best phone for photography

[TheAnimus]

Up until 2015 yes. But the iPhone 7 plus and similar dual lense camera phones have moved a step beyond now.

iPhone is bringing a knife to a gunfight when it comes to it's camera. Still not as good as the 808 from years ago, let alone the 1020.

Heck didn't they only just add RAW shooting.

[walibe]

iPhone is bringing a knife to a gunfight when it comes to it's camera. Still not as good as the 808 from years ago, let alone the 1020.

Heck didn't they only just add RAW shooting.

I completely disagree. 1020 perhaps but not the 808. Still impressive that a 4/5 year old camera phone is that good and much of what has been achieved with the twin lense phones is the software. No doubt Nokia would be miles ahead if they were still around but the reality is they were awful or seriously outdated smart phones purely down to the OS.

Very few people have need for raw shooting at this point of the market. At the end of the day these are replacing point and shoot cameras (which lets be honest, they have pretty much achieved that) not SLRs.

[Ryan_Stevens]

My opinion is iPhone is the best Phone for Photography and also for using.

[cptwhite_uk]

http://www.androidcentral.com/best-smartphone-camera

Blind test with unlabelled photos and randomised sequence of order pitted the Samsung Galaxy S7, LG V20, Apple iPhone 7 and Microsoft Lumia 950 against each other. The public voted the S7 as best overall camera.

I had a chance to use my recently purchased S7 in a real world scenario yesterday, taking photos from my 1 year old's birthday party. Coming from a Nexus 5 was a revelation - it's made me realise how important shutter lag and speed of auto focus are to capturing the moment - there's a number photos I wouldn't have achieved at all with the Nexus 5.

The speed of focus on this thing puts my Mirrorless to shame.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I honestly see zero point spending £100s of extra on a "better camera phone" when there are plenty for decent phones under £250. Its a bloody con - it means every time you spend £400 to £700 on a phone you have to buy another similar one. If you just bought a cheaper phone and a better camera it would cost you less. Something like an RX100 would have much better image quality and last you years and my XT10 cost £340 and has better image quality than any camera phone out there - people who have seen the pictures from the Fuji think they are awesome. Plus modern mirrorless cameras have wifi so its not even that hard to upload pics to social media if you want to do that.

For social media and general stuff even the 13MP camera on my Moto G 3rd gen is more than enough. I calculated after a couple of years of not buying high end disposable camera phones I would probably be able to buy a proper camera which I can actually print nice pictures from - which is what I prefer doing. If you are not then seriously anything over a few MP is wasted.

Most social media sites and apps will automatically downsize full res pics anyway.

Edit!!

Plus the sensors are tiny. Most use 1/3.2" sensors which are found in sub £100 compacts and they tend to use very basic lens designs. To make up for the image quality issues they do a lot of post processing in the phone to make the images look better. Plus the DR is still horrible in many pictures - they keep cramming more and more MP into these tiny sensors. I am seriously disappointed by the image quality of modern high end camera-phones and I expected much better than now. The image quality in low light and DR still isn't very good and they are relying on the IS to work round it with lower shutter speeds,which has the issue it adds image blur if you subject is not still enough.

[cptwhite_uk]

Firstly, My Galaxy S7 cost me £320.
Secondly it's in my pocket and ready to capture a photo within 2 seconds, unlike an RX100.
Thirdly I want to the best possible photos from my phone and I'm willing pay extra for it. My kids will only grow up once and I want to document their early childhood in the best possible quality

Also it's down to personal choice and I choose to spend £320 to get the best camera phone available.

Here's a few sample photos:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o83rey6bvh...15.11.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/46qz0trtxz...35.26.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1k6op83sz6...06.28.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r3kedwo0nf...52.50.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rgsxbp7iq5...02.58.jpg?dl=0

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Firstly, My Galaxy S7 cost me £320.
Secondly it's in my pocket and ready to capture a photo within 2 seconds, unlike an RX100.
Thirdly I want to the best possible photos from my phone and I'm willing pay extra for it. My kids will only grow up once and I want to document their early childhood in the best possible quality

Also it's down to personal choice and I choose to spend £320 to get the best camera phone available.

Here's a few sample photos:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/o83rey6bvh...15.11.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/46qz0trtxz...35.26.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/1k6op83sz6...06.28.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r3kedwo0nf...52.50.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/rgsxbp7iq5...02.58.jpg?dl=0

My XT10 cost me £340 in total and will do better in almost any situation than ANY camera phone. It will be better in low light than any smartphone. The image stabilisation is ridiculously good on the lens - I could get down to silly low shutter speeds but then the high ISO performance is very good too.

