Phone vs. Camera: Which Is Better To Take Photos With?

Cameras are, of course, designed to take high-quality photos. And phone cameras have improved so much that they are a credible alternative to cameras. But which is better to take photos with? A digital camera or a phone? Is one better than the other? Or is there a place for both?

Most people have phones these days, and most phones have cameras built into them. So why would you need a camera? Well, there are differences, and I am going to tell you what they are.

In this episode, I tell you.

• The main differences between cameras and cameras in phones.
• Why you might be OK with your phone.
• And why you might benefit from getting a camera (and all the other stuff that goes with having a camera).
• About the taking photos bit.
• What I do.
• And why I do what I do.

All explained in plain English, without the irrelevant detail, in less than 27 (ish) minutes!

What is not to love? How utterly splendid.

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• 20:01 (Cont.) Phone vs. Camera: Which Is Better To Take Photos With?

Transcript

Phone vs. Camera: Which Is Better To Take Photos With? Hi, and a very warm welcome to Episode 181 of the Photography Explained podcast. I'm your host, Rick. In each episode, I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 27 minutes (ish) without the irrelevant details. I'm a professionally qualified photographer based in England with a lifetime of photographic experience, which I share with you in my podcast.

Here is the answery bit

Cameras are, of course, designed to take high-quality photos. And phone cameras have improved so much that they are a credible alternative to cameras. But which is better to take photos with? A digital camera or a phone? Is one better than the other? Or is there a place for both?

Here are a few things to think about.

Image quality

You can get higher-quality images with a camera than you can with a phone. There, I have said it right at the start. I might as well get this one out of the way now. For my photography, image quality is my priority. It is a long process, from taking a photo to issuing it to someone paying you money. And what is the important thing? The only important thing? The quality of the photos. Picture quality. That is what I am bothered about. What someone else is looking at.

So that is my starting point, the highest quality image capture. And consistent, high-quality image capture at that.

Sensor technology and size

Generally, the larger the sensor, the more data you capture, resulting in higher-quality images. Cameras, of course, have larger sensors than phones; of course, they do. But smartphone camera sensors are pretty amazing, too.

Computational photography can make the two virtually comparable. But do you want that? Do you want automated electronic enhancement or just high-quality image capture?

This is the fundamental question for me.

Resolution

My iPhone has a 48MP sensor, and my Canon 6D has a 20MP sensor. That does not mean that my phone gives me double the resolution. No, there is stuff happening in phones, meaning you cannot make that direct comparison. A camera will give you better resolution than a phone.

Long gone are the days when quality was all about more megapixels. See, there was a time when the pixel count was a thing, and the more, the better, but this has settled down. My high-quality pixels, which my Canon 6D creates, are good for me.

Size and weight

Obviously, a phone is much more convenient. It is smaller, lighter, and always with you. And cameras—well, yes, cameras are larger, heavier, bulkier, and less convenient. And the best camera is the one that you have with you.

But.

Handling

I do not like taking photos with my phone. But I love taking photos with my camera. This is one of the reasons I don't care about size and weight. I just don't. We use our phones for so many things these days that I love taking photos with my camera more than ever. It feels right, and I cannot take the photos I need with my phone.

It might surprise you that I am not a huge fan of smartphone photography—I just don't enjoy it as much as I do photography with my camera.

That is my reality.

Photos and videos

Phones can capture still photos, as we used to call them, and videos. Well, they are hardly still photos these days, are they? And cameras can, of course, capture videos.

I have taken well over 50,000 photos with my Canon 6D and one video—yes, one video. I have been making videos with my phone for years, and the video quality I get with my phone is extraordinary.

This will become a recurring theme in this episode.

Immediacy

Do you need your photos right away? I don't, and neither do my clients, so it's not an issue. I am not interested in sharing stuff on social media, but if you do, the phone is the right choice for you.

Do you want all the complicated stuff to be done for you when you create a photo?

