The camera market is going downhill because a good smartphone is capable of taking decent pictures and this is just one of its many features. Like: “Why buy a camera, the iPhone is not inferior to it in terms of image quality.” Only amateurs can think so, professionals continue to use cameras and expensive optics. Why will smartphones never be able to reach the level of professional cameras? Just because of its size. The situation will remain so even in 10-20 years: there will be smartphones for everyday needs, cameras for celebrations.
Optics quality
The quality of the finished images depends to a large extent on the characteristics of the lens. A smartphone can use floating lenses that partially compensate for the lack of variety, and multiple cameras can also be useful in this. However, mirrorless cameras have a huge selection of lenses for any purpose. Among them there are high-aperture ones, they have a wide aperture, which means it will be easier to add good photography in low light conditions. The flashes spoil the photo, and with such lenses there will be no problems.
There are also models for zoom with the ability to provide a strong distance or approach to the subject with minimal loss of sharpness and detail. Some smartphones are also capable of this, but they are still inferior to cameras. They have a small hardware zoom, and the rest is just software zoom. The total number of lenses exceeds 30 types: wide-angle lenses, portrait lenses, zoom and macro lenses, as well as something in between.
Lack of ability to change lenses
As we already said, the main disadvantage of smartphones is the inability to change lenses. In fact, they exist, but we are talking about a kind of phone overlays with additional effects. They still do not reveal the possibilities that are inherent in full-fledged lenses. The lens itself built into the phone is one and cannot be changed. By means of software correction, its shortcomings are already being eliminated and the effect of approximation or others is somehow achieved. They are very far from the quality of professional optics.
Image detail
You need to understand that there is a dependence between the quality of the picture and the size of the matrix. Of course, the technology on which it is based is also important. A larger area means that the camera can capture more light, which means there will be more pronounced and detailed small elements in the picture. As a result, the photo turns out to be vivid and realistic, and not overexposed, with blockages in different directions. Smartphones, on the other hand, due to the insufficient size of the matrix, receive, for example, dark shadows, even not so – unrealistically black colors in the shadows. To fix this, post-processing is used with lightening of the image, which is why the image is overexposed on many devices.
As you may have guessed, even semi-professional cameras have a sensor size many times larger. Here is the answer why a 12 megapixel camera and a smartphone will shoot in completely different ways. The camera matrix has a large area and distance between pixels, so they are able to collect light much better. This affects all the characteristics of photography: colors, noise, contrast. The difference becomes striking in challenging shooting conditions. Where the SLR camera “pulls out”, the smartphone is already making soap. To see this clearly, it is enough to take a photo on the phone and on the camera, and then open it on the monitor.
It is unlikely that smartphone manufacturers will be able to somehow fix this problem in the foreseeable future. The software improvement works many times more pleasantly than a few years ago, but it still feels like a fake.
Color rendering
Beautiful smartphone photos are often just oversaturated with colors. Professionals, and even those who are at least a little versed in the photo, appreciate the realism. The mirror is capable of reproducing colors and shades more accurately, in many respects this is a consequence of the large size of the matrix. Too dense arrangement of light-sensitive elements in a smartphone camera causes mixing of light rays and a decrease in the quality of tonal transitions. The camera can take photos in RAW format, it preserves the original parameters of the photo much better, which means it is more valuable in post-processing. Its main value is the ability to specify various parameters of the image after its creation, including changing the saturation, white balance, sharpness, contrast, etc.
Naturalness of shades and their correct transitions is what photographers will continue to buy expensive cameras and lenses for, despite all the sophistication in improving the iPhone. On them, the blue sky, green grass, skin, etc. will look as we see it with our own eyes.
Number of manual settings
Even semi-pro cameras support many different settings, including shutter speed, white balance, autofocus, ISO, exposure. Any of the listed parameters can be quickly adjusted, and it is also often possible to create profiles. In smartphones, everything is created so that he does automatic configuration. Yes, there are several manual settings, but they are more difficult to use, and the result will still leave much to be desired. A couple of seconds is enough to set up a personal camera, but from smartphones it is unlikely that you will be able to catch the moment, there may not even be a minute. Often the result is upsetting and you have to additionally adjust the settings and so on more than once.
All of these factors make the camera simply irreplaceable for any person who is involved in photography. If someone says that he will take a photo session on the iPhone, because here the quality of the pictures is not worse, this is definitely an amateur. He is not able to notice a lot of details, so you can not expect to get a good photo from him. Moreover, there are no prerequisites for the situation to somehow change in the next 10 years.