Apple's iPhone 15 and 15 Pro: Imaging tech examined

That particular question will always revolve around: “for what purpose?”

If it’s for the sake of just taking good photos as a memory? Yes. There’s been a huge reduction in people buying point and shoots , or even low end cameras for vacations or lower end special events.

If it’s for the sake of more important special events or control, then no. They’re aimed at very different market segments. When it comes to mirrorless (DSLR is almost dead) there’s very little capability difference between low and high end today. The market is just: “what can you afford and what niceties do you want”. But the people who will buy one will likely want immediate physical control that a phone cannot offer.

So imho it’s less about the low end of the camera products and more about the low end of the customer needs.

Absolutely not, it's an ergonomics question and a need for non computationally mangled imaging like apple engineers think looks good.

Hell no. The limitations of this sensor/optics size (regardless of fancy periscope tech) is apparent given how overreliant Apple has gotten on their DSP/image processing to produce 'better' images.

I've actually been more and more dissatisfied with the results from iPhones over the years; their sensors have had the same limitations with dynamic range and low-light ability for years but try to make up for it with fancy signal processing. It (mostly) works well when you look at these images on a small 6 inch screen, but blow them up to even a moderate sized computer monitor and they look pretty abysmal compared to even a basic entry-level mirrorless camera or DSLR.

The latter two have much less intrusive noise reduction and produce a far better looking honest, unprocessed image than any phone camera could. Shooting in RAW on an iPhone is proof of this; the raw sensor output is much, much noisier than a low-end DSLR in anything but peak noon outdoor lighting conditions.

That's not getting into many of the other benefits of dedicated cameras, like much more granular control over colors, WB, exposure, aperture, shutter speed, filters, true control over depth of field, more lens choices, etc, that are aided by the superior ergonomics. Cell phones have completely replaced point-and-shoots but large-sensor cameras and film cameras still blow the pants off of even the most sophisticated mobile cameras in terms of detail and versatility. The question is whether you have a use-case which calls for the greater expense and size of a camera like that.

It already has, if by low end professional you mean low end dslrs in general. The low end of dslrs was largely a way to get good quality images for your typical non professional person. Tourist, enthusiast, etc. Nowadays, why bother? Good phone cameras have been plenty good for many years, and much more portable.

I don't think they'll likely ever replace professional gear, since any tech in phones can easily be applied to cameras on a larger scale... it just eats into the market more and more until professional is the only market left.

In terms of sales the low end camera market is already dead and has been for years. In terms of image quality current smartphone cameras do not compare at all. Even a 1" sensor point and shoot or low end micro four thirds mirrorless camera won't fall apart in terms of quality nearly as fast as a smartphone camera will in bad situations and doesn't need severe computational photography/AI smear processing to make decent looking photos.