Plus more importantly - the OP is from India so I expect he will be paying Indian prices.

I went to comic con recently - the people with even decentish smartphones were struggling in the light inside the NEC. I could literally get a picture of a cosplayer before they had even managed to get the phone to focus. Plus with the fact it actually had a zoom I could change the perspective of the shot.

My last dSLR lasted 6 years and still works. It cost me £230.

My Moto G 3rd gen cost me £135 and is more than good enough to get good pictures at most of the social events I went to. It actually has the same sensor off the Nexus 6 phone.

Plus I had an S95 in my bag when I went to work which I used for 5 years and I never once missed a shot even when travelling to work and that cost £100 new. Before that I had a Canon S60 which lasted me 5 years before and cost me £120 in total new. I always had a reasonable compact in my bag.

The RX100 at one point could be had for £200 and it will last much longer than your phone or any smartphone that I will use.

Camera lifespans are not in two year periods but much longer.

If you want to pay £100s for a tiny 1/3.2" ~ 1/2.4" sensor then be my guest - every shot you make will be stuck at between 26MM ~ 30MM depending on the phone you get. They will look all the same.

Having access to different focal lengths and indeed being able to have a shallow depth of field actually means you actually try something different instead of every shot look virtually the same.

This is why I am so disappointed with the current smartphones - all they are doing is relying on fake DoF effects,etc to save money on actually investing in proper optics. Plenty of these expensive smartphones could be engineered to use folded optics:



There is so much they could do to properly innovate - but it seems to cut on hardware costs,they just implement gimmick after gimmick. They could invest in larger imaging chips,but don't since they cost more.

Most of my friends who actually wanted to document their kids lives actually did buy decent cameras or lenses - my mate even invested in a Sigma 18-35MM/F1.8 for his kids pictures on his D3300.

Lenses can last decades.

Edit!!

Plus this is the other problem - every time you get a new phone you are throwing the camera away. Over 10 year period you have probably spent more than getting a half decent camera system.

This is why the profit margins on higher end phones is so high.

So we can agree to disagree - instead of spending loads on an expensive smartphone,I would buy a much cheaper one,invest in a prosumer compact and dump it in the bag and be done with it.

Its what I have done for nearly 15 years and its worked fine for me so far. I don't want to get trapped into the repeated upgrade cycles with smartphones and tablets.

YMMV,but that is my take on it.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Plus one more thing - the OP is from India. The S7 on Amazon India is 43000 Rupees:

http://www.amazon.in/Samsung-Galaxy-.../dp/B01DBK3ECG

So around £530.

The Moto G phones in India cost relatively less there than in the UK.

The Moto G Plus is around 14000 Rupees:

http://www.amazon.in/Moto-Plus-4th-G...eywords=moto+g

This is £172.

There are specific India only models like the Moto G Turbo:

http://www.amazon.in/Moto-G-Turbo-Wh...s=moto+g+turbo

This is an upspecced Moto G3 with a Qualcomm 600 series chipset from the higher Motorola phones which was never sold in Europe.

That is £123.

Now if you go to shops in the subcontinent you can possibly try and get a better deal.

A Sony RX100 starts at 29000 Rupees:

http://www.amazon.in/Sony-Cybershot-...rds=sony+rx100

You can get an RX100 and a Moto G Plus for the price of a Samsung S7 if you buy off Amazon.

The OP gets a smartphone with a reasonably fine camera and has a 1" prosumer compact with a great lens.

Sure a Moto G is hardly going to look that cool and srubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishy,but I would take a Moto G and a RX100 over a "premium" smartphone. Thats just me though.

[cptwhite_uk]

This is why I tried to avoid arguing with you CAT, you can't just accept the S7 is the best choice for me, or that my preferences would be different to yours.

As already outlined I wanted the best smart phone camera, a blind test suggested this is the case in real world use. I don't carry a dedicated camera around with me so all your suggestions for a dedicated camera are instantly moot - they're too heavy and bulky, require dedicated charges, carry cases, and physical connections to transfer media - none of which I want. Even compact prosumer like the RX100.

Photo quality is only one aspect of the equation. While dedicated cameras will have good auto focus speeds and low shutter lag, they won't be in my pocket to capture the moment along with many other negatives, so yeah...a phone camera is what I want given my requirements.

I appreciate your frustration at the lack of camera phone innovation, but that's where the market is at.

[ik9000]

Folded / diffractive optics do have a penalty though in fringing, and aberation - and you get weird ghosting effects on out-of-focus areas. Check out the doughnut bokeh on the canon 70-300DO for example.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This is why I tried to avoid arguing with you CAT, you can't just accept the S7 is the best choice for me, or that my preferences would be different to yours.

