Camera Obsessions

[Twotems]

I was at a party the other day and took pictures of people dancing, drinking and being silly. They were spontaneous photos I took on my phone. To me that's what phone cameras are for. What's the hard on for all these super-duper camera options? Who the f*ck has the time to set it up or have the subjects hold still for the perfect shot? Camera quality is waaayy down on my list when looking for a new phone. A decent camera is sufficient for me.

Am I alone on this?

[cookiedough]

The thing is, on inexpensive Chinese mobiles, they're often below par.

With Facebook and instant sharing, quality acceptance has come way down, and you're right, usually good enough is good enough. Enough to show what's happening and save the moment.

Now cameras in middle priced phones are actually quite good. A lot of people won't know between a decent camera in a phone and a "real" camera, especially because they're looking at such tiny sizes on Facebook and that sort.

What settings do you mean? I rarely adjust mine.

[Ninja^F.U.B.A.R.]

Part of the problem is that people just don't know what they're talking about.

Usually the great images we see are processed to hell. Even the ones from expensive DSLR. Almost never will you see a real photographer put up pictures straight from their camera. They're usually going through extensive processing, and usually through several apps before the final product comes out. So people are comparing these to they're cell phone pictures and being over critical.... It really depends who you are, but there is a wide difference in quality at the lower end of phones ($40-250).... This is part of the reason for caring so much about camera.

[Twotems]

I'm referring to two similarly priced mid to upper midrange phones where people start going off on RAW (whatever that is) and all sorts of features as if they're professional photographers.

[cookiedough]

I'm referring to two similarly priced mid to upper midrange phones where people start going off on RAW (whatever that is) and all sorts of features as if they're professional photographers.

It's just one more feature to hype up. This one has RAW and that one doesn't. Okay, I'll get this one. Same as the megapixel war. When do you need 21, or 16, or 13 MP? Pretty much never unless you're printing posters. Okay, or often doing big crops.

RAW is the raw sensor data. Unedited by a jpg engine. It leaves more room for tweaking photos. It can be especially helpful with increasing dynamic range ("pulling shadows" or/and "recovering highlights"). On these puny sensors, not sure how much is recoverable.

I certainly wouldn't waste my time with raw. Jpg is good enough and there's many people who argue that jpg is good enough even for expensive stand alone cameras... Depending on use.

If one is a pro, might be a different story, okay it's necessary to shoot RAW to make sure you leave the files with as much malleability as possible.

[Twotems]

So I guess we're pretty much all in agreement on this one?

The debate came up in a comparison between the OP3 and Axon 7. For me the Axon 7 is a better overall package than the OP3 with an sd slot, speakers and solid US Warranty. I also prefer the styling as it looks nothing like any htc, apple or samsung which has become too common from manufacturers. Then the OP3 supporters brought up the cameras and their infinitesimal difference, spouting all sorts of irrelevant jargon.

[cookiedough]

Right. For a geek or cameraphile, camera specs can be heady stuff. Some people may equally scoff at caring about style. You know, each person has different things important to them.

To the point of the thread.., if you took a picture in good light from any decent sensor phone, no one will know the difference. Even if compared to an expensive dslr (depends on picture of course, for subject separation, the dslr will slam them).

It also could be argued that even when editing a RAW, vs editing a jpg very few people, if any, will notice a difference.