Are Digital Cameras Still Worth Buying?
Techquickie
·Techquickie
·2018-05-06
·
1,177 words · ~5 min read
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thanks for watching Techquickie click the subscribe button then enable
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notifications with the Bell icon so you won't miss any future videos smartphone
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launch events are all pretty much the same these days they're like there are a
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handful of things that it seems like they're all required to have by law some
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magical or game-changing features some
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sticker shock a couple of lame scripted jokes from the presenter and the
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implication that no this time for real the camera is so good that you can snap
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photos just like the pros do with minimal effort but how much truth is
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there to this there's obviously a lot more to becoming a good photographer
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than just having the right gear but is a
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smartphone can it be the right gear has
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image quality on modern flagship phone cameras rendered stand-alone compact
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digital cameras irrelevant or obsolete well digital camera sales have been
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declining for some time now at least at the lower end of the market so a lot of
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people apparently don't feel the need to carry them around anymore but are they
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making a big mistake for a long time pocket cameras clearly outstripped their
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cell phone counterparts for a number of reasons one of which was the size of the
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image sensor and you can learn more about image sensors up here the main
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takeaway though is that larger image sensors can capture more light which
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means your camera's processor has more information about your surroundings to
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work with ultimately leading to better looking more detailed photos with less
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noise these days though image sensors
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and phones are starting to catch up to standalone cameras although there's
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currently still a limit to just how large a smartphone image sensor can get
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because smartphones are small highly integrated devices that needs space for
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all the other stuff that's inside many phones though do pack sensors close to
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the size of what you'd find in a mainstream point-and-shoot camera though
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we've also come a really long way in terms of processing power in smartphones
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which not only allows you to play 3d game and multitask with ease but it also
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helps your phone make sense of what it's camera sees turning it into a sharp
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looking image with accurate white balance and colors instead of the smeary
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mess that we were used to on the camera phones from 15 years ago combine these
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factors with the fact that modern smartphones make it ludicrously easy to
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share your pics on Twitter or Instagram and it becomes clear that separate
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compact cameras oh they are just for suckers right wrong actually despite the
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convenience of camera phones standalone compacts still offer some important
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advantages many mainstream compacts except for some of the ones at the very
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low end of the market allow you to change critical exposure settings like
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aperture and shutter speed and although some camera apps say they can do the
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same in pro mode or whatever the truth is that smartphone cameras use fixed
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lenses without mechanical parts so these aperture and shutter speed settings on
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your phone are really just software simulations of the same settings on a
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separate camera which won't come close to giving you the same flexibility and
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picture quality in situations where you're trying to photograph fast action
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fine-tune your brightness or get your depth of field just right for the effect
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that you want and if you are trying to take a shot of a fast-moving subject the
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quick autofocus available on nicer separate cameras can really help your
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shot come out correctly something that many smartphones lack another massive
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advantage is in the optics in the same way that phone sensors need to be shrunk
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down so do their lenses bigger and
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better lenses give especially DSLRs but
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even consumer grade cameras the ability to gather more light for the sensor
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achieve that desirable depth of field effect or bokeh and even optically zoom
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the image so you can capture a subject as though it were closer up without
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losing any image quality most phones lack some or all of this functionality
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and what they do have often comes with
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assessing artefacts or other compromises and here's another issue if you're an
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absolute video and photo taking fiend you'll already know that your habit can
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quickly cause your phone's battery level to plummet the average compact camera
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can take many hundreds of photos before calling it quits with all of that said
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if your main concern is having a straightforward camera experience
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without the need for any fine-tuning that shiny new smartphone in your pocket
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will probably serve you just as well if not better than $100 point-and-shoot
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thanks to other creature comforts like automatic backing up to the cloud
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however there are still a number of enthusiast level compacts on the market
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with much larger image sensors powerful image processors and lots of options to
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fine tune exposure and focus preferences that smartphones currently can't touch
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and that's without even trying to compare the camera on an iPhone or a
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Google pixel to a four figure DSLR with expensive detachable lenses let's just
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put it this way I'd be pretty surprised to see professional sports photographers
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trade in their pricy telephoto lenses for Samsung galaxys at least for now
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