I have been a professional photographer for over 17 years now. I have 4 Nikon DSLR cameras and one Nikon mirrorless camera, all are amazing. However, when I get the question “So what’s the best point and shoot camera on the market?” My immediate response is always the same.
The best mobile phone on the market. In 2017, 85% of photos were shot on smartphones and that number is only increasing.
Why? Well there are a couple answers to that question.
It’s An Extension of You
You can have all the fancy gear in the world, but if it’s not on you when that picture worthy moment strikes it’s worthless.
I owned a Fuji Film camera. It was a great piece of equipment. It had a crazy fast fixed lens (that means it’s not a zoom and it could shoot in very low light). It was mostly manual so you needed to know a lot of technical mumbo jumbo, which I do know but none of that mattered if I didn’t have it on me. So, after spending almost $1,500 for a great little camera, I sold it. Because if I didn’t always have it with me, I might miss that Kodak moment.
Time is of the Essence
Once that photo is taken I still had to go to my studio, upload the photos onto my desktop, cull them (that’s what a first edit is called) and then import the ones I wanted to use into an editing software like Adobe Lightroom and get down to business. This takes so much time.
Phones now have super-fast lenses, they can shoot in low light, they have flashes, they have video capabilities and they even have portrait settings thanks to the iPhone which controls how blurry the background of your photos are (this is called Bokeh, pronounced boke-a). And that’s not even mentioning all the thousands of editing apps at your fingertips on your cell phone. All in one place at one time I can point, shoot, edit and upload with filtering I couldn’t get if I tried in a dark room.
“Now that consumers have cameras in hand with the best editing tools around, it's time for brands to proactively engage them.”
The Quality Keeps Enhancing
The quality of your phone's camera, let alone the apps for editing, keeps enhancing at such a fast pace that professional photographers are experimenting and pushing the boundaries with high end cell phones. The first ever iPhone had 2 megapixels for camera resolution, the iPhoneX has increased to 12 megapixles. The phone camera lenses have gotten so good, Lady Gaga’s video “Stupid Love” was shot entirely on the Apple iPhone 11 pro! And a couple years back, photographer Luisa Dorr, photographed 26 women for 12 Time Magazine Covers with her iPhone.
Now you still need to know about good lighting and phones will never completely compare to a good DSLR camera but ya know what? For daily documenting of your life, your cell phone camera is a great option that can make you look like a pro, even if you don’t know about f-stop, shutter speed and ISO.
With 81% of U.S. consumers owning smartphones, just imagine all the content floating around about various brands. Now that consumers have cameras in hand with the best editing tools around, it's time for brands to proactively engage them. Include these creators in your creative production by sharing content guidelines and best practices to get the most out of the earned media and customer engagement happening on social platforms. Like Lady Gaga, will your next ad be shot on an iPhone?
of consumers own smartphones
