISO 1 Million · Jun 17, 2023

tkbslc said:
Every camera store takes credit cards and nearly all of them offer payment plans. So it's a pretty weak argument. Anyone that wanted to pay monthly for a camera, could. Plus a lot of people pay cash for phones, me included.

10 more relevant reasons smartphones are winning:

Easy to use (literal definition of point and shoot)

Easy to share and organize photos

always with you

better image quality in the ways that matter to most people (pictures are sharp, colorful, punchy, with good DR and looks great in photo books or for social sharing without requiring any editing)

adds no extra weight because you would already carry a phone

no extra camera bag to carry and keep safe

no extra device to keep charged

no camera controls to learn

Also does great video, usually with rock-solid stabilization.

automatic cloud/NAS backup and can even cloud sync to computer

This response should just end this whole thread. I can't agree more. The cost of a dedicated camera vs a smartphone is most definitely not even a top 100 reason why smartphones took over.

JohnSil · Jun 17, 2023

Eyeris Productions said:
Nikon announced a new lens, 100mm f1.4, but it's 2,000 dollars. I only know a few people that can afford that outright; however, if you break that down in two years, everyone can buy it.

But you can! It is just a bit more work. You can get a bank loan for two years or put it on a credit card.

The reality is that it get more and more difficult to live and operate in our daily lives without a phone thus making a phone a pretty much a mandatory purchase. If we had to pay cash up front for a $1000 phone you'd see a proliferation of cheap phones but people would still need them.

A $2000 lens is only needed by a very SMALL number of people. It's all about priorities and real necessities!!!

John

David Lal · Jun 17, 2023

JohnSil said:
Eyeris Productions said:

Nikon announced a new lens, 100mm f1.4, but it's 2,000 dollars. I only know a few people that can afford that outright; however, if you break that down in two years, everyone can buy it.

Click to expand...

But you can! It is just a bit more work. You can get a bank loan for two years or put it on a credit card.

The reality is that it get more and more difficult to live and operate in our daily lives without a phone thus making a phone a pretty much a mandatory purchase. If we had to pay cash up front for a $1000 phone you'd see a proliferation of cheap phones but people would still need them.

A $2000 lens is only needed by a very SMALL number of people. It's all about priorities and real necessities!!!

John

John, you and Eyeris have a very different and alien mindset to me.

If I can't afford something I just don't buy it. I'd never dream of spending $1000 on a lens one year then doing the same again the following year. Nor do I buy anything on credit. Yes, perhaps for convenience food and drink in a supermarket but again even that not at all if I don't have the funds to cover it. Bank loan for a toy? Never.

Still, à chacun son goût.

crashpc · Jun 17, 2023

David Lal said:
John, you and Eyeris have a very different and alien mindset to me.

If I can't afford something I just don't buy it. I'd never dream of spending $1000 on a lens one year then doing the same again the following year. Nor do I buy anything on credit. Yes, perhaps for convenience food and drink in a supermarket but again even that not at all if I don't have the funds to cover it. Bank loan for a toy? Never.

Still, à chacun son goût.

I´m with you on that, but maybe other people don´t have it this way.

I might be likely to actually do that, with spare money on hand, but that gets immediately mitigated by the fact, that having that money means I will pay by cash. So I would like to see the decision process and the thought process of other people, that act diffeently.

tkbslc · Jun 17, 2023

Barleyman said:
That said, photography has never been more popular. The masses have within their reach better cameras than ever before (i.e. the Smartphone).

The challenge is how many will make the leap to dedicated cameras?

This brings up the question for me of why do we care what kind of camera people use?

So many people taking pictures they are happy with and getting enjoyment from photos. Why does it matter if it's on a smartphone or a Fuji X-T4? Why do we see smarphones as the threat and not the evolution?

David Lal · Jun 17, 2023

tkbslc said:
This brings up the question for me of why do we care what kind of camera people use?

So many people taking pictures they are happy with and getting enjoyment from photos. Why does it matter if it's on a smartphone or a Fuji X-T4? Why do we see smarphones as the threat and not the evolution?

YOU see smartphones as a threat? That smacks of paranoia.

I don't give a tinker's cuss what other people use to take photographs. If it makes them happy so be it. I see smartphone users, as were Instamatic users 40 years ago, as an irrelevance. The sad thing is when such a user thinks he/she is a photographer and attempts something important (wedding?) and makes a mess of it because in fact, they do not have the necessary skills.

I've been asked 3 times to try to 'do something' with a hopeless set of smartphone photos.

My partner's mother with her Instamatic 40+ years ago. She never did learn how to use it!

tkbslc · Jun 17, 2023

David Lal said:
tkbslc said:

This brings up the question for me of why do we care what kind of camera people use?

So many people taking pictures they are happy with and getting enjoyment from photos. Why does it matter if it's on a smartphone or a Fuji X-T4? Why do we see smarphones as the threat and not the evolution?

Click to expand...

YOU see smartphones as a threat? That smacks of paranoia.

Look at the last 10 years of forum threads about smartphones. People are definitely defensive about smartphones. Look at the title of the thread which alludes to a competition between phones and real cameras. I was using the collective "we" as a forum. I actually do not care myself.

David Lal said:
I don't give a tinker's cuss what other people use to take photographs. If it makes them happy so be it. I see smartphone users, as were Instamatic users 40 years ago, as an irrelevance. The sad thing is when such a user thinks he/she is a photographer and attempts something important (wedding?) and makes a mess of it because in fact, they do not have the necessary skills.

A new fancy camera would not grant them those skills either.

David Lal said:
I've been asked 3 times to try to 'do something' with a hopeless set of smartphone photos.

And I've been asked at least as many times why pictures from a new high end camera don't look as good as the pics from their smartphone. When I talk about lighting, lenses, and processing, you can tell it is going in one ear and right out the other. Most of these people wanted nice pictures, not a new skill and hobby to learn.

Kodakrevisited · Jun 18, 2023

I bought my Oppo Reno 10x used on Ebay for £160 sim free and it completely rendered my dedicated camras redundant almost overnight (never had a phone with a decent camera before), they are beating dedicated cameras because for most people they are far more convenient, and better in every way that matters to 99% of people, most people just dont want or need a dedicated camera anymore.

sybersitizen · Jun 18, 2023

gaul said:
... people who buy a 500 $ camera will never comprehend why a 200 $ smartphone absolutely smashes the camera when HDR is involved

I have a $500 camera and a $200 phone ... those were second-hand prices. (And I also have plenty of other gear, of course.) As has been stated over and over, the phone 'smashes' the camera in convenience only. I can get as good or better HDR results from the camera, but I have to devote a lot more time and effort to it. The masses just won't do that.

FrancoD · Jun 18, 2023

I never really understood your evangelical fervor in promoting phones.

I remember when yeras ago you were posting photos here that were OK for a happy snappy fix but not really camera grade yet you were so enthusiastic about it.

Then every year or so you would come back with more photos from your latest phone (how many have you had ?) and yes they did get better but to me it is a bit like wearing a condom.

OK but not really like the real thing.

Just my opinion..

( mind you, I like bird photos so yes I am biased).

The real reason why smartphones are beating dedicated cameras....

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