Phone vs Cell Phone for Photos

[PrincessJen09]

My mom and I are debating whether we should get a camera for our trip in the fall or if we should just use our phones. What does everyone think? If you were to buy a camera, what would you make sure to have? Like what specifications?

Currently, we have 5C iPhones, but we are trying to see if Verizon will let us update early to get the iphone 6 or higher. We only have older digital cameras, so we would likely have to buy new.

 

[ErinsMommy]

personally speaking, i would bet your older digital camera would still take a better picture than your iphone would. i love my iphone but for Disney I use memory maker and a point & shoot digital camera.

 

[rwdavis2]

How many mega pixels on the old digital cameras? If it's 5Meg or more just use those. Unless you are going to make prints larger than 8x10 those will be fine.

 

[bsj1701]

Most phones do NOT take pictures as good as any decent camera. Yes, megapixels are important as far as print size goes, but lens quality, zoom, stabilization features, and ISO sensitivity (among others) are important also. Again it depends on the camera and the phone, but I always bring a camera. There is a reason the disney photographers use cameras and not phones to take pics! For simple photos being shared to a website, phones are very convenient and easy, for quality and once in a lifetime memories, I vote for almost any camera over a phone. A Disney trip has a wide array of photo opportunities. You need something that is good in daylight, low light, (dark rides, fireworks, etc.) capable of catching fast action and who knows what else!

 

[stormer]

I would never go to Disney without a camera. My iPhone takes great pictures outside in the sun, but that is it. It doesn't take good pictures inside or if I need a flash. It also doesn't take good pictures if I want to zoom in. We just got back from Busch Gardens and I tried one day with my phone only. It was ok, but not what I would have gotten with a camera. At Disney I take so many pictures I want a real camera. When we go during the winter I bring my DSLR, when we go during the summer I bring my small Cannon point and shoot because I don't like to carry a lot in the heat.

 

[PrincessJen09]

Thanks for all of the answers so far! I am not an expert with taking pictures at all, but I definitely want to get better. I will look at the old cameras once I get home. Is there any other big things that I should look at besides mega pixels? I should also mention that we do have Memory Maker. These are for pictures for our album and for photo scavenger hunts. Thanks again!

 

[Kelly014]

Why not do some test shots with your older camera and your phone? Try outside in bright light, in the shade, indoors, with and without the flash, etc. That would give you a good idea of how each performs.

ETA: try with moving subjects too. Your camera likely has a faster shutter speed than your phone, so if you have wiggly kids the camera is probably a better bet.

 

[lampshadehead]

One thing to check is how much memory is left for pictures in that 5c. You don't want to get there and have to start going through your old photos deciding which ones to delete or upload to the cloud in order to make room for new pictures. Best to do it now if you think your running out of room.
With that being said, I always bring both, but end up using my phone more since I am carrying the phone around anyway.

 

[ktlm]

We were just at DL last week. We took pictures with my Iphone 5S, my Cannon camera which is about a year old, and my DD's (9) cannon camera which is several years old. I would say that by far, the newer Cannon camera took the best pictures, particularly at night. On the portrait setting it also did better with character photos and some of the other photos. The Iphone does very well during the day, but for the evening photos and photos with tricky lighting, it just can't do what the Cannon camera can and tends to blur or not light up what you want to see. DD's old cannon camera works better at night than the Iphone too. The newer Cannon camera works better for action shots, has a much better zoom, and does work better at night than DD's old Cannon camera. Typically, I often take shots with both the Camera and the Iphone at things. I've noticed that for day shots, sometimes I get better ones on the Iphone and sometimes better on the camera. At night, and for anything like shows where you want to zoom and have lighting issues, the camera typically is much better than the phone camera.

My Mom was not with us, but she has an Iphone 6. Her 6 camera does seem better than on the 5, but I still don't think for the night shots it will not compare to an actual camera.

Do you have a Best Buy near you? In the store they often have a lot of those cameras set up where you can turn them on and snap some shots with them. It won't give you a good feel for night or show shots, but it might help you get a feel for what a camera can do. If you decide to buy a new camera, do some online research and check reviews (professional, youtube, consumer on Amazon or best buy site) because they are not all created equal in terms of what they can do at night or for show shots. If you are going to buy one, you want to find one better than the iphone- not the same or worse.

