This post is about digital cameras, mainly smartphones.
For at least the past ten years, stand-alone, often 35mm, cameras owned by average people (not professional photographers) have been replaced by hand-held devices (HHD) that include a camera. I look forward to the day when these HHDs will last ten, then twenty or more years, but allowing the replacement and recycling of batteries. The advantage of a HHD is that it is extremely portable, occupying very little space, but able to multi-task. Some people refer to these as smartphones, which gives the impression that the primary task of these involves speaking to someone outside of voice range. I may use the phone capabilities of my HHD up to once a week. However, most of my communication involves texting, using a laptop computer with the Signal app.
One would think that every adult owns an HHD. However, globally, only 82 per cent of individuals 10 years or older own one. Universal ownership would mean a rate of over 95 per cent. This has been reached in high-income economies, while upper-middle-income economies have already surpassed the 90 per cent mark. This stands in contrast with low-income economies, where only 53 per cent of the population aged 10 years and over own a mobile phone. There are gender differences, 78 per cent of females and 87 per cent of males aged 10 and over own a mobile phone, translating into a gender parity score of 0.90 skewed against women, which is slightly lower than the corresponding 0.92 score for Internet use. As with Internet use, gender parity is strongly correlated with income levels. My hope is that income levels for the poorest people will continue to rise, along with a gender neutral smartphone use.
Admittedly, not everyone should own a smartphone. This includes older people facing issues with dementia, as well as children = people under 16 years of age. Rather than screen time, children should be outdoors playing. This play should include the use of sticks and knives. However, even here, I would allow both groups access to dumb phones. Fortunately, there are dumb phones specifically made for people with dementia, and others for children. Unfortunately, these typically lack advanced photographic capabilities.
Admittedly, in high-income economies, Apple iPhones and Samsung Galaxies dominate. While one of my children has an iPhone and a Pixel phone, the other has a Galaxy. Yet, there are many other HHD cameras that people use. Trish and I are content with our four year old Asus Zenfones. This contrasts with predecessor Xiaomi Pocophones, that we could not replace fast enough. On a daily basis it asked for permission to track us, which we refused to give. There are times when I consider migrating to a non-Android phone, the Finnish made Jolla, with its Sailfish operating system. However, I hope that will be many years into the future. I have no issues with our Zenfones.
I have also been considering a Light Phone. In 2015-05, Light Phone launched its first Kickstarter campaign for Light Phone I. This was followed in 2018, with the launch of Light Phone II. In 2026, users with an interest in photography, may want the Light Phone III. It was introduced in 2024, has a 50MP primary camera, and an 8MP front-facing selfie camera. Having the ability to take photographs is essentially the ability to capture meaningful memories.
Many people have cameras on their tablet, laptop and desktop screens. Because of their large size, these devices are not substitutes for cameras on phones. My perspective is that these computer cameras are only useful when participating in an online meetings, especially allowing other participants to see if someone has fallen asleep in the middle of their presentation. Personally, I attend such meetings rarely. In the past few years this has only occurred once, on 2026-03-10, using my desktop equipment, that did not have, a camera attached. However, I have signed up for a second meeting to be held on 2026-04-14. I will probably use my laptop, but may still opt to avoid the use of a camera. For me online meeting are acceptable, if their frequency is about once a month. They allow me to be sociable without having to drive. In this particular case, I save about 1.5 hours. I have a functioning camera on my Zenbook laptop, but have never used it.
As I age, I categorize people, putting them (or parts of them) into assorted buckets. One of those buckets has to do with which century, and the technologies, they experienced. My maternal grandmother, Jane (1880 – 1972) spent about 22% of her life in the 19th century and 78% of it in the 20th century. My father Edgar (1906 – 1991) spent all of his life in the 20th century. My mother Jennie (1916 – 2021) may have lived 12 years longer than her mother, but it was not an especially high-quality life after she turned 95. So I rank her as having 90% of her life in the 20th century and 10% in the 21st. It is more difficult to rank future events, currently, I have lived about 2/3 of my life in the 20th century and 1/3 in the 21st. I will not comment on the lives of my children, except to say that increasing percentages will be in the 21st century, and most likely none of it in the 22nd century. However, I expect my grandson Quinn (2025 – ) will most likely experience that upcoming century, as an old man.
As I age, age increasingly becomes a photographic subject of interest, especially the technology involved. Personally, I had access to a camera from the age of 12, and always appreciated this technology, despite it being primitive. The first camera I used belonged to my mother. It was a Kodak Petite, a blue colored Vest Pocket Kodak Model B camera made from 1929 to 1934. It used 127 film, first released in 1912. This was a paper-backed rollfilm negative format designed for still photography. The negative film role is 46 mm wide and was originally designed to take eight pictures in 40 x 65 mm format. Because enlargements were uncommon during the early usage of 127 film, it was generally contact printed.
From about the age of 16, I also used a darkroom to process negatives, slides and prints. Today, those processes are totally unnecessary. I used to have fun with solarization, a darkroom printing technique made famous by photographer Man Ray = Emmanuel Radnitzky (1890 – 1976) an American-born, French-naturalized visual artist. It involves re-exposing a print to light partially through its development. This results in a partial reversal of the tones in the image, so that the result is a mixture of a positive and negative images. Many more complex and interesting processes can be done with software.
Should I develop some form of dementia, I would appreciate still having a decent camera integrated into a HHD, even if it is only a dumbphone, especially if the alternative is to carry a standalone camera in addition to a phone. More equipment does not streamline life.
