Smartphones vs real cameras
---------------------------
Here's an approximately four month late response to a post by Alex
Schroeder[1], which I stumbled upon while catching up on what's been
happening on the small internet while I've been offline. Alex
commented on an article which "argues that the camera industry is
done for, and that photography is moving to smartphones".
In grand internet tradition, I haven't read the article in question
(boo, hiss - fair enough). I just wanted to say that, from my
perspective, every single discussion of smartphone cameras vs "real
cameras" that I've ever read focused on entirely the wrong things.
The conversation is always dominated by talk of sensors, lenses,
zoom, image quality, etc. I grant that these things matter to some
extent, for sure. But IMHO the differences between smartphones and
real cameras along these dimensions are totally insubstantial
compared to those on another dimension which I also feel is very
important: the machine-human interface. In a word, ergonomics.
Real cameras, at least the better ones, are typically designed by
people who have actually acknowledged and faced up to a fundamental
ground truth: that the things are going to be used by real,
three-dimensional human beings, with wrists and hands and fingers and
thumbs. As a consequence, they are things you can hold comfortably
and securely in one hand without thinking about it. The good ones
can be *operated* one-handed by touch alone, because they have actual
physical buttons and knobs you can feel and whose placement has been
dictated by at least some rudimentary consideration of human anatomy.
And actually sticking an honest to God optical viewfinder up to your
eye and looking out the lens offers a kind of immersion in the
photo-taking experience which nothing else can get close to. But
these days that's not even a smartphone vs real camera issue, so
let's leave that last point be.
In contrast, it's been decades since any phone designer gave a
second, third or even fourth thought to ergonomics, truly. Today's
smartphone is optimised to look sexy on billboards, and to fit into
pockets - including really small, really tight pockets on clothes
which were themselves optimised to look sexy on billboards instead of
being comfortable or practical. The result is a thin, slippery,
smudgy, poorly balanced usability disaster. This is why there's a
thriving aftermarket for ugly bits of collapsible, self-adhesive
plastic you stick on the back of the things so they can be operated
by real world humans under real world conditions. It's why so many
people without those things stuck on there have shattered screens -
because smartphones are literally *hard to hold*. A little part of
my soul dies every time I try to hold a smartphone such that the
following things are all simultaneously true:
* The camera lens is pointed at the thing I want to photograph
* The screen is pointed at my face, at a shallow enough angle that
it's legible
* One of my digits is in a position to be able to hit the virtual
button to take the shot
* None of my other digits are in front of the lens
* I have a firm enough grip on the whole thing that I'm not about to
drop it and the shot is not likely to be blurred
* The camera is braced enough in the right places that the act of
tapping the virtual button to take the shot isn't likely to move the
lens around too much
I'm not saying it can't be done. Of course it can. But it's not
easy, or fast, or natural, or graceful, or elegant. It sparks no
joy. It feels like a sad parody of what using technology is supposed
to be like, at least to me. Maybe I'm unusually bad at it, who
knows. I can't and won't deny that the resulting image quality is
entirely acceptable, that it has been for years, and that it will
only get better. Of course it is/has/will. I suspect it is indeed
true that the consumer market for "real cameras" will continue to
shrink year after year. I just wish we weren't kidding ourselves
that something important isn't being lost in the process. I
certainly don't think professional photographers will ever make this
shift, because professionals use their equipment all day, every day,
and in those circumstances the level of usability offered by a
smartphone is just completely out of the question. Even if the two
were perfectly matched in every single other regard, any sane pro
would happily pay more for something actually designed to be used
first and foremost as a camera.
[1]
gopher://alexschroeder.ch:70/0page/2021-06-17
