# Why are so many people incapable of taking a decent picture with a cellphone **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 30, 2013, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701 "2013-05-30T11:58:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/21 "2013-05-30T15:08:21Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > The auto mode of most cameras is better than 90% of the photographers using them. Yeah - I pretty much figure I take the best pictures the auto mode of my camera/phone lets me. Without flaunting my ignorance, ISTR lit acquaria are somewhat of an exception due to the brightness of the light, and the speed of the fish. Haven’t shot my aquaria lately, but I remember getting really good shots required a tripod and some manual settings. But yesterday I took some really good shots of my dog at the beach by simply pointing and clicking my phone. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/22 "2013-05-30T15:16:22Z")
> [@Hermitian](#): > > We were house hunting about a year ago. You would NOT believe how many people were trying to sell a $300-$400K house and the only pictures they or their realtor could come up with are 1-2 shots taken by a cell phone camera (approximately 640x480). Yup. The RE agent, if they’re serious, should spring for a pro to come by and shoot the house. Besides being tidy and with every single light on, most rooms need a two-shot pan, stitched together, to adequately show them. I still look over the pro shots of the house we sold in CA, because they’re beautiful shots of the years of work I did on the place. We sold, in early 2011, in a depressed area of Sacramento, in two weeks, for 95% of asking. The photos were not a trivial part of that success. But even RE agents could learn to use their damned cell phones better. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/23 "2013-05-30T15:18:12Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > People are vertical. Yes, but vision is horizontal. > [@](#): > > They call it “portrait format” for a reason. Yes, but not that reason. > [@](#): > > What’s the point in having the person 9/16ths as tall, and acres of space on either side, just because someone might want to watch the video on a horizontal screen? To make your videos bearable to watch. > [@](#): > > Do you shoot all your still photos in landscape format, too? No, but that’s because photo composition and video composition are entirely different beasts. I want my videos to be compatible with every single viewing medium they’ll ever be shown on. Shooting video vertically is counter-productive to that. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/24 "2013-05-30T15:22:20Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > You see it all the time: “Here’s a picture of the UFO/mystery object I want you to identify/hot chick. Sorry for the crappy photo, I had to use my phone.” > > You click the link, and it’s a horribly blurry, out of focus blob. Often you can see that the camera is focused on the background, not the object in question. > > Do these people not realise that cellphones actually take perfectly decent photos, these days? Almost all of them have autofocus that can focus within a few centimetres of the lens. Assuming you’re using a smartphone, you know you can tap on the screen to focus on a given object, right? It’s really not hard. It would take less time to take a decent photo than it would to type out the apology about the photo being shite. I bet almost none have autofocus. They all probably have simple fixed-focus lenses that have fairly high f numbers so that the depth of field is large, and most everything past a certain distance is in focus. A few do- the iPhone 3GS and higher apparently do have real mechanical auto-focus, but they’re the exception, not the rule. Basically the best camera phones are roughly on par with low-end P&S cameras in terms of capability and photo quality. Mix that up with people taking photos in less than optimal conditions (indoors, bars/pubs, really close up, etc…) and you have a perfect recipe for cruddy photos. ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/25 "2013-05-30T15:34:51Z")
> [@Amateur\_Barbarian](#): > > Yup. The RE agent, if they’re serious, should spring for a pro to come by and shoot the house… > > But even RE agents could learn to use their damned cell phones better. > [@Hermitian](#): > > We were house hunting about a year ago. You would NOT believe how many people were trying to sell a $300-$400K house and the only pictures they or their realtor could come up with are 1-2 shots taken by a cell phone camera (approximately 640x480). Realtor here. I heartily agree that better photos help sell upscale properties. However, we are hamstrung by ancient technology – which I am constantly fighting against – that limits individual agents’ technology to bygone days. In our local MLS, we cannot post images any bigger than 640x480, and there is a data size limit as well. Posting larger ones won’t get them resized, just rejected. And there are data purge batch routines that are also ancient, written in the days when a storage space for the entire local MLS was limited to 100 GB. Photos and other images are chopped off automatically without warning. OTOH, we have brokers who specialize in foreclosures. While most brokers like to post 10-20 pix of a home, the foreclosure brokers post one or two at the most. For some trashed properties, posting a pic is probably a _dis_incentive. ---