One misconception about smartphone cameras is that more megapixels = higher resolution = better images. Resolution does not address optical limitations. Smartphone lenses and sensors are small compared to other cameras, which limits the amount of light that can enter the sensor. This makes it difficult to capture details in low-light settings. It also reduces the optical depth of field, although there are tricks that can compensate for this failing.
Dynamic range in challenging lighting conditions is also problematic. For example, a high-contrast subject, can result in reduced highlights and lost shadow details. High Dynamic Range (HDR) algorithms attempt to compensate for this by merging multiple exposures, but the process is so imperfect, that subtle textures/ tonal gradients may be lost.
Low-light photography is one area where physics still impose limits. In dim environments, small sensors gather less light, resulting in noise, grain, and color inaccuracies. Night mode algorithms can brighten scenes and reduce noise, but they often create unnatural smoothness and/ or exaggerate some colors. Moving subjects present another challenge resulting in blur and/ or ghosting.
Another limitation lies in optical zoom and long-distance photography. Most smartphones combine a short telephoto lenses with digital = software zoom. This enlarges images but does not capture detail optically. The result is a fake, soft, pixelated image. In addition, smartphone equipment cannot replicate subtle compression effects, background isolation or subject framing. This limits their value in specialist areas such as portrait, wildlife and sports photography, where precise optical control is needed.
Another area where smartphones fail involves accurate color reproduction and tonal gradations. White balance algorithms, especially, may misinterpret ambient lighting, leading to unnatural tints. This affects all areas of a photograph, but more notably shadows, highlights, and midtones that may look flat and/or inconsistent.
Part of the challenge with digital photography has to do with workflow. Professional photographers often create RAW files that are subsequently processed with software to preserve color detail. Shooting on a phone in RAW seldom helps because of the small sensor size and reduced bit depth. Because of this, real photographs can look fake.
Smartphone cameras have improved autofocus speed and frame rates, yet capturing fast-moving subjects remains difficult. Sports, wildlife, or children in motion can challenge the autofocus system, leading to missed focus, motion blur, or stuttering frames in video. High-speed bursts and AI-assisted tracking may help, but there are still trade-offs in image quality and resolution.
Dedicated cameras with larger sensors, mechanical shutters, and high-speed continuous shooting modes still outperform smartphones for action photography. They can combine faster shutter speeds, superior auto-focus algorithms, and lens control to freeze motion crisply without sacrificing image quality. For consumers who frequently capture dynamic scenes, this remains a key advantage of traditional cameras.
Despite multiple lens systems and computational photography tricks, smartphones have limitations in depth and perspective control. Wide-angle lenses on phones can introduce distortion, particularly at the edges of frames, while ultra-wide lenses often exaggerate distances in ways that are visually unnatural. Perspective correction algorithms can help, but they cannot replace the natural optical effects produced by larger sensors and longer lenses.
Portrait mode features attempt to simulate shallow depth of field, but results can be inconsistent, especially around complex edges like hair or transparent objects. In contrast, traditional cameras allow photographers to control depth of field through aperture settings, focal length, and distance to subject, producing more nuanced, natural separation between foreground and background.
Smartphones are also used to produce videos. Many HHDs are capable of supporting 4K resolution = 4096 x 2160 pixels officially, but sometimes referring to 3840×2160 which is Ultra HD or UHD. In addition to high frame rates, video needs advanced stabilization. Yet there are still constraints when compared with professional video equipment. Limited dynamic range, small sensors, and reliance on digital stabilization can introduce artifacts, rolling shutter effects, and noise in challenging lighting conditions.
Video, especially, is often combined with audio. Audio recording is another challenge for a videographer. While phones can capture decent sound, their built-in microphones cannot match the fidelity, directionality, or noise isolation of professional audio equipment. Additionally, manual control over focus, exposure, and frame rate is limited compared to professional cameras, restricting creative flexibility.
Certain environmental conditions highlight smartphone limitations starkly. Harsh sunlight, reflections, fog or low-contrast landscapes can confuse computational algorithms. Macro photography – one of my first photographic areas using the above mentioned folding camera and a microscope – remain problematic because phones have limited working distances and rely on digital cropping to simulate extreme close-ups. Similarly, astrophotography, underwater photography and long-exposure techniques often require dedicated equipment with larger sensors, specialized lenses, and controlled shutter settings to capture quality images.
Despite limitations imposed by digital photography, the era of photographic film seems to have died, except for some hobbyists dedicated to living in the past. That said, I still have one roll of 35 mm Illford Pan F film in the fridge. I think I managed to give away up to multiple rolls of Fujichrome film that used to share the same refrigerator space. That said, we still have almost 4 000 35 mm slides, that should be converted into digital images.
Conclusion: Smartphones are limited by physics = sensor size, lens diameter and light-gathering ability. This cannot be overcome with AI or other types of software. Because of this miniaturization, smartphone cameras cannot match the characteristics found with larger sensors on professional cameras. This means that phones can produce adequate images for social media, but are not a substitute where finer details, HDR and more accurate colors are needed.
If a person has special needs, one should consider investing in a camera that can support those needs, rather than expecting a HHD to perform adequately. These cameras and lenses can be expensive. A Leica camera with lenses can cost NOK 100 000 and more. However, a Canon or Nikon 35 mm digital camera, can be obtained for a fraction of that price, often less than NOK 5 000 if purchased used.
Next week, Optics 11 is about digital photograph collections.