Do you find yourself using your smartphone more than your SLR, MILC or P&S?

[DanoPhoto]

I use my smart phone for quick "snap shots", but not for images I plan to do something with down the road. DSLR is for deliberate and thought out use, smartphone is merely for convenience. YMMV

 

[rpt]

I use my smartphone for pictures that I want to share immediately and that don't have a real artistically interest, or when I can't use my DSLR. My 6D is almost always with me, so it does all the rest.

+1
So if I want to share something via Whatsapp, it is the phone camera. Any serious stuff I go to my 5D3 or the 7D2.

 

[bholliman]

I just use my phone as a emergency option when I don't have anything better available. Its handy at times since its always with me but I'm always disapointed with the IQ.

 

[martti]

Either it is my Sony Android phone or the 5DIII. I got the Sony RX100 II and went really into its manuals and spent a lot of time getting used to it but finally I gave it to my son. The shot I was after alaways evaded me while using this camera. Agreed, the technical quality of the output is remarkable. Sony is doing miracles in putting high end technology in small package.
Maybe there is a P/S somewhere that has the reactivity of the DSLR?
People seem to be going wild over the pretty Fuji X100T but at the same time there seems to be a lot of the x100Ss for sale...as if people bought it because it is pretty and sold it after having used it for a while...

The decline of the P/S cameras was totally foreseeable 3 years ago already when photo contests were won with an iPhone. Or google up the Bentley commercial that was filmed with iPhones! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyYhM0XIIwU&feature=youtu.be

.

 

[expatinasia]

I take my DSLR on trips and for work, assignments etc. But when I nip to the shops or walk to the local market to buy food or just look around, I won't take it along. It is at those times when, if I see something I want to shoot, I have no choice but to use the only camera on me which is my phone.

There have been times though that I wanted the shot so much, that I snapped it with my phone, walked home and grabbed my 1D X and walked back hoping what I wanted to shoot was still there!

Perhaps the Sony RX100 Mark IV will include phone features, or perhaps Canon could produce a 1D X micro that fits in my pocket and ...... :

 

[dcm]

My smartphone has only replaced my P&S (S110) for some uses so far. It get's more use as a flashlight than a camera.

Gave it to my wife to upgrade her P&S since she doesn't shoot with my other cameras. She goes to it when here phone won't cut it, like a photo of a hawk in the tree out back or flower closeups at the botanic gardens. She is an artist and does botanic illustrations - she'd rather draw the flowers than shoot them. She'd also just as soon use watercolors to paint a scene as take a photograph.

For me the order this year is M, 6D, iPhone or MILC, SLR, smartphone. No P&S anymore. I've been using the M more than I expected, it's also help replace my P&S. The M is pretty easy to carry around on the off chance that I might want to take a photo, even with an extra lens. The 6D is close behind in usage and still what I use when I go out to shoot. The phone lags quite a bit, really just for the unexpected opportunities when I didn't have the M around.

 

[Tsuru]

I guess my comment was geared mostly towards showing the fact that smartphones have not really entered the equation as a "picture taking tool" never mind a photography tool.
That being said while my phone does have ISO, shutter speed and white balance controls, if I'm wanting to control those features I'm not going even think about using my phone.

Hi Tsuru.
Does using your phone as a mirror with info lock or a magnifying glass really count as taking a picture? Surely a picture is something you agonise over composition, exposure etc then save to your PC maybe even print, not look at once, exclaim ahh it's an RJ 11 not RJ 45 or ahh it says have you read the small print and delete?
To me images used like that are a tool not a picture, and I would not count that as using a phone instead of a DSLR.
Just a thought or two.

Cheers, Graham.

The only time I find myself using my smartphone for pictures is when an SLR or point-and-shoot will not physically fit. The number of times my smartphone has saved my back because I need to find out something about a data/voice jack that is hidden behind a desk or cabinet is becoming considerable. Other than that, if I want/need to take a picture I'm grabbing an SLR.

