Mobile photography is a contentious issue in the photography community. Some see it as a new medium in photography, while others think very little of it. I, for one, don’t think it matters what camera you use. What matters is the image you capture.
Despite what you might think about mobile cameras and smartphone photography, there’s no denying that in recent years, the cameras on our smartphones have become impressive imaging tools.
While smartphone cameras will never compete with DSLRs, it’s worth looking at some of the unique advantages of photography using smartphone cameras. We’ll also look at some of the disadvantages of mobile cameras and photography with a smartphone.
The Good
There are several good things about mobile cameras and taking photos with them that you wouldn’t necessarily find with traditional cameras.
To appreciate these you need to understand that this is not a comparison between DSLRs and smartphone cameras. There’s a separate article on that.
So, what’s the upside of smartphone cameras?
Always available
Smartphones and smartphone camera accessories are easy to carry around.
I think the biggest advantage of a smartphone camera is that you always have it with you. If you come across an unexpected moment you’d like to capture, you can just pull out your phone and take the shot. You don’t have to worry about always lugging around a heavy camera in anticipation of such moments.
And that’s another plus for mobile cameras. They’re lightweight and easy to carry around wherever you go without being a burden.
Having a camera constantly at your disposal is a huge advantage, especially when it comes to capturing spontaneous incidents.
Same time editing
Something unique to mobile photography is the fact that you can edit your photos on the go. With other digital cameras, you have to transfer your images to a computer first before you can edit them.
With smartphones, you can launch your favourite photo editing app and make whatever adjustments you want immediately after taking the photo.
Not only that, but also you can share your pictures immediately with friends and family wirelessly, via messaging, or on social media. No other type of consumer camera has this sort of all-in-one convenience.
Automatic backup
As someone who has lost a camera with all their holiday pictures in it, I know the importance of backing up your photos. This is where smartphone cameras win extra points. You can set your phone to automatically sync your mobile images with your cloud account.
This way, every time you take a photo, not only will your photo be saved on your phone, but it will also be saved in the cloud. So, you can access your photos from anywhere, even if you lose your smartphone.
Sure, you can upload wirelessly to the cloud on some digital cameras with Wi-Fi or a Wi-Fi-enabled SD card. But you need to be in a Wi-Fi zone to do so. With smartphones, as long as you have enough mobile data, you don’t need a hotspot to upload your pictures to the cloud.
Quick and easy to use
Smartphone cameras are the easiest of all cameras to use, even a baby can figure it out (yes, I’ve seen babies take selfies). At its most basic, there’s nothing more to taking photos with a phone than opening an app and tapping a button. There’s nothing else to try to tamper with, attach, or fiddle with.
It doesn’t get simpler than that.
Of course, if you want to take good pictures with your phone, you’ll realise that there’s more to mobile photography than just opening the app and pressing the shutter button.
As great as it is to shoot in the default Auto mode, it’s worth learning how to use Manual mode. And for a few good reasons. One of which is that it can greatly improve the visual quality and tone of your images.
Computational capabilities
Smartphone cameras would be nowhere if it wasn’t for the technology behind computational photography. It is thanks to computational photography that smartphone cameras are able to achieve what they can today.
Computational photography refers how a mobile camera uses software algorithms to create images it would otherwise not be able to physically because of its inherent photographic limitations.
In the past, the most a mobile camera could do with computational photography was stitching together several photos for a panoramic shot. Now, smartphone cameras can calculate the dynamic range for HDR photography.
An underexposed photo is combined with an overexposed photo using camera software to create a high dynamic range (HDR) image. Source: bonusprint.co.uk
Shooting at night with a smartphone used to be such a nightmare because of how dark and grainy photos would look because of the lack of adequate lighting. Now we have a night mode, thanks to computational photography.
What mobile cameras lack in size and hardware, they make up for in software capabilities and algorithms. It’s not perfect, but it keeps getting better.
Good intro to photography
If you’re curious about pursuing a career in photography or adopting it as a hobby that generates a bit of extra side income, smartphone photography is a good place to start. You can even make money with your mobile photos.
For starters, it’s an inexpensive way to get yourself acquainted with photography. Before you splash out on an expensive camera, you can use the camera that’s on your phone to learn the principles of photography and what’s required to take good photos.
It’s pretty much like learning to drive in a Toyota before buying a Ferrari.
And even if you don’t intend to be a serious photographer, the tool in your pocket could be quite powerful. It’d be a shame if you never use it to its full potential.
The Bad
As much as there are benefits to smartphone cameras and taking photos using them, it’s not all sunshine and roses in this camp. There are some drawbacks to mobile cameras.
