> Also photographer here, I disagree that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter to the people who would previously have paid for a product. That's the point being made.

Technical excellence will always matter to some, but the point the GP is making is that the quality of smartphones has reached a level where a larger and larger segment of 'people who would have paid' now rest within the smartphone circle on the Venn diagram.

"Phones have eaten some of the DSLR market" and "it simply doesn't matter now" are not remotely the same, though.

> "it simply doesn't matter now"

If the OP is talking about the general public's perception, with most of them not being photography enthusiasts, I tend to think this rings true.

If you're a photography enthusiast, then yeah, not true at all.

I can sympathize with OP's post even if it was not precise. I feel like he was dejected about the fact that the mass market has previously subsidized the DSLR R&D and now that that evaporated the future of DSLRs is grim. But I don't think it's quite at the level of horse carriages :)

Low light? WHen I was a shooting pro, ISO 800 was where colour went away, and P3200 - the new kid on the block - was where you went for B&W. If you took it over 6400, you were fooling yourself. (I remember David Brooks going on in one of the magazines about how he could shoot at 12800 if he metered differently, but anyone who actually knew what they were doing could see that he was finding a different way of metering for 6400, then giving a little extra push in development, which he should have been doing with his other 6400 images as well.) This whole "see colour in the dark" thing is new - arguably, it wasn't a thing before the Nikon D3/D700. And no, phones aren't great for sports or birding - but that's not what most people have ever done with cameras.

The number of people who want a camera is vanishingly small. What almost everybody wants is a thing that takes pictures. These days, that doesn't have to be an extra thing; they're going to be carrying their phones for all sorts of other reasons. (BTW, lighting is far, far more important than the gear you use to capture the effects of the lighting. If I had to tell people to pay attention to only one thing, it would be the lighting - whether that's "found" lighting or something you deliberately set out to create. Get that right, and "fix it in post" becomes a whole lot less attractive.)

Does it not depends on the level of photographers? Assuming there is level 1 to 10 in DSLR users, surely there would be some DSLR users that flagship cell phone has reached a point where it doesn't matter to them?

I have been wonder at what point will Phones camera reached the law of diminishing return? I thought the iPhone 11 with night mode finally closed the gap for most consumers, we have a roadmap for another 5 years of Lens, Optical Zoom, and Sensors with better light sensitivity.

Apple likes to hype up features, but they still haven't come out and claim they have a DSLR like Camera system. I wonder when they will do that.

> Does it not depends on the level of photographers?

No, it depends on what you want to do. If you want to do street photography, for example, even as a novice, you're going to have a much easier time using a longer lens so you don't get near your subjects and ruin your shots by drawing attention.

Thx. Makes Perfect Sense.

See the "it's not technically impossible" part of the comment, which was meant to preempt (unsuccessfully, it seems) such replies.

Yes, but I assumed that meant without a lot of work or obscure settings and stuff. This is a headline promoted feature of the phone and its software.

No, I more meant that it's a huge hassle. For example, with the phone you can't compose very well because you have to wait for each frame to expose before you can make a correction. With the SLR viewfinder, you can just look and see what's going on. Then you have the issue of not being able to capture a specific area using a narrower lens (if your subject requires it), and just the experience is going to not be great.

I think with a phone in a tripod you can use an app like google sky to get it pointed at exactly what you want, and even use search functions and stuff.

There are narrow lenses for phones as well.