Never said otherwise, but until recently they’ve also always offered AA cameras as well. All ultracompact cameras have used proprietary batteries from day 1.
I’m sorry, but the iPhone 4s pictures are not very good. The iphone ISO setting are 500 with the flash and 800 without flash. The noise is high even for those ISO settings. The pictures are taken at 1/15th to 1/16th with results in a blurry picture without a tripod.
BTW, your tone is over the top considering that all I’m saying is that your phone is not a great camera.
The only tone I’m writing is that the camera is a helluva lot better than anything with that little glass has a right to be.
It ain’t no Hasselblad, but it’s no Disc camera, either.
There’s a convenience factor. I spend more than enough time riding in the Colorado High Country…it’s a helluva lot easier to reach in your pocket and pull out your phone than it is to dig into the saddelbags and pull out the Nikon.
And they’re only getting better.
iPhone camera does pretty well in good light outdoors. Outdoor activities are the times when convenience is most important; if you’re going to be somewhere indoors, it’s not much trouble to bring a better camera along.
The iPhone is a $679 dollar phone for $199 up front and 24 easy payments of $20 a month. You can buy a DSLR and a no contract Android phone for for that.
Checked the prices on an unlocked iPhone 4s on Amazon.
But then you still need to buy a cellphone + contract. Which will be $80 a month with data. Come on, you really trying that hard to win this debate?
Is it noisy? In some circumstances. Is it a pretty good point n shoot for a cellphone? Hell yeah! And I don’t think you’ll find many people debating that…for a cellphone camera, it’s pretty great.
Actually I’m on BoostMobile for $40 a month. Unlimited data is an extra $5, so the total would be $45. I was thinking of the ZTE Warp, which is $199.99 without a contract.
http://www.boostmobilestore.com/bpdirect/boost/PhoneList.do?action=view&id=warp
It got good reviews and it runs Android 2.3, like my tablet.
For the camera, I had in mind the Canon EOS Rebel Digital T3 12.2 Megapixel Digital Camera W/ 18-55mm IS II Lens for $467.
To tell the truth, I hate changing lens myself and would probably use a superzoom like the Panasonic DMC-FZ150K. I have a 6 year old FZ5 and it is still a good camera.
I suspect you’re looking for a point and shoot since that’s what “every day” camera means to me. (Which isn’t a sleight: I always have one on me too)
But if you are thinking DSLR, consider that Nikon and Canon (and probably others) sell an extended grip that 1) makes the camera bigger and much easier to hold, 2) accepts AA cells. The one on my canon caries 6 AA or two of the proprietary LiONs, 3) it makes the camera heavier, which may or may not be appreciated.
Lithium cells beat the crap out of those too, which is not surprising considering that the power specs are similar for alkaline and NiMH, though the latter have the advantage of providing more reliable power output from full charge to discharge vs. higher peak output for alkaline, but fluctuations in voltage during discharge. The energy density per weight unit is absurdly in Li-ion’s favor.
If you’re any kind of photographer, you won’t like aspects of pretty much any super zoom…sure, with enough fiddling, you can set stuff manually, but where my Sony falls down is in setting the focus and zoom while filming. All of the GORGEOUS little films you’ve seen recently come from DSLRs for a reason. I’d actually likes to replace my d50 body with a d300s or d7000, but I have more desires than money. (both use motors in the body vs the lens, saving my investment in glass.)
Except in the digital camera application, where NiMH last far longer than Alkaline. You may get 20-30 shots from an Alkaline, and 200-300 from NiMH, and a similar number of shots from Lithiums. The main advantage of Lithiums IMO is low temperatures, where they excel. But the cost of Lithiums AAs makes them impractical for heavy use in digital cameras.
I will concede that there are things my FZ5 can’t do that a DSLR can, but you can’t beat the price since I got it for my 10 year anniversary at work for free. Technically DSLR cameras are obsolete since Sony and some other companies have managed to put APS-C sensors in a compact body. When I get some money, I will look for a new camera. I’d like to get into HDR photography and the cameras with the built in sweep panorama are cool.