 

[mandy200587]

I would go with a camera over my iphone and I have the 6. Yes my phone takes decent but nothing like I can get on my digital. I've used both canon and nikon at Disney in the past and I prefer canon over nikon just because of the features and more control over the pictures in canon then you can get anymore in Nikon.

 

[BudgieMama]

We took a camera, and it never made it out of the hotel room. I love taking photos, but I made a vow not to spend the whole of my trip behind the lens instead of experiencing things. By just taking my phone with me, I used it for shots I really wanted, and stored everything else in my memories! (I should note we had Memory Maker too, so we had 300 shots we love from them).

The previous summer, I spent a week in NYC, and have no photos of me and my DH. I stressed a lot about missing the perfect photo, and spent a lot of them time not actually enjoying things properly! I took some "good" photos, but nothing I'd hang on my wall. I have a big collage frame of our Memory Maker shots, however, because we're in them!

I have no problem with people taking and using cameras, but I thought I'd give you another perspective on the debate. We've already said we won't bother taking the camera next time.

 

[Meriweather]

I always use a camera

 

[22Tink]

I find the quality of the prints much better with my camera. My iPhone is great for posting on Facebook or whatever but if I plan on printing them, I use my camera for sure!

 

[boBQuincy]

This subject has been debated on the Photography forum on Disboards for a long time. The group has not come to a clear answer yet as far as I can tell.

 

[Disnsyncey]

just something else to think about.......when I went to DL, I took pics with my phone ALL THE TIME....my phone died quite quickly (so you would at LEAST need an extra battery accessory) and with all the MDE changes and such, it would die even faster if you were using it for 2 major functions.....I take a camera (its like 5 years old) so I can take as may pics as I want and not worry about battery life......my phone would have died on the safari alone!

 

[LetsTalkWDW]

Why not do some test shots with your older camera and your phone? Try outside in bright light, in the shade, indoors, with and without the flash, etc. That would give you a good idea of how each performs.

ETA: try with moving subjects too. Your camera likely has a faster shutter speed than your phone, so if you have wiggly kids the camera is probably a better bet.

This is a great idea. One more suggestion I would make is, after taking your test shots view or print them on the same media to make a proper comparison. If you look at the iphone pictures on the phone itself they will look very good but if you blow them up on a large computer screen maybe not so much.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Check the Photography board here.........

http://www.disboards.com/forums/photography-board.97/

Maybe ask there also.

 

[xlxo]

Some thoughts....

• are you happy with camera phone images when looked at a computer? Or does it appear grainy?
• are you planning many low light images or action shots?
• do you feel comfortable giving a stranger a $600 phone when you can't use that selfie stick? Hope you have that IMEI number. Is your Find My iPhone configured?
• do you have a external battery charger? will the phone battery last you the entire day?
• I'm the guy you see with a camera backpack w/ DSLR

 

[niffer5150]

last trip we chose to leave the camera behind. it's older and far less sophisticated than my s3's camera. i hooked my phone up with a dropbox account that automatically loaded all my pics in case my phone went missing. it was brilliant. only thing i needed to watch was battery power because it was a huge drain. i carried several swap able batteries to fix that. i took and uploaded roughly 500 pics over the span of 9 days. when i got home, i opted to print about 300 of them out using a photo service. they look great although i only printed up to 8x10.

 

[LoodlesNoodles]

Last year i didn't bother with taking a camera. I planned to and even took it for one day but it was big and bulky and when it rained i worried about it affecting the camera so i didn't bring it out again (plus j couldn't find my memory card).

A thing to remember is that iphone doesn't have a memory card slot and i know mine filled very quickly. I had to delete almost everything on my phone to accommodate.

Ive since switched to an S5 and the quality of the pics i took on iphone are awful that i cant do anything with them.
Whilst i dont plan on bringing my dslr this year, i do intend to utilise my bf's point and click as well as my S5.