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Comment by snazz | Hacker News Reader

I love my Nikon D80, a fairly mid-range to high-end DSLR from 2006. It might be challenging to repair (since it is full of a ton of complex and tiny mechanical and electronic components), but it has lasted me over a decade and still competes favorably with smartphone cameras (despite the huge advances in sensors [the D80 has a CCD] and processing since then). I haven’t needed to repair it and haven’t really considered replacing it for the last 12 (going on 13) years.

It wasn’t too cheap, but it was obviously meant to last. Nikon has since made cheaper, junkier consumer cameras (basically anything without the sub-command/aperture dial, which is under the shutter button), but the slightly higher-end models have stayed very similarly long-lasting and well-designed as my old D80.

The question is: will any smartphone ever begin to compete with that kind of longevity?

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I second this comment! My old D40 has survived also almost 15 years of use and abuse, and is still going strong. I've since upgraded to a D90, which is also already a senior citizen in tech years, and it is still as reliable as ever. I don't feel the same confidence in their new Z line, although time will tell.

To that point, I'm linking here are a couple of images I took with my Pixel 2 phone while I was on vacation last year. The post-processing technology in the modern cell phone effectively compensates for intrinsic shortcomings in things like the tiny and shallow lens.

It takes multiple images at different exposures, detects edges/objects, and automatically composes the images to deal with backlight: https://i.imgur.com/01kVB3O.jpg

It simulates portrait photography by detecting which objects are close and which are further away, applying various levels of blur to several composed layers: https://i.imgur.com/M5h2q3r.jpg

In hindsight, I have no regrets using my phone rather than dragging along my DSLR on my vacation, particularly because I'm one of those ultralight "take only a 19-liter backpack" types. I just don't see the marginal benefit of whatever that bulky 15-year-old technology has over today's ML-enhanced technology.

But I guess your point was about longevity. For me, my phone serves many more functions than just photography, and so I feel that I get so much more out of it than just that one thing. In that sense, it's hard for me to tease apart the camera from the rest of what the phone does when I make the decision to upgrade it. I suppose I can give some signal there, in that I haven't found any reason to replace my Pixel 2 yet.

Pretty much the only way to tell the difference between a great and an okay sensor is to process the photos, and then the difference is night and day. I used to complain about my 5D until I tried to process some images from my Xiaomi drone, and then I realized how vast the difference was.

A good sensor will let you pull detail from things you can't even see. The average person doesn't need anything better than a phone (and I've taken many of my best photos with a phone because I didn't have my camera with me), but a good camera will make the photographer's life much, much easier.

I used to take a DSLR everywhere when I travelled, but the bulk and weight was always a PITA. The quality of photos a high-end smartphone takes nowadays is really quite incredible, especially given the small lens and sensor. And the convenience of being able to carry all this photographic power in your pocket is even more incredible.

It was with some sadness that I recently sold my trusty Canon 450D and Sigma long-range lens - my wife and I travelled the world with that kit, so it held sentimental value beyond the intrinsic. It did me proud for almost 10 years, and I still got a decent percentage of the original purchase price on eBay.

I agree about the inconveniences of lugging around a DSLR kit. And for documenting a trip or taking amazing photos while out and about, high-end phones like iPhone or Pixel are the absolute best. But to me, this is a very utilitarian approach. Nothing can replace the experience and flexibility of a DSLR as a photographic tool. And while photos taken with a phone are comparable to camera shots in terms of quality or resolution, no phone can approach the optical capabilities of real glass at the extremes of the range (ultra wide or telephoto), and those qualities are not reproducible in software.

to be sure, I'm not trying to knock phone photography; it just for me personally achieves a different outcome than what I'm looking for.

i agree with your sentiment. until i zoom-in on one of those photos.

I’m afraid that has more to do with Imgur than the original pictures.

i was referring to RAW. just take any pixel or iphone photo and zoom-in. now zoom-in on a photo taken by a dslr.

I totally agree about the amount of detail being much higher on DSLR. However neither I nor anybody I've shown my vacation photos to have wanted to zoom in on any of them. And there exists commercialized ML technology to actually increase detail: https://topazlabs.com/gigapixel-ai/

I'm sure larger lenses with higher resolution sensors will always have a place in photography. Just not on my vacations.

i agree with your comment. for me vacations are tricky. for some all i need is a phone. for others i simply can't take photos without a proper dslr/mirrorless (safari) or sometimes a gopro (underwater).

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