There still is a pretty huge difference between an APS-C DSLR and the best compacts with APS-C sensors. The difference between those and a full frame DSLR are still pretty drastic.
A DSLR will always win out. Simply because you cannot quickly change f.stop, shutter, zoom, and focus on the fly with ANYTHING less.
Decoupling the focus, setting it a specific distance, then taking the shot right as the animal, athlete, or Sportscar hits that focus distance is something that is MUCH easier to get on a DSLR.
You can also get prime lenses. A superzoom point n shoot will always sacrifice f.stop for zoom. With a DSLR, you don’t have to.
Lastly, the DSLR bodies I’ve seen and used are STOUT. They’re designed to work in the real hot, real cold, kinda moist conditions that professional photographers need them to.
And for that they’re bulky and expensive. (Although not NEAR as expensive as it all used to be when it was a film hobby.)
(ETA: This from the guy who was saying his iPhone was ‘all that’. 
)
I wish.
Dragging an SLR around gets pretty tiresome, mine is about 4 pounds with grip, extra battery and a small prime lens. A large zooms makes it even heavier. But I don’t see compact bodies replacing DSLR for professionals, the amount of buttons and manual control that a pro requires won’t fit on a compact.
Once you get used to your camera is like typing, or playing the piano, you know all the buttons by touch.
Bwah? Why can’t you just buy a third-party battery or go on eBay?
It seems like obsolescence in the consumer tech world is more often caused by rapidly evolving tech than… batteries.
You can do all of that with an EVIL or translucent prism camera today, neither are DSLRs. You could design all that into a compact body, and Ricoh has something similar. It has little to do with the DSLR concept, it’s just the way cameras are currently designed.
Then come back when they ARE designed that way. The EVIL cameras suffer from interpreting the scene and playing it back on a display, are expensive for what they are, and aren’t appreciably smaller than an ordinary DSLR. It’s 80% of what a DSLR will get you, with fewer lenses, for 110% of the price.
cite: http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/01/19/how-evil-cameras-work-better-than-a-dslr/
We’re talking in gross generalities: “More glass = better”, “DSLR’s give more control”, “Phone cameras suck.”
If you want all that, take a look at the Fuji XS-1 or the X100 with manual focus, zoom and aperture rings. They operate pretty much like a DSLR in a compact package with innovative features like the cool hybrid view finder. They are available today in high end compact cameras without interchangeable lenses. The Canon S100 has a single ring around the lens that can be programed to adjust ISO, focus, zoom, shutter speed, or aperture. Not the same level of control as the Fujis but certainly a big step towards that in an extremely small body.
The trend today is to make EVIL cameras the functional equivalent to DSLRs. Right now they are close and getting close with each iteration. In addition, since they are freed from the limitations of DSLR design they are doing new and different things. I have a hard time giving up the optical view finder, but these cameras are the fastest growing class of cameras today and will seriously cut into the sales of entry level DSLRs. The full frame DSLRs are still the work horses for professionals, but the majority of camera users don’t care about the features that make them great.
DSLRs are great, but so are Lamborghinis. They do things that the vast majority of users don’t need or even know how to use. The trend is to take some of those features and port them down to the new classes of cameras as needed, especially since the lowest end class of digital camera is being replaced by the phone.
It looks like the NEX cameras are replacing DSLRs for some professionals in some applications.
http://www.ryanbrenizer.com/2011/11/review-sony-nex-5n/
Of course most professionals are pretty conservative about switching camera systems. If you have $10,000 in lens, you aren’t going to switch on a whim. I expect more professionals to try out the NEX now that they came out with the NEX-7. I won’t buy the Nex-7 unless I win the lottery.
Here is a 'rolling review of the NEX-7.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/sony_nex_7_rolling_review.shtml
Based on the reviews I’ve read the controls still need some improvement.