“For better cameras” like… I don’t see it. Back in the mid 2010s and late 2010s before the bump trend iPhone, Google and Samsung had the best phone cameras, and both were flat and with decent digital zoom and stability (for a phone). If you look at the photo samples for back then and compare it with now the difference is almost imperceptible.
That ugly bump makes big phones even harder to use and weight more now, plus if you’re one of those who never liked using a cover now I bet you’re forced to use one because of the added vulnerability of the bump.
Edit mid 2010s to late 2010s (until the camera bump appears around 2018)
No way, your premise is wrong. Photos from a 2024 phone are MASSIVELY better than a photo from phones that came before a camera bump existed. The last iPhone that didn’t have a bump was the iPhone 6.
EDIT
Actually it was the iPhone 5s
I am annoyed by most phone trends of the past decade, but… yeah, if you go back to a 2014 phone today there is some readjustment between what you remember phone photo and video looking like versus what they actually look like. That was the Galaxy S5 year. That thing had a single camera you would consider unacceptable as your selfie shooter today.
EDIT: This thread made me go look up reviews, and man, yeah, I remember every single indoors photo on my own S5 looking just like this. What a blast of nostalgia. I didn’t realize there is a digital equivalent to 80s pictures having gone all sepia and magenta-y, but here it is.
That looks like a really low light scenario but the cameras are undoubtedly better now regardless
That’s one of the two reasons for a camera bump- a larger aperture improves low-light photography as well as provides the option of shallow depth-of-field. The other reason is a larger sensor for higher resolution and improved digital zoom.
Yep. That sample above is from a review, but digging into my own archived photos at the time it’s crazy to see how much blur picutres taken from moving vehicles have, even in direct daylyght, and how grainy indoors images are, even when well lit. That thing was genuinely just opening itself up for a while and hoping for the best.
Sounds like my dating strategy…
Seriously, had a lumia 1020, for the time its photos were fantastic, especially compared to the 4s work issued me, was never really against a camera bump tbh but it totally sold me on the idea.
Have a pixel these days and seriously impressed with what smart phone photos can look like these days, found my Sony Eriksson slide from 2006ish the other day had a memory stick in it, the photos are worse than webcam photos, really rough.
Also I wasn’t talking about phones that old, a more fair pick would be a phone from 2017 (still bump less but with great camera)
I’m talking about more like mid 2010s late 2010s
I bought a Canon T2i in 2010. 19MP, APS-C sensor. Had it fitted with a $1200 17-55 F/2.8 IS lens. Used to bring it to family Christmas every year for the group photo until around 2016. My cousin handed me her phone to get the family on it as well.
Between improvements in sensor technology, whatever post processing was happening at the time, and the lenses on the iPhone, it blew my camera away.
It’s actually pretty hard to find a midrange camera now because phones are so good. I switched to a dumb phone last year. Best pocketable camera I could find to complement it that wasn’t a toy was the Ricoh GRIII which came out in 2019. Got a 4K camcorder. Best I could do was a Sony AX700 from 2018.
You might find the OM5 to be a good option if you still want a “real” camera that’s not point and shoot and still really small. With a pancake lense and big pockets it should be pocketable. I got a used EM5 which is the old version of a very similar body and with the pancake lense it feels like a point and shoot with good ergonomics and lots of manual control options.
I think Lumix has some options as well.
Yeah way too big for my purposes. I needed a camera that’s with me literally all the time (as much as a phone would be).
He GRIII doesn’t have interchangeable lenses, but it’s still a 24MP APS-C with an f/2.8 prime. I’d argue it’s as “real” a camera as any other.
Any decent camera with an m4/3 or better sensor and a half decent lens will blow the best smartphones out of the water. Computational photography can’t beat physics.
Edit: in good light they can get close, but the differences show up quickly in low light, if you crop, or if you look at it on anything bigger than a phone.
I mean computational photography is exactly how you beat physics. And it’s shockingly good.
https://youtu.be/3EFW_dAX9lQ?si=LvaoeAG6h9HQoKc4
Highly recommend this guy’s videos on the matter. Can’t find a good comparison at very low light, but even dusk conditions are fine for a new iPhone.
I haven’t had a chance to watch the video yet, but I will when I can, thanks for the recommendation!
From personal experience, my 2 year old Phone 14 only competes with my 6 year old a6400 in perfect light when it comes to noise and sharpness. Indoors it’s not even close.
Haven’t watched this particular video, but we watched the iPhone 14 one when my wife was shopping for a new phone a year ago.
He only does landscapes, so he won’t answer the question for indoor lighting.
And I guess I can walk my claim back a bit. I’m just a bit frustrated since I had a hard time finding a purpose built camera that could match an iPhone while being remotely pocketable.
Ricoh does alright for my purposes.
It could also be a perception thing. My eyesight is frankly pretty bad even with glasses, and I don’t really notice a difference (I currently use an iphone se without a camera bump). I don’t need a better camera, because my pictures are just for myself.
I wouldn’t argue with someone with better eyesight, but I honestly didn’t realize it made a big difference.
I don’t know that it’s an eyesight issue. I mean, if you have good enough eyesight to read stuff on your phone screen you have good enough eyesight to see the difference.
It may be an awareness thing, where the more you care about photography the more the limitations of the bad cameras stand out. And hey, that’s fine, if the phone makes good enough pictures for you that’s great. Plus, yeah, you can get phones with the exact same lens and sensor where one of them has a big fat bump that is deliberately blown up to make the cameras “feel” premium. There’s been a fair amount of marketing around this.
But if you compare A to B it’s very obvious. Camera bumps became a marker of premium phones for a reason.
My husband has a phone with a bump and I really don’t notice a difference. I don’t know what to tell you 🤷
The are plenty of situations where anyone could tell the difference, such as low lighting conditions. In low light an old phone will make a photo that’s just a brown blur, while a new phone will be a sharp clear photo of the scene.
But if you’re happy with what you have then í wouldn’t want to talk you into buying something else. The old iPhone se is a imo a much better design than newer iPhones
It’s totally possible that I’m less likely to take dark pictures than I would be if I had a better camera, so I might not really be comparing low light pictures
I have no input on if the bump is helpful from engineering but you are off your rocker and blind if you can’t tell the difference in camera quality, especially 30 and 60 fps video from 6 or 7 years ago. Not even close.