Interestingly, most of the downsides of mobile cameras and smartphone photography all boil down to picture quality.
The price
For starters, as much as there are affordable phones with decent cameras, the reality is if you want a phone with a top-quality camera, you’ll have to pay top dollar. On the other hand, the cheaper the phone, the less likely you are to have amazing picture quality.
A camera is indeed only as good as the person using it, and I stand by that 100%. But no matter how much thought and craft you put into the images you capture, if they’re dark and noisy because of the quality of the camera, they won’t look good. An axe is an axe, but you can’t chop a tree with a blunt axe.
I guess it’s just the same story with any other camera. In a lot of cases, the higher the price, the better the quality. The difference with phones is that they perform other functions as well.
So, it's possible that a phone could be expensive because of bells and whistles that have very little to do with the camera.
Therefore, instead of buying an expensive phone assuming it has the best camera, check the specs and get a phone that has the specifications you want.
Lacks professionalism
If you’re considering starting a photography business, doing so with a smartphone might not be such a good idea.
If you’re hired and paid to photograph an event such as a wedding, for example, chances are your clients will expect you to show up with professional photographic equipment and not a phone.
No matter how great the camera on your phone is, people will not take you seriously if you and your gear don’t look like you mean business. And unfortunately, smartphones cameras don’t look the part.
But it’s not just about looks, it’s also about function and ability. Mobile cameras are more limited compared to DSLR cameras. So, unless you’re using your own mobile photos to make money, it’s best you use a camera that has more features and functions to satisfy your clients’ needs.
Size
Smartphone cameras are very tiny in size compared to other consumer cameras.
Just like with the price of mobile cameras, their size is both a blessing and a curse. After all, it’s because of their small size that mobile cameras lag behind DSLR and mirrorless cameras.
In fact, most of the challenges of smartphone photography boil down to size. For example, part of the reason smartphone cameras struggle so much with shooting in low light is because of how small the sensor is.
And because the sensor is so small, the pixels that capture light to create an image are also small. As a result, they don’t get to capture as much light as a camera with a bigger sensor and bigger pixels. This is why lighting is a big deal in mobile photography.
The biggest thing that the size of smartphone cameras has an impact on is image quality. True, the picture quality of mobile pictures has greatly improved over the years. But it’s because of their size limitations that it has taken them so long.
Non-ergonomic shape
Smartphones are not designed for photography and can be tricky to hold securely.
With the size issue of smartphone cameras comes another problem-- the camera’s ergonomics. Unlike with dedicated cameras that are designed to be held tightly in the grips of your hands as you take photos, smartphones are not designed with photography as their main function and priority.
A lot of times when taking photos with their phones, a lot of people hold their phone between the tips of their fingers, as pictured above.
This is not the most secure way to hold a phone. One slip and your phone could fall to the ground and suffer some serious damage.
RECOMMENDATION
If the ergonomics of a smartphone don’t work well for you when taking photos, there are some handgrips you can use that allow you to hold your phone almost like a standard digital camera.
My favourite is the Adonit Photogrip Qi. It has a comfortable ergonomic non-slip grip and can fit a wide variety of smartphones.
It also comes with other goodies such as an attachable mini tripod. What’s more, it offers wireless charging for some compatible devices.
Limited control
As amazing as smartphone cameras are, there’s a limit to what they can do. One of the areas where this limit is apparent is in the manual controls. Sure, there’s a lot you can control when using manual mode, but there’s more you could do.
For example, smartphone cameras have a fixed aperture. So, you can’t manually adjust it to control exposure. And because aperture affects depth-of-field, you can’t control it on a small phone camera as you would on a large one.
The Ugly
As we’ve seen, there are some good things to be said about smartphone cameras and mobile photography as well as there are some negative points to it.
Some aspects of mobile cameras, however, are to be avoided as much as possible as they may turn your mobile photos ugly.
Digital zoom
One of the things that has set smartphone cameras and other digital cameras apart for the longest time is the issue of zoom. Dedicated cameras with bigger lenses are capable of zooming in and out optically, which retains picture quality by enlarging the images using lenses.
Mobile cameras, on the other hand, use a digital zoom. This is an inferior form of zoom that digitally crops the image and then enlarges it to fill the frame. This method heavily degrades the quality of the picture the further you zoom in.
Example of how digital zoom affects a photo compared to optical zoom.
If you want to take good photos with your phone, you need to avoid using the zoom on your phone. Rather get closer to the subject if possible.