A biggie. What involvement do you want to have in the creation of a photo? Are you happy that software determines how an image is captured and processed? Are you happy that the tech is digitally enhancing the content of your photos to give you the best results? Of course, this has been going on for years; every JPEG photo taken has been processed before you see it. This is processing beyond the creation of the digital file from the light reaching the sensor.

On a phone, this is done to another level; much more is done than with a JPEG image capture. This compensates for the phone's physical constraints; the size of the lens and the sensor are hugely reduced to fit into a phone.

And then there is artificial intelligence, definitely one for another time.

But do you want computational photography to take over your image creation?

Or, the less computational stuff, the better

Do you want to control the taking and processing of your photos? Do you want to choose the camera settings to get the image capture you want and then process the base data yourself? You know, aperture, shutter speed, focal length, depth of field, all that good stuff.

If you do, then a camera is your best option.

I use a specific technique to determine the range of lights and darks I capture in a photo, also known as the dynamic range.

I am not specifically talking about manual control using manual mode. I am talking about being completely aware of the camera settings that I am using when I take a photo. I want creative control of the photos I am creating.

Photography genres

Some genres are suited for phones, and others are not. Here are a few that sprang to my mind.

Street photography.

Isn't the phone the perfect tool for this? If you want to take photos out and about without people noticing, a phone is ideal, as everyone has one these days. And we folks who have cameras stand out even more these days!

Architectural photography

I have tried to take architectural photos with my phone, but I can't get the compositions I want. It doesn't matter how amazing my iPhone is; it is not as good as my Canon 6D for what I do.

Motorsport photography

The other extreme. Can you photograph motorsport with a phone? To a degree, yes. But you will get better photos with a camera.

There you go. I snook that one in.

Low light photography

Small sensors are not as good at capturing low-light scenes. Phones have been notoriously bad at this in the past, much less so these days, with technological advances. But the sensors are still so small, so other stuff is happening, which I don't want it to do. I want to use the camera settings and equipment that I have to get the highest-quality, authentic, low-light image captures.

Photography gear

Do you love photography gear? Some people do, some do not. This might be an issue if you have only ever taken photos with a phone. I do not have a lot of gear, and what I have, I am going to be completely honest with you, I love. Well, love might be a strong term.

My gear is my tools, the tools that I use to create photos. I could not be without each item. Every professional photographer has specific gear that they use for specific reasons.

But if you have a phone and look at people weighed down with all that gear and shake your head, I understand entirely. 

I know that camera bodies are bulky and that phones are not. And that phones have multiple lenses built in, which is much more convenient than interchangeable lenses. But the photography gear I have helps me to take the photos I take, and I cannot get these photos with my phone.

And I prefer an optical zoom with known quality over a digital zoom, which can go pear-shaped if you are not careful.

The taking photos bit

As good as my iPhone is, I don't like taking photos with it anywhere near as much as I do with my Canon 6D, and I do not see that changing. The experience is completely different and much more enjoyable with my camera and lens. DSLR cameras, and mirrorless cameras, or cameras, that would have done Rick, they have been designed to take photos with. And it shows!

It might just be me on that, but that is where I am.

Mobile phones have been designed to be all things to all people. So the comparison is hardly fair, is it?

Can you get photos that are good enough with a phone?

This is a very important question. I have written blog posts about good enough on my Rick McEvoy Photography website. If the photos you take with your camera phone are good enough for your needs, that's fine. If they are not good enough, then get a camera. It really is that simple.

So, ask yourself that question and answer it honestly.

The talky bit

This is one of those things that I could talk about for days on end. But none of us want that, do we? So, I am restricting myself to the first things that came to my head when I started to think about this, and one other thing.

How did you get into photography, and where do you want to go with your photography?

This will have a massive influence on your perception of phones and cameras. If you got into photography using your phone, that might be all you have ever known. And that is fine—of course it is. The proportion of people who get into photography using their phones is only going to increase.

