Has the phone camera killed the standalone camera?

A friend spent a couple of weeks travelling around Iceland last northern summer. As a keen photographer, he carted along a high-end mirrorless camera and lenses. Also his new iPhone.

Enraptured with the unearthly scenery, he pulled out his phone and started shooting, and didn’t stop. The mirrorless camera never left its case, and the images posted on social media from his phone are outrageously good. They’re crisp and clean, the greenery is vivid, skies are full of drama and the glacial ice sparkles on dark volcanic mountains, testimony to the breadth of the phone’s dynamic range.

The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra – now with a 200 megapixel camera. The days of the bulky camera and all its lenses may well be numbered.Credit: Bloomberg

The image sensors used in modern smartphones are now much larger than earlier models, which means a vastly better quality image. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has a 200 megapixel camera, which is phenomenal. That dwarfs the iPhone 14 Pro Max’s 48MP camera, but even that will produce 5 megabite jpeg images you could hang on your wall. If you shoot a lot of video, image stabilisation is a big plus and with a steady hand, the footage is almost as smooth as filming with a gimbal.

With an optical zoom, the lens in top-range phone cameras gives you superior resolution compared with a digital zoom. The same applies to a wide-angle lens, now standard on high-end smartphones. So too a macro feature. Use it with the zoom and you can get close enough to fill the entire frame with a rosebud.

Phone cameras have gone from strength to strength.Credit: iStock

Some phones give you a choice of shooting in RAW (unprocessed), and while RAW images look horrible straight out of the can, they capture all the detail in your image. With post-processing they can be polished into gems. However, since they preserve all the uncompressed data in the shot, RAW files are enormous, and they’re only practical if you’re prepared to spend time working on your images.

You can still get superior results with an SLR or mirrorless camera, but they’re complicated, they’re heavy and you need several expensive lenses. With images shot on a phone, straight away you’ve got a high-quality image, with instant enhancements available via any number of apps. I’m in Morocco right now, with a new iPhone. Also a mirrorless camera plus lenses, but I’m wondering if this might be its last hurrah.

Do you still use a stand-alone camera when travelling or do you rely only on your phone’s camera? Post your comments or vote below.