Some phones these days have cameras with optical zoom lenses that produce images that look pretty good. This zoom is usually very limited and so most cameras introduce digital zoom on top of the optical zoom (hybrid zoom) to magnify the image even more. The results aren’t always impressive at all.
Flash
It’s no secret that phone cameras don’t perform so well in low lighting. For this reason, it can be quite tempting to want to switch the flash on your mobile camera on when taking photos in a dark environment. However, this is not always a good idea.
In professional flash photography, the images come out looking fantastic and well-crafted because the flash lamps can be positioned wherever needed and their intensity can be adjusted as desired. Smartphone camera flash does not have that luxury.
The only control you can get over a phone camera flash is whether it’s enabled, disabled, or set to auto. You can’t adjust the natively low intensity nor the positioning. As a result, the frontal low energy flash washes out the subjects in the foreground and keeps the background dark.
An alternative to the on-board mobile camera flash is a wireless external flash unit specifically for smartphones. A very good example of one is the Profoto C1 Plus smartphone flash. Watch it in action here.
There are several other ways to brighten up pictures in low light besides using the flash. You can read about them here.
Lens damage
A damaged mobile camera lens can lead to poor quality photos.
Of all the consumer cameras, the smartphone camera is the one camera that has the greatest chance of getting a cracked lens. This is due to the amount of use and abuse that smartphones go through on a daily basis.
Traditional cameras are only used when needed and are handled with care. When not in use, they’re put away somewhere safe, probably in a protective camera bag. Smartphones are placed in pockets and handbags, where they may come in contact with sharp and abrasive objects.
Not only that, but some people also tend to drop their phones a lot. This can cause damage, not only to the lens glass itself but also to the internal mechanisms that control the lenses when focusing or zooming in and out.
A damaged lens can lead to blurry pictures, especially if the damage is a crack to the protective glass in front of the lens. This is a serious issue that can lead to bigger problems if not taken care of.
The best thing is to get a phone cover that not only protects the phone against falls but also the camera. You also need to make sure you take good care of your smartphone because there’s only so much a phone case can do.
Bad users
This point is not so much about a feature or function on a smartphone camera potentially ruining a photo, but rather about the user themself.
A camera, no matter which type, is only a tool. Therefore, it’s only as good as the person using it. A smartphone camera may be limited in functionality and inferior in quality compared to a DSLR, but that doesn’t make it a bad camera.
The thing about professional photography is that it can be cumbersome and it requires expensive equipment, so not everybody can do it. People who pursue it are serious and skilled. And because they are skilled, they’re able to capture stunning images.
On the other hand, mobile photography is a free-for-all. Trillions of photos are taken in a year, thanks to smartphone cameras. Everyone has a camera but very few have the skills to take great photos.
As a result, people don’t take mobile photography seriously. It’s just another one of those things for the masses.
A sea full of bad photographers has given smartphone photography a bad rep. But mobile photography is more than just snapping selfies and random photos. It’s an art form that can be taken seriously. In fact, there are some ways in which you can use your mobile photos to make money online.
Conclusion
Let’s do a quick recap of the points above:
| The Good | The Bad | The Ugly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Always available | Good mobile cameras are attached to expensive phones |
Digital zoom degrades photos |
| 2 | Same time editing | Lacks professionalism | Flash is inadequate and washes out images |
| 3 | Automatic backup | Size | Lens can get damaged easily |
| 4 | Quick and easy to use | Non-ergonomic shape | Bad users |
| 5 | Computational capabilities | Limited control | |
| 6 | Great intro to photography |
An interesting observation is that the positives of smartphone cameras and mobile photography are leaning more towards convenience than factors that influence picture quality. The ugly part of it comes as the result of chasing convenience.
But these are the things that make mobile photography special. It’s the challenge of creating stunning images using a limited tool. It takes a lot of skill and knowledge to pull that off.
To get your mobile photography to the point where you can sell your smartphone photos online for cash, you need to first know your camera’s specs and understand how it works. From there, the onus is on you to learn how to get the most of your smartphone camera so that you can take amazing photos.
That’s why I’ve put together a simple introductory guide that will help you take beautiful mobile photos that could be good enough for you to print and display in your home or share with family.
If you want to learn about how to improve your smartphone photography, download the 5 Ways To Improve Your Smartphone Photography ebook by clicking on the banner above or by clicking here. There’s a lot to learn in its 22 pages of content and it’s ABSOLUTELY FREE!!!
Otherwise, for some quick tips on how to capture great photos with your phone, check out these 15 Tips on How To Take Amazing Photos With Your Phone.