 

[Geek]

I only use my smart phone when my DSLR (rarely) isn't with me or I just want to quickly document something to refer back to later. Something like a shopping list, etc.

My issue was always that I wanted to post pictures to social media and would have to wait until I could transfer the pictures from my DSLR to a computer. Resolved that issue with an eye-fi card. Now I can take pictures with the DSLR and basically instantly post them to social media with my phone.

Love the dual card slots on the 7D2. I write raws to the Compact Flash and small jpegs to the eye-fi card for that immediate social gratification.

 

[meywd]

Maybe because my iPhone 4 camera is worthless now that the back is scratched so much it feels like heavy fog

 

[RobertG.]

I don't have a smart phone... but my old mobile phone takes pictures too. The last one I took must have been in 2012, if I remember correctly. But during my last holiday I brought my DSLR and a P&S with me. I took more than 3500 shots with the DSLR but not even a single frame with the P&S....

 

[privatebydesign]

I was at Disney yesterday and always notice the cameras being used. I was staggered at the number of people with big iPhone 6's and Samsung Galaxy's, and the images, and video, they were getting were great, in my party one person had an iPhone 6Plus.

I saw more Canon DSLR's than Nikon, though Disney use Nikon, and I saw a lot of interchangable lens mirrorless, but the phones vastly outnumbered all other cameras put together, and don't forget, for many people that was a once on a lifetime trip and they were very happy with their phones.

 

[martti]

Actually, you do not even need the iPhone. You can just strecth your arms in front of you and go 'click' without any gadget at all. Or with a cigarette box. Nobody (apart from yourself) is interested in the pictures you are taking.
People may look at them just to make you look at theirs, equally boring.
CLICK!

 

[dgatwood]

Smartphones fall so far short that they barely even register as cameras in my book. Yes, they're better than they were, in much the same way that a 1980 Ford Pinto is better than a 1977 Ford Pinto, but....

Why are they not good enough? In no particular order:

• Zoom. Yes, I shoot a decent number of shots in the 24–35mm range, so a 30mm prime isn't useless. I also shoot a lot of shots near the other end of my 24–105, and a lot of shots with a 70–300 L at the long end, often with teleconverters. So, no, I can't get by with a camera that offers only a 30mm prime.
• Dynamic range. Let's face it, images sometimes need correction. The JPEG imaging afforded by cell phone cameras offers little flexibility in this regard.
• Low light handling. Probably at least half the photos I take are in situations where a cell phone would be incapable of getting shots without severe motion blur. There's only so much you can do when your sensor is that small, and it is amazing how much better they've gotten, but they're still nowhere near close to being good enough.
• Resolution. A cell phone barely exceeds my retina MacBook Pro's screen resolution. If the photo requires much cropping at all, you'll get quality loss.

So my cell phone is what I use when I don't have my camera. It is usable in a pinch, but if I know I'm going to take pictures, I carry a real camera. I can't imagine that changing any time in the near future.

 

[Dukinald]

I was at Disney yesterday and always notice the cameras being used. I was staggered at the number of people with big iPhone 6's and Samsung Galaxy's, and the images, and video, they were getting were great, in my party one person had an iPhone 6Plus.

I saw more Canon DSLR's than Nikon, though Disney use Nikon, and I saw a lot of interchangable lens mirrorless, but the phones vastly outnumbered all other cameras put together, and don't forget, for many people that was a once on a lifetime trip and they were very happy with their phones.

Spent xmas day walking around NY city and observed the same thing. Canon dslrs outnumbered nikon maybe 3 to 1 but phones outnumbered p&s 20 to 1. A lot of groups also have selfie sticks and they certainly have a lot of fun shooting and one can be sure that photo was going straight to fb as soon as it was snapped.

 

[Lee Jay]

Smartphones fall so far short that they barely even register as cameras in my book.

Same here.

