How many professional sports photographers are there? I guess all those wedding photographers need to look the part with Canon's and Nikon's too. Is that enough to keep Canon and Nikon afloat?
The difference is astonishing - it's night and day. The world is filled with light and depth, colours are like bonfires shadows are like the pits of the deepest mine.
But then again I guess that's one data point! It may be that in fact phone cameras are great and I'm just deluded.
But... that kind of quality costs many thousands of dollars, and it's heavy enough to be a problem. You have to decide the weight is worth it before you head out the door for a day of lens aerobics.
The market for people who need/want to do that is tiny.
This makes me sad, because I love that look, and I hope it never disappears.
I don't think it will for a long time. There's still a market for film photography, if that's any indication.
I have an entry level Canon DSLR from 2007, 7MP, which takes far better photos than any smartphone I've ever used.
The reason is pretty simple, it has a 1 inch square area for its sensor, while the smartphone sensor is about the size of a small pinky nail (1cm squared or less?)
For any given period of time, the larger sensor can capture more light at once, either taking better exposed or faster shots, and having far more data in which to encode a digital images pixels.
It's certainly insanely impressive what modern hardware and software get out tiny sensors, but bigger sensors are still incomparably better -- AND can benefit from many of the same advances small sensors use.
It's kind of like car engines. It's always impressive when someone gets insane performance out of a tiny engine, but no one disputes that a big engine is going to be more powerful than a small one, especially when displacement is the only difference.
"The best camera is the one you have on you" has made those larger cameras lose out on smartphones more and more.
I had a Canon Rebel XT for years, but rarely used it because it was bulky. Great photos, but like you said, if you don't have it with you that doesn't do much good.
I picked up an Olympus PEN E-PL6 two years ago and with a standard prime, it fits in a jacket pocket or small bag. Doesn't fit in trouser pockets, but it's small enough to carry around on vacation without being a nuisance. And can still take an assortment of lenses (I regularly use a 9-18mm wide angle and a 17mm prime).
My wife uses a Canon S100, which is truly pocketable. And still produces a way better photo than a smartphone (although that gap is getting narrower by the year, especially in good conditions).
But, all that said, 80% of our photos are with the smartphones, because they're always with us.