With how incredible high-end smartphone cameras have gotten, why do professional photographers and film makers still spend thousands of dollars on high end equipment instead of just using a high-end smartphone camera?

Question

With how incredible high-end smartphone cameras have gotten, why do professional photographers and film makers still spend thousands of dollars on high end equipment instead of just using a high-end smartphone camera?

In: Technology

Answer 1

There’s a LOT of functionality that a smartphone can’t have without glass. The depth-of-field effects you see on ‘portrait’ shots are entirely emulated, for example, and won’t fool anyone who knows anything about photography. Probably as much as anything is the form factor itself; a camera is designed to give you complete control over things like exposure and focus, and the viewfinder is superior for composition compared to a screen. Add to that the immediate, physical responsiveness of a shutter vs. a potential laggy software-driven touchscreen and there’s no real reason a photographer would use a phone even if the quality was identical. Which it’s not.