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Comment by johnvanommen | Hacker News Reader

I have a $600 DSLR that I bought at Costco on a whim, fifteen years ago. Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade. Camera phone lenses do alright when it's sunny outside, but DSLRs kill it when it comes to medium and low light.

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I have an entry level Nikon paired with their F1.4G 50mm lens. It takes staggeringly good portraits in any conditions.

DPReview was of course my primary source of information when choosing equipment. Sad indeed to see them shutter.

* https://www.nikonusa.com/en/nikon-products/product/camera-le...

And of course, the dslr looks perfect in perfect light too. You can do things that make your images even better with dslrs since you have access to the raw files and complete control over exposure. You can underexpose for a night scene to not blow up highlights and shoot at lower noise or at a shutter speed you can hand hold without blur (depends on your current focal length), then pull up the exposure only on the shadows where you aren't liable to notice much noise anyway. You can get that shot on a bright blue day that looks like what you eyes see with this technique, where you can see the blue sky and shadows under trees just fine, by exposing for the sky to not blow it out, and then pulling up the shadows. For any pro digital camera built in the last 15 years, you can pull a lot before the noise gets too unruly. A camera like an old 5dmk1 is still great at this, and its almost 20.

Trying to expose for the highlights is annoying on the iphone at least. It doesn't hold exposure lock that reliably, and the slider needs to be a lot more sensitive to actually let me quickly stop down the exposure. Usually I miss click since you have to swipe several times, and it resets the exposure. Then you are left with a jpeg that's compressed with some aggressive de noising applied probably missing most of the color depth too.

You can easily shoot RAW with manual control over exposure (and even focus) on an iPhone with Halide or other third party apps. Aperture is fixed, of course.

IMO if a third party app has to bring the feature its not really a part of the phone. Apps come and go. Plus apps like halide are paid so you could think of it as a tax to get to actually use some of the hardware you purchased.

That seems like a rather academic distinction. The cost of the app is minuscule compared to the cost of any of the camera hardware that you’re referring to.

The built in app does give you focus lock and manual exposure control (with auto ISO). Only a very small number of people would want the additional control that Halide offers, so it wouldn’t really make sense for Apple to add those features to the built in app.

Exposing for highlights doesn't work the same way on a phone since it's doing multiple captures and HDR merging.

(Well, it can if you use a third-party camera app.)

The only people who think Smartphone Cameras take better pictures than SLRs are not photographers.

It is not just low light, it is depth of field, exposure control, the minimization or absence of computed exposures.

I have an iPhone 13 Pro Max and only shot in RAW mode. That is the best I can do. Saving money fro a mirrorless camera so i can start shooting again.

> The only people who think Smartphone Cameras take better pictures than SLRs are not photographers.

Amateur photographer here, currently have a Canon 80D and a 20-year collection of medium-quality lenses. You're completely right. The photos that this thing takes are miles ahead of my iPhone 12 Pro; you just can't beat a sensor with big pixels and an aperture that's 10-100x (? I don't know the actual ratio) larger than a smartphone lens. But the one nuance is the old saying "the best camera in the world is the one you've got with you"; I have some beautiful shots from this camera, and the 20D before it, and the Rebel XT before it, but some of my absolute favourites were shot on a smartphone because it was in my pocket at the right time and the DSLR was at home in the bag.

The final output isn’t the only criteria either. The file may look good, but when you really know your SLR, you can compose and shoot much much faster with more options. Aperture, shutter speed, even ISO, and you can create art.

On a phone it’s all kinda pre-canned. And you have to paw at the stupid thing like a monkey.

You might have an equally sharp or whatever JPG, but it’s the difference between watercolor and crayons.

SLRs don't take "better" photos, they take more detailed photos. The best photo is the one you actually took because you had the camera on you and didn't miss the shot.

And if you want the most detailed photo, SLRs are not the highest quality cameras either when you could rent a Fujifilm GFX 100.

> SLRs don't take "better" photos, they take more detailed photos. The best photo is the one you actually took because you had the camera on you and didn't miss the shot.

At this point I want to go back to using a pocket camera. I can turn it on and take a picture without having to look at the screen. There's no automatic cloud uploads. I don't have to worry about someone logging metrics or scanning the pictures or AI doing weird things like filling in moon textures. I take picture. I get picture. That's it. I don't have to worry about cloud subscriptions or "ecosystems" (GAH!) or whatever. I stick the SD card in my computer and there's the fucking pictures. Done.

If you take a picture without looking at the screen I hope you checked the lens cap is off first.

Not to mention that almost all photo consumption happens on a phone as well.

Only when you open a phone photo on a big screen and compared to one taken by a real lens do you realize the big difference. Despite all the incredible technology in phone cameras, there is no substitute for proper optics.

> Once in a blue moon I look at my old photos and realize they just look night and day better than anything I've taken in the last decade.

Exactly. I can't identify at all with comments saying phone cameras are good. Convenient, yes I get it (although personally I keep my phone in my backpack so pulling it out takes only slightly less effort than pulling out the camera, only because the phone is smaller, but I realize most people keep their phone glued to their hand).

But even my 15+ year old DSLR (a low-end Nikon D40) takes better photos than my 2022 smartphone. I have large (4ft wide) cropped prints on the wall from that camera which have great quality, the <1yr old smartphone camera can't do that.

And my newer DSLRs are even better than that.

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