I’ve been very stressed lately and have been doing some window shopping to calm down. I’m interested in gadgets, but a lot of things can just be replaced with apps. I realize a phone won’t replace very large appliances like refrigerators or washing machines so I’m trying to scope my question to portable devices. So what are some portable devices or gadgets that their specialization hasn’t been replaced by smart phone apps? Extra points if they’re super useful and reliable.
Cameras. You can take pictures with your phone, but despite Apple’s advertisements, a phone camera will never produce anywhere near the same quality a dedicated digital camera with interchangeable lenses. And neither are as good as film.
Neither are as good as film?
That’s subjective. Subjective to the application and the viewer.
It’s impossible to get a film look with digital, you can get close but there is just something about film that feels like a capture of an actual moment
Similar argument is vinyl vs digital, some people just refuse to believe vinyl is unbeatable
It’s not, really. Most of the variables are quantifiable: granularity (or resolution, what have you), dynamic range, speed. A small, disposable, fixed-lens film camera may not match a 3/4 Fuji X model, but compare similar size frames and don’t try to sabotage film by getting the cheapest no-name brand, and the measurable qualifiers are always superior on film. There are very few, if any, digital cameras available at even the professional level that can match the dynamic range and granularity of large format film.
Edit
I’m just going to put this here, because there are clearly lot of folks with opinions about this backed by … opinions.
The Wikipedia article, while not authoritative, provides a good summary across a variety of factors. Aside from convenience factors, the one area where digital has a clear lead over film is noise and grain for color photography, and even so, long-exposure time photos require doing things like cooling the sensor - the not doing of which increases noise in digital photographs.
When it comes to dynamic range, it seems modern digital cameras have finally caught up with film. HDR is described only for digital, and ignores the fact that multiple shots-at-different-exposures-combined-at-print-time has been used in film for nearly as long as we’ve had film cameras. It’s just now easier to do in digital cameras.
There’s a distressing amount of assertions with [citation needed] in the article. There’s also odd assertion that digital is capable of better low light performance right before the admission that digital speeds at lower than ISO 100 are rarely available, whereas it’s easy to find ISO 20 and 25 film - and you can ISO 0.8 film commercially.
@Blue_Morpho responded about how film is so bad that Kubrik choose digital, and there are certainly some directors who agree with him. Then there are directors like Christopher Nolan and Quentin Tarantino who think film’s better.
TL;DR All of this is wildly off-topic
The question was what devices are better as specialized devices vs apps on phones. My answer was: cameras. Not many directors are going to be shooting major films on cell phones. All of the controversy has been around film vs digital, and I’ll grant that digital has finally caught up to film in some areas, although I wonder if we throw price in as a factor how this would look.
This is sadly not correct
Film is so bad in low light that Kubrick had to obtain 3 of the 10 NASA lenses to film Barry Lyndon. Any modern digital can take better low light pictures than the best film.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Zeiss_Planar_50mm_f/0.7
But film is way better when it comes to highlights.
Multi shot for HDR in film is restricted to still life because film is very slow compared to digital. There’s no film camera that will automatically change the stops to make that feasible. So it’s take a shot, adjust settings, take another, adjust settings. At the low and high end you’d need to swap film stock between shots.
??? I said to achieve low light performance on FILM, Kubrick needed a lens that was (and is) so special that only 10 exist in the world. What was possible for Kubrick using extraordinarily rare and expensive equipment is achieved by anyone with a common digital camera today.
So while you can find references to film that matches digital, it is so extreme that it isn’t valid. It would be like someone using the cryogenic cooled sensor in the $10B Webb telescope for their argument.
I apologize for the phrasing - my only excuse is that I use Lemmy mostly in an app, and unless it’s the comment I’m directly responding to, I have to memorize stuff from other comments. It’s usually all I can do to remember who made the comment; trying for an exact quote is beyond me.
So: I’m sorry for a bad paraphrasing.
Actually, some movies have started popping up where they film substantial chunks on iPhones. Odds are this trend will continue and the “professional camera purists” will be considered archaic like the 35mm purists are now.
They haven’t completely replaced them. But for 99% of people they’ve replaced them for 99% of their photography needs.
Man, that 1% are buying a shitload of cameras.
That’s long after the reign of smart phones started. https://www.statista.com/chart/amp/15524/worldwide-camera-shipments/
On a similar note, action cameras, which can be even more portable than a smartphone.
Excellent point, especially as they’re still quite common. GoPro, for instance.
I would add that even though you can slap a filter on a pic you won’t get the same quality of lighting as utilizing reflectors, diffusers, lamps, etc.
And cameras will never replace a good painting!
Jk, I still use my handheld camera, a shame it takes 30 seconds to boot it
Yowsa. That’s an old camera!
I have a point-and-shoot Canon from around the mid-2010s that’s still perfectly functional. It starts faster than I can get to the phone app on my phone, and takes pictures faster. The video is worse.
My Fuji T-10 takes a couple of seconds to start from cold, but less than a second if it’s in stand-by.
The only digital camera I ever owned that took double-digit seconds to start was my very first - I don’t even recall the brand, but it was before smart phones and the resolution was pathetic, like 800x600 or something. And it was so. Slow. Starting, and snapping.
Maybe I’m overly dramatic and it actually takes less than 10 seconds, but it feels like an eternity…
I wonder why you “can’t” have a camera that is ready instantly.
You can; they’re called film cameras.
Like I mentioned, my Fuji is pretty darned fast if it’s in sleep, and most of that I think is just powering up the back screen. I might try some timing with the screen off, and see if just using the SLR has it wake faster, but it’s so fast I don’t know if I’ll be able to get useful estimates.
It’s when it’s fully powered down, with the physical switch, that it takes a second to turn on.
But now I’m curious; I’ll do some time-to-shot guestimates, from full off and sleep. DP Review used to include time-to-shot, but I think as cameras have gotten better the times are so negligible now they stopped measuring it - even for little point-and-shoots.