There will come a time—we might have reached that point some time ago—when everyone first gets into photography with their phone. I am sure we are there now, thinking about it. I can't see many scenarios where someone gets into photography first with a camera and then with a phone.

That is the reality. If you are happy with the photos you get with your phone, then that's great. For many people, that will be the case. But if that is all you have ever known, you won't know what it is like to take photos with a camera, so you do not know what you are missing out on.

But if you want to get the most out of your photography, my advice is to move on from a phone and get a camera and lens. I know that there will be people who do not agree with me; I am fine with that.

But people who never progress beyond taking photos with phones do not know what they are missing out on.

And do you know what? I have made a massive change of plans and will cover that in the next episode.

What if I use my phone to take photos and not a camera?

I think I have covered this - move on, Rick!

Oh no, one thing. Comparing a phone in a camera to a camera is not fair. That's all.

What do I do?

I use a full-frame camera, a Canon DSLR, with a wide-angle lens for most of my photos of buildings. This is my primary camera. I also have a micro four-thirds Olympus camera and use wide-angle and telephoto lenses for my travel photography work.

I take all my photos in RAW and edit them in Lightroom.

I rarely edit photos taken with my phone.

I use my phone for day-to-day photos, snaps if you like, and photos recording general information like things that I see in a shop. My phone camera is my notebook for that kind of thing.

I take all my commercial photos with my camera, without exception. But I record all my videos on my phone. 

This is what I do, and I do not see this changing any time soon.

This is despite my owning an iPhone 15 Pro. It has a great camera but is not the same as taking photos with my 10-year-old Canon 6D.

So, what's the answer to the question, Rick?

I might add this to every episode. Well, why not?

Which is better to take photos? Phone or camera?

My camera is better for some photos, and my phone is better for others. So my answer is both, for different photos taken for different reasons. But a great camera does not guarantee great photos!

What is your answer?

Seamlessly, I will move on to my survey.

I have set up a survey on this subject. I would really appreciate it if you completed the survey, which will take 2 minutes of your time. Just head over to Photography Explained Podcast.com/survey2024.

I will pick up the survey results in a future episode, so thanks in anticipation for your assistance with this.

Some thoughts from the last episode

It was 38 minutes long—blimey. And the one before that was 46 minutes. I need to get back to 27 minutes.

Two things I wanted to pick up on. The first was viewfinders. If you take photos with a phone, you don't have a viewfinder. And I will cover this in the next episode.

The other thing was the camera shake on a tripod. If you lovingly secure your camera to a tripod but then clumsily stab the shutter button, you will probably get camera shake, even with your camera on a tripod, which is why I use the camera self-timer.

Just saying.

Next episode

Learn from your photos and other photographers. Well, that was what it was going to be, but I have changed that to something about "what you are missing out on if you use a phone instead of a camera". I could have covered it in this episode, but there is rather a lot that I want to say. The title is to be decided, but that is what episode 182 will be about. 

Ask me a question.

If you have a question you would like me to answer, email me at sales@rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk or head over to the podcast website photographyexplainedpodcast.com/start.

Check out the questions page, where there is a big old list of things you can choose from.

And if you just want to say hi, please do – I love hearing from my listeners.

Get an email from me.

If you would like to receive a weekly email from me where I tell you what I am thinking about, fill out the form on the podcast website, and every Friday, you will get a lovely email from me. 

OK - I am done.

This episode was brought to you by a homemade tuna sandwich washed down with water before I settled in my homemade, acoustically cushioned recording emporium. No crisps; I am back to being good.

I've been Rick McEvoy; thanks again very much for listening to my small but perfectly formed podcast (it says here) and for giving me 27 ish minutes of your valuable time. This episode will be about 25 minutes long after I have edited out the mistakes and other bad stuff.

I hope to see you on the next episode.

Take care and stay safe.

Cheers from me, Rick