Photography

I moved from mirrorless to smart phone 3 years ago. It made the reviewing of machines much easier, and did photo and video with ease. Much longer battery life as well.

Ah ok.

What a pain in the a*se. Never fun dealing with people messing around with sales.

Doram

In terms of lenses though. With a camera if you put a 50, or 85mm lens on and shoot a portrait at 1.2 or something from a distance, and shoot the same shot with a smartphone, there’ll be no focal point on the phone, it’ll just all be in focus. It might be sharp, well rendered colour etc, but the camera will have beautiful depth of field (blurring the foreground and background) and far more actual sharpness.

I know there’s ‘portrait mode’ etc these days where software attempts to blur the background but it’s not really the same.

I don’t disagree that phone cameras are incredibly good though, and for 99% of people do a brilliant job as an all-round, carry everywhere camera.

Cuprajake Doram what phone

Pixel 6a.

Doram - That’s the phone I have. Switched from a 6.5 year old iPhone (iPhone 6s) which was essentially asking me to retire it. The Pixel 6a camera is great. (I can see a trend of number 6 here….)

Disclaimer: haven’t got a clue about photos, but all my friends say the camera is amazing and ask me to take photos with my phone instead of their fancy phones! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Doram The point I’m trying to make is that for a long time I refused to believe that phone companies could compete with photographic giants such as Nikon, Canon et al. in the photography arena. Given their experience, their history, their optics, the physical available size and the prices of their products, I was convinced that anything a phone can do, they can do much better. I couldn’t fathom the idea that a phone could compete with any of that.

I completely agree with this. With their tiny optics and sensor, what phones can do is incredible.

Ernie1 I’m a longtime iPhone user (mainly just because I use 2 Macs/iPad for home/work and the connectivity between them all is seamless)

Same here. I have everything Apple, at work and at home. But, as Jake says… “I have an itch to scratch” and went for the Pixel 6a, not only for the great price, but also to check out on the Android OS as I haven’t used it for a very long time.

The phone is great, and, in all honesty, for me, it has everything you could possibly wish for and need. And it’s £300 rather than £700+. But you are right: The Ecosystem plays a big part in it, and I do miss the iOS ecosystem and how seemliness the integration is not only with your own devices (file transfer, photos, find my device, text messages, key chain, apple pay), but also with your family devices, out of the box, without having to install any 3rd party or extra apps.

Exactly. And it’s only gotten better over the years.

Copy on phone, paste on Mac. That thing where you can be browsing the web on your phone and then carry on the session on the same page on the laptop etc

Also display sharing and I find AirPlay for things like Sonos and the TV is great too.

But yeah, camera, not so much.

Photography has long (and Imean, 50-ish years) been a hobby of mine, and I agree that what you can get from a modern phone is quite astonishing …. in most circumstances. And, it’ll do for most people, most of the time. But there comes a limit. One is macro, another is very long telephotos, a third would be very low light situations, and all three of those, and others, start to show their limits with large sized prints. Of course, that assumes you have a large-sized printer and if you do, you’re an enthusiast or a business already. ;)

As for software, I used PS since about v3 back in the ’80s and no, not pirate versions. I moved from Micrografx Picture Publisher. I wasn’t a photographer as such, but did use it in my business. But I draw the line in the sand, absolutely adamantly, at subscription software. If it was still a business expense …. maybe. But it ain’t. And I might use it intensively for a few days or a week, then not touch it for several months. Subscription? “Bleep”, no.

So I hunted around. Yes, there are free options, including GIMP, and Darktable. At this point, I think we get into the realms of how experienced a user is, how much they’ll use it, and how much of a learning curve they want. That said, PS itself was never exactly learner grade either. Ultimately, for me, it came down to what “clicked” with me. What was powerful enough, and yet, easy enough. It just wasn’t free.

I ended up with Affinity/Serif’s Affinity Photo for an editor, and ACDSee Ultimate, as a Lightroom-type “manager”. Not hugely expensive, perpetual licence (sort-of, with ACDSee) and (IMHO) extremely good, but not super cheap either. A LOT less than PS though.

I think it’s a very subjective choice. Those two, for me, hit the right blend of powerful enough while being easy enough to use. I do know some pro photographers that agree, and dumped Photoshop/Lightroom for them but, be prepared to adapt your workflow. They won’t do everything PS will, especially in a commercial print enviroment, but certainly do everything I need as a hobbyist photo nut.

Would I recommend them? Up to a point. It depends what you need and, also up to a point, whether the UI clicks with you, too. It did with me, and as a one-off (sort-of) I can stomach the price. Will it suit you? All I can say is, if the price isn’t a barrier, then they are both work a good, hard look, for a pixel-peeper/editor, and for a photo management/development tool. From there, you mileage may vary, to mine.