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A response to Alex Alex Schroeder’s post “The Smartphone Camera”
I personally love my “real” cameras, but maybe it's because I often shoot on film, so carrying around a digital camera occasionally isn't much different. Plus most of the pictures I take are wildlife and birds, so I like being able to really zoom in so you can actually see them (and even then I usually end up having to crop a lot to get a reasonable zoom).
However, I think the main appeal of an SLR/DLSR has for landscapes, portraits, etc. is the total control one has over the picture. I like to shoot on manual all the time, and most smartphones don't let you even adjust something like aperture (most phone cameras are fixed-aperture) or shutter speed & iso (even though phone cameras support manually setting it).
On being too shaky when zoomed in:
I never carry a tripod around, but I can 100% recommend getting a lens with vibration reduction if you have issues when zoomed in. I have a 55–200mm kit lens that came with some camera I bought six or seven years ago, and the vibration reduction on it is amazing, far better than the VR often in smartphone cameras nowadays. Also, having a relatively recent camera with good AF-C motion tracking is really helpful for flying birds and such. I usually hate saying “just buy better equipment,” but VR lenses in particular are pretty cheap for a low-end lens and are worth the investment IMO.
Of course, all of those recommendatsions are moot on my 40 year old film equipment, so my only tip there is to just get really quick at manual focus and shoot at high shutter speeds :P
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