Saturday 20 July 2013

Smartphones: The Future Of Digital Photography?

By Mike Thompson


Since the advent of smartphones, these devices have cause a major overhaul of digital compact cameras. Flickr, one of the most popular photo sharing websites has surveyed its members and has found that the most popular cameras used were the Apple iPhone 4S, the Apple iPhone 5 and the Apple iPhone 4.

It appears as if smartphones have eliminated the need to ever own a digital camera, however, there are a multitude of reasons why this is not the case. The simplest reason is higher quality of photos. A low illumination test against 2 popular smartphone brands, the Apple iPhone 5 and the Samsung Galaxy S4, and an average run of the mill point and shoot digital camera, the Canon Powershot G15, has shown that the digital camera is superior by a long shot.

In contrast to a smartphone, you will be able to shoot crisp and clear photos from a longer distance away with a digital camera because of the extra zoom. Other advantages of the digital camera are better subject tracking, metering and white balance. It is even possible to crop a photo at 300 per cent its original size and post that online on sites like Facebook and Instagram since the quality is simply that good. For a smartphone, this is completely out of the question.

You also have to take into account of the fact that your smartphone is still really just a phone that happens to be fairly versatile and that taking lots of photos can be a cause of a massive battery drain. You definitely don't want to be struggling to be making a phone call or a text message later on because of this.

In response to the smartphone invasion, camera companies have taken the bull by its horns and have developed competing versions of their own cameras. This has led to the rise of 'smart cameras' which allow you to share your photos wirelessly via Wi-Fi or your smartphone's mobile connection.

For example, Canon has released their newer digital camera called the Powershot N. This very small compact digital camera looks more like a smartphone but shoots like a digital camera and it also has Instagram-like filters as well as built-in Wi-Fi to allow you to share your photos online.

Compact digital cameras in general are becoming more and more powerful as even these kinds of cameras have quality that can rival the more sophisticated DSLR range of their own respectively brands. The latest Nikon Coolpix A has the same 16.1 megapixel sensor as the Nikon D7100 DSLR and has the same image processor as the older Nikon D7000.

In the end, smartphones should not be dismissed as totally inferior to digital cameras. It just depends on what you want from these cameras. Would you take pictures to only just share photos with others? In this case, you would be better off with a smartphone. Would you take pictures because you would like them to be picture-perfect? In this case, you would be more satisfied with a digital camera.

The best compromise between these two is to think of it this way - smartphones should be complementary to digital cameras rather than replacements.




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