Isn't that pot calling kettle black??

You seem to be determine to push that the ONLY way forward to capture impromptu pictures is with a high end smart phone.

You don't seem to want to except a cheaper phone will do most of the same job for normal stuff and that a compact like an RX100 will outperform a high end smart phone 90% of the time.

At Indian prices the s7,etc are ridiculously expensive and they carry a bigger premium than the UK over cheaper phones. They are considered status symbol devices so will hold that premium in Asia.

I think you don't appreciate how good the image quality of cheaper phones is now.

As already outlined I wanted the best smart phone camera, a blind test suggested this is the case in real world use. I don't carry a dedicated camera around with me so all your suggestions for a dedicated camera are instantly moot - they're too heavy and bulky, require dedicated charges, carry cases, and physical connections to transfer media - none of which I want. Even compact prosumer like the RX100.

Photo quality is only one aspect of the equation. While dedicated cameras will have good auto focus speeds and low shutter lag, they won't be in my pocket to capture the moment along with many other negatives, so yeah...a phone camera is what I want given my requirements.

I appreciate your frustration at the lack of camera phone innovation, but that's where the market is at.

Then why are so against cheaper phones like the Moto G,etc??

Again you don't seem to appreciate a basic thing here - I know Samsung and Apple spend millions or billions on marketing trying to push that if you don't have a camera phone you suddenly will miss all the photos you could take on the spur of the moment.

The issue it is funny that people seem to make up all these weird excuses why a compact won't work - when decades of people carrying around compacts and small cameras seems to contradict what all the marketing seems to push.

I appreciate that it's a lovely phone - but £530 Vs £135~£170 is a huge premium for the OP.


Do you honestly think before smart phones people only happened to take pictures when they decided to go on a "photographic trip". Going back to the 1960s you had tiny cameras like the Rollei 35,etc which were so small literally anybody could throw one in their bag or pocket and have it with them 24/7.

People have been taking impromptu pictures decades ago.

So how come I had a compact with me the last 14 to 15 years stashed away in my bag or in my pocket when I went to work or went out for a walk?? I had my S95 in my pocket 80% of the time. I had an S60 and various other compacts,etc.

I used to live in London,so took many impromptu pictures - I still don't undertstand why suddenly a compact it some big issue to carry about,especially since I am hardly a 6 FOOT person having trousers with large pockets.

Heck,I still remember walking into Leicester square to meet a mate and happened to see George Lucas there - if it were not for the zoom on the camera I would never had taken that picture.

Plus for all those less quality dependent scenarios I found my old phone seems more than good enough.

[cptwhite_uk]

^^ Case in point. I'm not biting.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Folded / diffractive optics do have a penalty though in fringing, and aberation - and you get weird ghosting effects on out-of-focus areas. Check out the doughnut bokeh on the canon 70-300DO for example.

Diffractivr optics on the latest. Nikon stuff like the 300mm do lens seems fine out side of the bokeh but tbh bokeh on tiny sensors is not really that great due to the high depth of field and small focal lengths.

The major issue with folded optics will be fringing due to the mirror assembly but most of the designs used came out before sony moved to SLT designs,so I expect modern hardware and software will be able to negate most of that.

In fact most modern phones and cameras do significant image processing anyway to correct the final image. On the consumer side Olympus were the first to that with an interchangable system in 2004. Many modern lenses are actually optically imperfect before final corrections and are designed that way.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

^^ Case in point. I'm not biting.

What case in point - more pot calling kettle black. You make up weird points to say how a compact or a cheaper phone won't work and to avoid actually talking about anything you make it about the person. I love how on purpose you forgot the OP is from India where the s7 is £530 and the phones i suggested start at £135 and are cheaper than in the UK.

This is about the best all round advice for the OP - you are annoyed since i suggested that your device is not the best for the job. I don't even own an rx100 myself (s95 will do the job). Heck even my phone is OLD. Even my suggestion of the Moto G is based on the cheaper Indian models there and does not include all the Chinese phones from oppo, huawei,etc which have a far more greater push there but i have less experience with them.. I mean i just looked at some pics from a P9 LITE yesterday which a relative bought and they are better than my phone. £125 from EE at the time.

[vicar]

Its all down to personal preference or what you can afford. Most shutterbugs will stick to a dedicated camera(Mirror less or DSLR) with a phone as back up. While some folks are quite happy with the camera on their phones.

Each to his or her own.

Personally I prefer a combination.

Hope the OP makes the best decision that suits them.

[MGP]

I've still got the Nokia 1020, that used to be the king of cameras on a phone. Since owning the S7, might fine camera in any lighting condition, iPhone 7 Plus isn't too far behind it.