Certainly, but there was a thread not too long ago about professional photographers who have eschewed their DSLRs in favor of using their iPhones for the majority of their work. I went round and round with one of the posters who could just not get it through his head that any professional would ever use any cellular phone camera for ANY work at all, despite me linking to all these professionals' web pages and their photographs done on iPhones, including some who were Pulitzer Prize winners, who were DOING IT. He kept calling me a liar. . . despite the proof in front of his face. The article was on 26 professional photographers who were using iPhones. Some of those included a National Geographic pro, one who did a Time Magazine cover, and one who did sports photography. . . and he still insisted that no professional would ever use an iPhone for professional use.
But who ever said it was intended to convince people an iPhone's 8MP 1/3" sensor was the equivalent of a DSLR. . . but frankly, photographs taken with an iPhone have beaten the output of many DSLRs in photographic contests. Megapixels is not a measure of quality. . . as many Android users are learning to their dismay.
Swordmaker, please forgive this very long post. I always appreciate your knowledge of Apple products and their development. I believe that I remember reading the previous thread that you referred to about the iPhone’s picture taking abilities and it was an interesting exchange as well.
My wife and I set up historical military displays at museums, and for numerous groups and events. In the last couple of years I have noticed that most of the people taking photos of our displays are using either their tablets or their phones. Most of the time when we see them posted somewhere later the quality is generally somewhat lacking.
However, one of our displays is currently featured in a newsletter from the 8th Air Force Historical Society in Oregon. Some of the photos were taken with a DSLR combined with a set of radio controlled flash units. But most of the photos of individual uniforms we had displayed were taken by the author of the article using her iPhone and I was very surprised with how well they turned out.
I know that you are aware that an iPhone and a DSLR type camera are two different types of animals and it has less to do with the amount of pixels than it has to do with the size of the sensor. It is difficult to achieve a narrow depth of field with a device with a very small sensor. This is considered limiting, but can sometimes have advantages depending on what is trying to be achieved.
Although I would never claim to be an expert, I am a bit of a 3D photography buff and recently was invited by a local museum to photograph some of their collection of vintage aircraft along with the exterior of the museum in 3D for a promotion that they are currently doing.
I have dedicated 3D cameras and I did one of them for some of the stereo photo pairs especially those taken of the interior of the aircraft, but most of the pictures were taken with my DSLR type camera. The sensor and lenses I have for the DSLR make it a more versatile tool with better light gathering capabilities and higher image quality. However, when taking stereo pairs most of the time you want a deeper field of focus so I had the aperture of the DSLR set to a narrow opening which gives a depth of field similar to what you would get with an iPhone.
I think that your comment relating to the sensors found in Android phones was a bit snarky. However you are correct that the number of mega-pixels often has very little to do with how the actual image quality. Many devices with less mega-pixels can produce better images than poorer cameras with more mega-pixels. The amount of mega-pixels found in a camera these days often has more to do with marketing than image quality.
There are plenty of Android devices that have camera sensors of inferior quality. However, I also know of Android devices that are much more versatile photo taking devices and have sensors that by nearly all measures that actually do matter are superior to the one found in an iPhone. The Samsung Galaxy NX Android Camera comes to mind almost immediately. That really is not a fair comparison, because the Galaxy Android Cameras are basically dedicated devices and the NX has a selection of high quality interchangeable lenses available. To be honest I have never done a thorough study of phone to phone camera sensors. Although I still considered it I gimmick I was often impressed with the 3D stereo pairs that I was able to capture with my EVO 3D phone, when I had favorable lighting.
Many of the photography apps available for Android devices are quite remarkable. The latest Google Camera App can generate a depth map that can be used for all sorts of interesting effects including generating stereo pairs. The $10 Android version of Photoshop is actually a very useful editing app and there are many other Android Apps such as 3D Steroid Pro which are a joy to work with.
As you have pointed out there are some “professional” photographers who use iPhones as their primary platform.
There are also “professionals” who also specialize in taking photos with pin hole cameras, or toy Holga cameras. Most digital photos taken more than ten years ago by “professionals” were taken with devices which had sensors that by many measure were inferior to current iPhone sensors. However I doubt whether you can find a lot of portrait or even wedding photographers who use an iPhone as their primary imaging device.
I thank you for starting this very interesting thread. I belong to several online forums that discuss 3D photography, such as the Fuji W3 3D camera forum, and a project that uses 2 hacked Canon Powershot cameras mounted on a bar to take 3D photos and video. These forums discuss how to use these older devices for capturing professional quality images and video. The results some of the people get are sometimes astounding and often superior to photos taken with much higher priced newer products. So I like discussions of this type.