Reply to post: There still are intermediate cameras

There still are intermediate cameras

There are still intermediate-range cameras. Or at least there were a few years ago. I found my phone camera unsatisfactory; I still use it a lot of the time, but it's really not that good. It wasn't good on my previous phones and it's nothing special on my current one either. It's just the reasons given in the article; tiny lens for packaging reasons, and the obsession with huge-megapixel count on a tiny sensor ruining low-light sensitivity and just yielding high-pixel-count but poorly focused photos.

I really do view these cell phones cameras as equivalent to the typical film camera -- which is not the quality products in the article, but the little camera where one sticks in film, winds it, hits the button and hopes for the best; no focus control (possibly just a single "infinite focus" lens), and sometimes not even a way to disable the auto flash.

One point on this, that is even worse than implied -- some people will zoom in rather than framing the shot.. yes. But MOST of these cameras with "zoom" aren't even actually zooming, it's "digital zoom" so it is just pre-cropping the photo!

The one point I have to disagree on though -- it's not "crap camera" or "eye-wateringly expensive."

I got a Panasonic Lumix camera a few years back; it was under $250. 7.2 megapixel (when most cameras where pushing over 12 megapixels) i.e. they went for pic quality rather than "most megapixels". Leica lens, not as big as on an SLR but way bigger than the thumbnail-sized typical lens. 6x optical zoom (which i try to avoid using, but it is very sharp, I can read text down the street that I couldn't read no matter how hard I squint without the camera.) It has very good low light sensitivity, if I can see reasonably well with naked eye it'll take a good photo without flash. (Below twilight or so, it does take pretty noisy photos.) It has autofocus, auto-f-stop and auto-exposure but these can also all be controlled manually as well. Sharp, high-resolution photos, and the color reproduction is nice.

Pros would want RAW mode and replaceable lenses; nevertheless, nice cameras (a lot better than what's in any phone) do exist without having to spend the amount for a high-end camera.