Apprentice managed to lose a days pay

[The Natural Philosopher]

quality versus content.

Ideally both, but when you cant have the one, get the other.

[John Rumm]

Depends on how much you care about the results. If you just want to "capture the moment" then pretty much anything will do.

A reasonable spec compact gets you a bigger lens and usually better quality optics than on a camera phone, but still does not solve the real problems. They still typically have lenses too small to achieve a narrow depth of field or achieve an attractive bokeh. For that you need adequate lens and sensor size.

Also, lots of zoom is only part of the equation, very few (if any) compact cameras these days have a decent wide angle capability - most going no further than the equivalent of a 35mm lens on a traditional camera. As with most zooms, the wider the range of focal lengths you try to cover, the more compromises you introduce in other areas.

[Tim Streater]

It's you that's the snob, Brother Grim.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Hahahaha. I don't care what maker's name is on the front or how lowly it is, if it can take a pic I don't care about anything else - I'll use it.

[Andy Champ]

Funny that. I have seen photos where the depth of field has been used deliberately - but I don't like the effect, and never do it.

Andy

[Tim Streater]

For some value of "pic", then. Which makes you a camera twerp.

[Andy Champ]

Not very bright are you?

When the battery gets low the 'phone does a controlled shutdown. Which is the equivalent of you turning it off.

Andy

[dennis]

That would depend on the phone and battery!

[John Rumm]

IME not being able to adequately control depth of field basically makes a whole range of shots either impossible, or gives results that either lack impact, or are significantly less appealing. I would say it is one of the fundamental skills to master in photography (right up there with control of exposure time).

Simple example - taking pictures at a zoo. You want a good shot of something, but its behind a wire fence. Now normally I get close to the fence, focus on the critter of interest and select a wide aperture on a fast lens and photograph away. The fence will be so out of focus as to be invisible. Try that with a camera phone though and you will typically get a distracting image of a fence right over your target.

However it really depends on if you are after "snaps" or photographs.

A shot like:

lose much of its impact if you could clearly see the distracting and ugly fence not far behind the subject. (in reality that particular shot actually needed an extra couple of inches of depth of field rather than less - but the wind was blowing stuff about so much at the time it was hard to setup)

(photographed at around f1.7 IIRC on Fuji Velvia colour reversal film).

[Dave Plowman (News)]

You must hate watching TV drama or feature films, then. Long lens stuff which puts the background out of focus is very very common.

[dennis]

I would say it needed a different viewpoint and more focus on the eyes myself. I am quite expert at taking out of focus insects on a flower like that myself. I expect practice makes perfect and I need more practice,

I find a nice long focal length and about f5.6 works better for that sort of thing.

[Grimly Curmudgeon]

Not me that's the twerp, mate. As has been said above - the only camera that counts is the one you have with you and whether that's a piece of shit or not is immaterial. It takes pictures and if that picture turns out to be something worthwhile or important, so much the better.

Got any more baseless opinions?

[John Rumm]

Agreed - I was not holding it out as a particularly good photo (it was the best of several - as the whole thing was flapping about in the wind!). But I picked it as it illustrates the importance of being able to reduce depth of field to pick a subject out from background clutter.

As you say, with insects etc, its important to get the eyes (be them real or pictorial as in buterfly wings) pin sharp, which that shot did not quite manage.

I have some better examples - but most are still on negs/slides and so are readily to hand.

In that circumstance it would not have really worked since the background was only 18" behind the flower. Also Velvia film is pretty slow at 50 ISO (although it does give huge colour saturation, making it good for still life and landscapes)

[stuart noble]

It's a relief to see a show like Mad Men where the camera actually stays still for longer than 5 seconds

[Dave Plowman (News)]

That is entirely different.

Using depth of field to concentrate the viewer on the important part of the picture is (near) as old as photography itself.

[dennis]

I think some digital sensors passed film for saturation, etc. a while ago. Probably not the really small ones in compacts but certainly good ~APS sized ones. Now they are tending to trade off pixels for dynamic range even in DSLRs.

[John Rumm]

Saturation can be controlled in the digital domain quite easily - although often at the expense of chromatic noise.

(that photo was probably from the mid to late 90s when a combination of real reversal film, and a dedicated film scanner could usually trump the best efforts of a digital camera)

Which is a step in the right direction IMHO. Historically there has been too much fuss about number of pixels and not enough on other quality indicators.

[Simon Finnigan]

Any modern phone will turn itself off when it runs out of battery - shutting down properly rather than acting as if the battery was pulled.

[Simon Finnigan]

And pocket space to carry it in, and some way to backup the photos by WiFi, and to share the photos without having to remove the memory card into a laptop,which is again something else to carry with you..........

[Simon Finnigan]

exposure time).

hard to setup)

Most people are perfectly happy without having to carry a SLR and multiple lenses round with them, and are happy with the trade off in picture quality. Which for most people is minimal - how many people care enough to learn how to use a high end camera?