When I got a then state-of-the-art smartphone, I tested it against my little Canon Elph 500 HS pocket compact. The compact is so vastly superior and also small enough to fit in the same pocket with the phone that I essentially never use the phone as a camera.

Test: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/50555895

I use my little Elph a ton because it's just so handy. At one point I figured I must be using it much more than my SLRs, so I used Lightroom to work the numbers:

2012: Elph: 2,476, SLR: 10,149
2013: Elph: 3,068, SLR: 21,313 (this was an unusually big year, the others are more average)
2014: Elph: 3,012, SLR: 10,325

Just for comparison, 2012-2014 smartphone: 73 total, and a third were for that test I posted above and another third were for other tests! Most of the rest were documentation and the total number of "keepers" was exactly one for all three years together.

 

[Zv]

For quick snaps you can't beat a smartphone. It's always there in my pocket and anytime I see something interesting or funny I can quickly snap it. Better to have an iPhone shot than nothing at all. I use it mainly as a way to document things not for any artistic quality.

For dedicated shoots I use a DSLR or my EOS M depending on the situation. I probably take more pictures with these as I take hundreds at a time but it feels like I use the smartphone more often.

 

[GaryJ]

I have a less than $100 [AUS] phone with a 2.5 in screen and a 6D and 7D,you guess which is used for photography and which for talking on,also I print my work[large],as you can see I am not from the Right Now generation.

 

[mkabi]

I use my smartphone for pictures that don't have a real artistic interest

When I have a purpose I of course...

Those are my own reasons too.
Most of the time, for convenience I use my iphone 4.
But if there is a purpose behind it (for example, my friend wants me to be his second for a wedding gig, obviously paid gig), even if there is an artistic reason (most of my video concepts)... I pull out all the stops.
Lights, light stands... props... etc.
That and when I'm vacationing abroad... I figure what the hell, I paid for the plane ticket, might as well borrow my cousins rebel and shoot whatever with it.

There is no inbetween for me... I can't take just normal pictures with a DSLR, no way in hell am I going to pull out a DSLR to take pictures of a cat or a bookshelf inside the house. May be something outside... if I had a cat and I loved it so much that I want to take a day to make a big production out of it... may be...
For all the meh moments... iphone all the way...

 

[Aglet]

I don't/won't use a smartphone so it's not an option. Social-media doesn't figure in my life.

The lowest end camera I'll carry is my old G11; it lives in a corner of my daily backpack.
If I want something a little more capable it's either my Oly EM10 or one of my Fuji X bodies, all capable of serious work if needed, under most kinds of light conditions.
I only take out the DSLRs now when I'm after some product shots and want a FF raw file to work with, even tho the crop sensor Fuji's/DSLRs and even the MFT is often good enough for large print work too.

 

[e17paul]

I was at Disney yesterday and always notice the cameras being used. I was staggered at the number of people with big iPhone 6's and Samsung Galaxy's, and the images, and video, they were getting were great, in my party one person had an iPhone 6Plus.

I saw more Canon DSLR's than Nikon, though Disney use Nikon, and I saw a lot of interchangable lens mirrorless, but the phones vastly outnumbered all other cameras put together, and don't forget, for many people that was a once on a lifetime trip and they were very happy with their phones.

In 2011 old iPhone 4S effectively replaced my 2004 digital compact when I realised the phone was as good under most curcumstances. The only things it lacked were optical zoom and optical viewfinder. I felt the need for something better and more flexible, so bought a 6D and lenses for weekend shooting, and days when I plan to take photos. For event photos at a monthly meet I am involved in, nothing but the 6D and fast primes will do. The 6D supplements the OM-10 I bought second hand in 1988.

In 2014 I bought an iPhone 6, not for its camera, but it takes excellent photos if light is reasonable and zoom is not required. It is excellent within its limitations. I attach a test shot taken the day after purchase, especially taken with challenging contrast.