After our last cruise, I meant to put this together. Life is busy, right?
My “phone only” test cruise back in December, ’21 was mostly a success. The pictures were more than sufficient to post online, and many were printable had I wanted to. What I found was that while it was convenient, I really missed using my camera. As amazing as my Pixel 6 Pro is for a phone, it’s still a phone and just can’t compete with a descent DSLR or Mirrorless camera in range or image quality. To be sure, someone with a good eye and a decent phone will come back with far better images than a doofus with a shiny new $10k rig and thinks that exposure is something you shouldn’t do in public. With all else being equal, the camera will just do better.
Is that important? I guess it depends on the person behind the camera and what you intend to shoot. If you want to travel as light as possible on a throwaway cruise to somewhere you’ve been a dozen times like my phone-only experiment, a good phone is a viable option (and apparently embraced by most of the passengers on that cruise with very few “real” camera in evidence). If you are on a 7-day to Alaska or some other photographically rich environment and only take a phone, you may be the subject of silent (or not) mockery by those equipped for the destination’s potential. (I would be polite and silent, but there would be mockery.)
The reason I’m posting my thoughts on this is to update my observations on the couple of cruises since my last post on this subject. Unlike the earlier 4-day, on both our New Year’s and late January 7-day cruises, I noticed an uptick in the number of people carrying actual cameras similar to what I saw on our Caribbean cruise last June. Sunrise and sunset and sail-in/sail-away brought out the hardware as one would expect with phones prevalent at dinner and when just walking about the ship. Though less common than ten years ago, dedicated cameras don’t seem to be on the endangered list. I have also noticed a shift in the mix. It used to be that high-end units were pretty rare (outside of Alaska, etc.) with a lot of P&S and big-box entry-level DSLR kits. Recently, I have noticed the camera mix leaning a bit toward the higher end mirrorless bodies with fewer DSLR kit cameras and P&S almost non-existent. If you count phones and (sigh…) tablets, the total number of shooters has actually increased over ten years ago. What else has increased is the number of people with phones, GoPros and even compact mirrorless cameras on hand-held gimbals shooting video. I don’t mean that there are herds of videographers crowding the decks, but there are enough to be noticeable. A mystery behavior to me, but good on them anyway.
Away from cruising, I have noticed the mix changing in much the same way. At our granddaughter’s skating events, dedicated cameras are very common and the number of hockey parents with “real” cameras at the grandson’s games is on the rise.
A recent article on DPReview presented the views of the big names in the camera industry that sort of confirms what I am seeing. They describe a settling of the market with the number of people who are using dedicated camera equipment no longer dropping and a general increase in interest in video features. I really don’t shoot video but I’m not one who pines for a stills camera without all that newfangled video stuff and that’s evidently a good thing since the popularity of video virtually guarantees that every new camera will be a hybrid shooter. The new video-centric vlogging cameras like the Sony ZV series are attracting “creators” wanting to step up from a phone and while specced towards video, take respectable stills. Another segment on the rise is lenses. Computer design and modern manufacturing has enabled even budget lens makers to create excellent optics. The brand-name lenses are showing up as mark II models that are better, smaller and lighter than their predecessors. Lens makers are turning out interesting models that color a little outside the lines of industry “standards”. Sony’s FE 20-70mm f/4 G adds a wider view to the standard middle zoom range and Sigma’s 14mm F1.8 Art lens has become an astrophotographer’s best friend. AI is a growing feature with computational focus tracking and image correction becoming common and better. Old computational tricks like auto-exposure and auto-white balance are more accurate and fast enough to keep up with the fastest burst shooting.
Fantastic photographic equipment is more available, better and cheaper than ever!
(Ok…two out of three isn’t bad.)
I say again, it’s a great time to be a photographer!