Comment by closetohome | Hacker News Reader

Comment by closetohome | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Alternative view from a very different kind of professional photographer -- I'm an in-house photographer who produces all of my company's marketing materials and product photography. I shoot mostly in a studio, and am using a 6D these days.

But my personal photo kit since 2010 has evolved from a pile of Nikon gear in a Pelican 1510 to a Lowepro shoulder bag, to a little body-and-two-lenses bag, to my current setup - which is an iPhone and a drone. And that setup covers about 98% of what I want to shoot.

Superwide? iPhone's got that. Panorama if I need wider. Stitching if I need even wider than that.

Nifty fifty? Got it. And Portrait Mode has gotten significantly better. Yay fake bokeh.

Underwater? I love that I can just stick my phone underwater and take photos. I had to carry a second Pelican case just for my old DSLR enclosure.

Telephoto? Ok so this is probably the biggest weakness. With a couple of exceptions where I got lucky, I've never been happy with the quality you get shooting through third party lenses or telescopes with a phone. But to paraphrase an old adage about how use a prime lens -- zoom with your drone!

I do agree that phone photos break down when you zoom in and pixel peep. They've got noise, artifacts, aberrations, all kinds of gross stuff. But you have to zoom to like 100% to see that, and the only person peeping pixels on my originals is me.

Edit: I also like that in questionable lighting conditions, my phone produces photos of a quality that would require multiple exposures and editing in photoshop to do with a regular camera.

Studio photography is a pretty different beast as you always have ideal conditions. I had a wedding outside last year on a cloudy night with only string lights lighting up the reception. I have flashes galore but just getting focus was difficult - I eventually had to turn on the modelling light on a strobe to be able to do my job at all. The ability to use flashes at all is a pretty big advantage of dedicated cameras. Video lighting equipment is great but it kills the ambiance in a lot of situations.

But yeah, absolutely. If you're viewing images on a phone (and most people are), phone cameras are just fine for most people most of the time and they have some distinct advantages, especially for the casual user. If you're going bigger than that the difference is pretty clear to me.

Wedding photography is like sports photography meets candid portrait session crossed with real estate photography, fine art, food shots, and cat wrangling. So you have my utmost respect for taking that beast on, and I'll grant that you need the best gear you can get, whatever that may be.

I think it's really a tradeoff for everyone's unique situation. You're being paid to show up in a setting you don't get to choose, and the client expects blow-it-up-for-grandma quality photos. So you're going to use the best possible gear you can, regardless of cost, weight, or bulk to compensate for the aspects you can't control.

As you say - being in a studio means strobes, which means I don't have much choice but to use a real camera. But when I do (ugh) social media content, or one of those ubiquitous photos of an employee hard at work for the background of the About Us page, I'll often switch to my phone because it gives me a comprehensive toolbox of photo and videography tools that are high enough quality for the intended destination.

And I'll also admit that whenever I do anything intended for print I shoot it in the studio with a DSLR and edit it down to the last pixel. Old habits die hard.

It certainly encompasses nearly everything, and thank you. To be honest I wish more people appreciated just how hard of a job it is, and the stress involved. It's a job where if you're not stressed out at least a little you're doing it wrong, and it can really wear on you.

The few times I've done product/food photography it's been nice. You can take your time, you don't have people to direct or kids that can cry... I envy you, at least a bit.

And I guess if the customer pays a lot, they don't want to see you show up with an iPhone doing snapshots of the wedding cake :-)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com