Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Which Is Better, Smartphones Or Digital Cameras?

By Mike Thompson


When smartphones first arrived on the market, it caused a huge stir in the digital camera market and for those with digital cameras. Among the most famous photo sharing websites, Flickr has released results of their members camera preferences. It has shown that its members prefer the Apple iPhone 4S, the Apple iPhone 5 followed by the Apple iPhone 4.

Although it seems as if smartphones have replaced the need to ever need a digital camera, there are many reasons why people are still buying them. The very first and obvious factor is image quality. A low-light photo test against the Apple iPhone 5, the Samsung Galaxy S4 and the Canon Powershot G15 shows that the digital camera is the clear winner.

In contrast to a smartphone, you will be able to shoot crisp and clear photos from a longer distance away with a digital camera because of the extra zoom. Other advantages of the digital camera are better subject tracking, metering and white balance. It is even possible to crop a photo at 300 per cent its original size and post that online on sites like Facebook and Instagram since the quality is simply that good. For a smartphone, this is completely out of the question.

You also have to take into account of the fact that your smartphone is still really just a phone that happens to be fairly versatile and that taking lots of photos can be a cause of a massive battery drain. You definitely don't want to be struggling to be making a phone call or a text message later on because of this.

In fact, the camera giants have stepped up their game as well in response to the rising smartphone market. There is a new breed of so called 'smart cameras' that incorporate the ability to wirelessly share photos from your digital camera to online social networks.

For example, Canon has released their newer digital camera called the Powershot N. This very small compact digital camera looks more like a smartphone but shoots like a digital camera and it also has Instagram-like filters as well as built-in Wi-Fi to allow you to share your photos online.

Compact digital cameras in general are becoming more and more powerful as even these kinds of cameras have quality that can rival the more sophisticated DSLR range of their own respectively brands. The latest Nikon Coolpix A has the same 16.1 megapixel sensor as the Nikon D7100 DSLR and has the same image processor as the older Nikon D7000.

All in all, smartphones shouldn't be totally disregarded as a viable camera alternative. It really comes down to shooting preferences. Are you someone who would ever shoot photos for the sake of social sharing? Then smartphones are your best bet. Are you someone who would like near-perfect shots everytime regardless of lighting conditions? Then using a digital camera is more suitable for you.

To not belittle the usefulness of both of these types of cameras, you should think of smartphones as a complement to digital cameras, instead of them replacing digital cameras.




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