CCC Forum

I was looking for examples of images taken on a smartphone, so naturally I looked at some I had taken since I had the phone, while most are them are personal. I found a few where I had taken shots that I had either planned to return with my DSLR and capture the shot or I were taken just before shooting with my DSLR. The quality is not the same as the DSLR but I can see why the smartphone killed off the point and shoot market. I would be interested to see your smartphone images. The EXIF data is embedded in the image and I have done a little post processing. look forward to seeing your images.

Seems you can only post 3 at a time

I have to say I have never really used a cameraphone much, mainly it serves as a useful aide-memoire. The principle exception was a few years ago when I was doing my 365 project and went to Winkworth Arboretum for the autumn colours. Having driven for an hour or so to get there, I arrived at the location only to find that I had left my main camera at home. All I had in my bag was my infrared one, having not put the other camera back after the previous day's shoot.

The only way I could capture colour was with my smartphone which at the time was an inexpensive Nokia device with a low quality 5 MP camera. At the time I was disappointed with the result and have just looked at one of the shots again. It looked a bit flat, so I tweaked it in Photoshop when I resized it for the forum. There is a white cloud at top left where I tried to recover the highlights, but they were compleely blown in the original capture and there was nothing to retrieve.


The left side of the image has given me more than one problem since I appear to have indavertently included some ducks which were swimming on the water .....

This is the original unedited shot for comparison.


So what did I eventually post for the day? The answer is here: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=732&p=3609&hilit=infrared#p3609

Thanks Mike, in the main the smartphone (SP) wouldn't be our natural go to camera, knowing the limitations we would probably always reach for something that gave us control of how we captured the light.
Interestingly Worthing camera club have invited members to submit images captured using SP. I think there is a step change on the horizon as the smartphone manufacturers up the ante with the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and their collaboration with lens and camera manufacturers.
It will be interesting to see how the camera manufacturers react to the next generation of SP, given they have already seen their point & shoot market eroded. At the end of the day the images we capture are reduced to a series of 1 & 0's, and post production software is improving what we can recover.

Hi Frank

The phone manufacturers have long since exceeded the point of images being "good enough" for most users. I, for one, am constantly amazed when the modest camera in my iPhone gets a shot in circumstances where I would hesitate with a "proper" camera. As you say, performance will only improve, although with some high end phones now costing in the region of £1,000 I would expect decent imaging. (Incidentally, that £1k figure is more than the net price I have just spent on my most recent camera purchase.) I am not sure that the camera manufacturers are trying to compete with camera phones. Their solution to falling sales seems to be in attempting to sell high priced full frame models. Volumes will be lower but profit per unit is supposed to be higher.

Where mobile phones also score is the close integration with social media. Take a shot and it can be on the Internet within seconds. Few camera manufacturers are attempting to match that, although my new camera does have Bluetooth to link up with a mobile phone. Despite Bluetooth being around for years, that is still something of a rarity. I have not yet tried it, but some reviewers have said that they struggled to make it work. There was a recent firmware update which fixed it, maybe.

The problem for the manufacturers is that digital cameras have long reached the point of sufficiency, which is probably the main reason for sales continuing to decline. It may well be that a lot of people are using their gear until it breaks. I recently took shots of this year's London to Brighton Veteran Car run using my original Canon 7D purchased in 2010. I doubt whether my results would have been much different using a more modern camera. You can see for yourself on my blog:

https://lightintotheshadows.proimageblo ... -run-2018/

The latest attempt by Canon and Nikon to make us buy new equipment is their long overdue migration to mirrorless. While it is still early days, that will take time to gain any traction. Unless there is a feature which you really need, why buy a Nikon Z6 when a D750 will perform better, is part of a mature system and cheaper? When I bought my camera, the salesman told me that few people were purchasing the new Canon or Nikon models but they were selling plenty of Fuji X-T3s.

Also, what is Canikon's strategy for mirrorless APS-C? That is where the volume lies and greater profitability overall. I am not sure that the EOS-M mount cuts it, especially as there is no upgrade path to EOS-R. Nikon’s approach is currently unknown. Maybe we will find out more at next year's Photokina.

although with some high end phones now costing in the region of £1,000 I would expect decent imaging

That's how much the devices are being sold for, not how much the components+manufacturing cost - over half the price of those flagship iPhone/Galaxy/etc is pure profit.

The camera components in them cost between £20 an £40.

Hi Frank,
To pass the time while looking after the 3 year old grandson, I had a play with my cheap Samsung J3 mobile.
Here are some abstracts created this afternoon.
Original diffuse shadow was caused by light reflected from a neighbour's window pane on to a white bedroom wall in daughter's home.
Grandson would not lend his shadow to make the creation my own.
So I ended up by precariously balancing a small electric fan with one hand and shooting Images with the mobile with the other hand.
Short processing on last image to add some drama.
Nil points in club competition!

Feel free to comment.

Peter Boughton wrote:

although with some high end phones now costing in the region of £1,000 I would expect decent imaging

That's how much the devices are being sold for, not how much the components+manufacturing cost - over half the price of those flagship iPhone/Galaxy/etc is pure profit.

Price is determined by the value a consumer places on a product rather than being directly based on manufacturing and distribution costs plus a standard percentage for profit. Part of the art of marketing is to determine the optimum price to maximise profitability with the minimum outlay. Companies such as Apple achieve that very well by producing well designed products for which a sufficient number of people are willing to pay a premium. A friend once told me that when he worked as a salesman, a new MD demanded that revenues be doubled. The sales team succeeded in gaining more custom but only by reducing prices. At the end of the year the MD expressed surprise that although the firm had increased its business, overall profit was unchanged. The new boss had failed to ask the right questions and sought a simplistic solution.

To give an example from the camera world, a Canon 4000D plus kit lens can currently be had for around £260. Profit per unit sold might be on the low side but higher sales volumes will make the line profitable. It is also worth Canon's while since customers will buying into the system which will help generate future sales. A £1k camera will give better results but would be unlikely to cost four times as much to manufacture. The higher price represents a larger slice of profit for the manufacturer, which could well be similar to those achieved for a high end mobile phone.

Peter Boughton wrote:The camera components in them cost between £20 an £40.

The camera in a mobile phone is a small device with no moving parts for which production costs will be relatively low, even after taking R&D into account. The cameras are being sold wholesale to a limited number of companies which also helps reduce the price per unit. The retail price, if the cameras were available standalone, would be much higher. Don't forget that the government also takes its share in the form of import tariffs and purchase tax which is another factor adding to the final price. A £1,000 sale represents at least £167 of revenue for the state, more if the product is subject to import duty.

Iggy wrote:Nil points in club competition!.

And there was me thinking that the shots were an improvement on your usual offerings.

It is good to experiment with concepts but often it takes time and a lot of failed shots to find out what works. There have been a number of occasions when I have seen something but not been able to translate it into a succesful image. If it is something which takes your interest, I would certainly encourage you to continue as you do not know where it will lead.

Thanks Mike, for the encouragement.
I might have got more from "Shadows" (actually a combination of reflected light & shadows) if I had my Lumix FZ1000 or Canon 70D to hand.