Hello, how the hell are you? If this is your first time here, thanks for stopping by. I know it’s been a long time since I wrote a blog. I have not had a lot to say because I have been in a dark place photographically speaking, that is. I lost my way and I had to make a change. I had to find myself with a camera and how to use one again. I was using the cameras that I had the wrong way. I was stuck up and snubbed my nose at those of you that were shooting with a cellphone.
A Camera Defined
A camera is a box that gathers light to make a photograph. That is it; the medium that the box is made doesn’t matter. The way that you use it to capture an image is what matters. The camera is also a tool that we use to gather the light and make art. That word right there “ART” means that it is subjective and that allows assholes like me to snub our noses at those that use what we consider inferior tools. Well, a hammer is a hammer no matter which way you look at it. That tool is designed to hammer nails into wood, right? Well, a smartphone with a camera is actually a better tool for capturing light because it offers you more than just a box to collect light.
Is a Smartphone a “real” camera?
Yes, it is designed to capture light and take images. The way that a smartphone does this in 2026 is that it uses the processor on board to take several images and stack them together to give you as much or more dynamic range than modern DSLRs or mirrorless cameras. They have also designed the sensors to be slightly larger than a few years ago, but they use a pixel bin or pixel shift to make the images’ resolution bigger. This means we can print those images larger. This also means that it is better in low light due to the reduction of those pixels from 48 to 12, allowing the smaller sensor to see in the dark just like the full-frame cameras.
Can you take great images with a “SmartPhone”
Yes, the smartphone is just a tool to capture light. The smartphone has one huge advantage over the traditional cameras. It teaches you how to see the photos better. It teaches you to rely on the light to compose better images. It teaches you how to compose those images better. It teaches you to be a better photographer all the way around. The value that you get with a modern smartphone is the fact that it comes stock with three lenses. An ultra wide lens, a standard lens, and the telephoto lens. Then it will crop those 48Mp images down in camera to give you even more focal lengths. This is its superpower that gives it better value. Then after you take those images, you can edit them on the same device.
The true superpower of the “SmartPhone”
The smartphone is a computer, no way around it at all. The processors in the smartphones are running laptops nowadays, so why in the world are they not good enough to be a main camera? They offer you the ability to take the photo, edit the photo, and then post the photo to social media. They are truly the all-in-one device a photographer needs today. By using just a smartphone, you are a better photographer right off the rip.
Today’s kids will be tomorrow’s photographers.
The modern smartphone is the tool that kids today are learning how to do photography on. They are the first camera that they will get and use for a very long time. Most will not even care about photography, but you will have those like you and me that love the art of it. They will want to learn as much as they can. They will not even pick up a traditional camera for many years. The smartphones today are so good that you can take a long exposure image in the middle of the day without even needing an ND filter on it at all. The computer in the smartphone will stack hundreds of images and average them out to show the movement in the image. This is something that you used to have to be a Photoshop expert in order to get that done. The computer that would power that had to have a lot of RAM and a large enough HDD to hold all those images. The iPhone has an app called Reexpose that does all that for you.
The art of a smartphone
This is where all the above really takes form for an image today. The smartphone gets out of your way for settings. It allows you to be free and see the light. It takes all the fuss of knowing how to post-process an image, and it does most of the work for you. The smartphone gives you the ability to just see the light and compose that light for better images. The smartphone is the better tool for capturing the light and gives you the control of what matters more in art. The composition is the king of art, no matter the genre you are using composition; it is the king of art. The way that you choose to compose an image says more about being a photographer than the tool that you are using. The smartphone handles all the technical aspects and gives you the most control on the comp.
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