**Author:** ![Drunky\_Smurf](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drunky_smurf/32/449_2.png) [@Drunky\_Smurf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drunky_Smurf)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/26 "2013-05-30T15:37:16Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > People are vertical. If I’m taking a video of a person, I’m going to shoot it vertically. They call it “portrait format” for a reason. What’s the point in having the person 9/16ths as tall, and acres of space on either side, just because someone might want to watch the video on a horizontal screen? > > Do you shoot all your still photos in landscape format, too? I agree. I shoot a lot of videos on my phone and I never want to view them again or save them to my computer so why should I care about some dipshit that might want to see it on any device other than my phone. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/27 "2013-05-30T15:51:46Z")
When I used film and got prints, I would shoot either in portrait or landscape. With digital I shoot landscape only because the display device is always my computer monitor, which can’t be turned easily like a print. Basically the problem is phones produce vertical videos optimized for phones, so it’s problematic to see it on a computer or a TV. I’ll go as far as to simply refuse to watch vertical videos unless the content is extremely compelling. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/28 "2013-05-30T18:04:47Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > The sensors in phones are (with a few exceptions) very small and poor at low light. Most people are trying to take pictures of moving objects in low light, typically without a flash or too far away for the weak flash to be of use. > > And most people don’t know any of the above so they shoot away. And things look better on a small camera screen versus a larger computer screen. This. My first camera cell phone was 3 mp and you’d need a tripod to take a picture in bright light and it still sucked. My current one is 3.2 mp and it takes much better pictures in daylight but still is way below what the cheapest dedicated digital camera is capable of. ---
**Author:** ![Gatopescado](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gatopescado/32/5711_2.png) [@Gatopescado](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gatopescado)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/29 "2013-05-30T18:47:58Z")
I was at Legoland, in the rain and heavy cloud cover and saw what is quite possibly the _funniest thing I’ve ever seen_. I grabbed my wife’s phone and snapped a shot, figuring it would turn out shit, but better than nothing. Got home and put it on the computer, and I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like an absolute professional photo-shoot. Its so good, it almost looks faked, and kinda ruins the joke. ---
**Author:** ![as\_u\_wish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/6f9a4e/32.png) [@as\_u\_wish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/as_u_wish)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/30 "2013-05-30T19:48:04Z")
On the off chance your question was serious, I can tell you why I can’t use my cell phone camera with any success. It’s because of the focal length of my bifocal glasses, which are designed for distance or for reading but absolutely not for taking pictures on a cellphone. I can’t see the images on the cell phone at an appropriate distance to do anything but point and click and hope, and it will likely be jiggly because to see anything I have to hold it out at arm’s length with one hand, and so it jiggles. I can take excellent pictures on my I-pad because the device is large so I can hold it steady in two hands and the image is large so I can see what I’m doing. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/31 "2013-05-30T20:07:01Z")
The reader pane of your bifocals don’t let you see the display panel at something like normal reading distance? Mine do. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/32 "2013-05-31T01:02:57Z")
I’m an avid amature photographer. I own a decent dslr. When I try to take pictures with my cell phone they almost always suck. I have a couple of good photos from my phone. taken of a reflction of buildings on the water. So they’re supposed to look blurry. But all the times I try to just take of photo of something so I can look at it later, like a store front with the address so I can find it or something like that. Man, those photos suck. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2013, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/33 "2013-05-31T02:10:43Z")
Another reason they’re blurry is to hide the photoshop mistakes. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 9:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/34 "2013-06-02T09:17:39Z")
> [@Drunky\_Smurf](#): > > I agree. I shoot a lot of videos on my phone and I never want to view them again or save them to my computer so why should I care about some dipshit that might want to see it on any device other than my phone. If you never want to view them again, then it makes no sense to put them on your phone in the first place. As for only wanting to view them on your phone–guess what? We won’t know about those photos, so obviously we don’t care about them. We’re talking about videos posted online. Read for comprehension. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/35 "2013-06-02T10:12:53Z")
Am I correct in thinking that since phone camera sensors are small and cheap, ISO can’t be pushed much without awful noise and aperture isn’t that high, that leaves a long shutter speed to get sufficient exposure? Long shutter speed + unstable platform=blur. Also, are there are phone cameras which use anything better than digital stabilization? From what I understand, digital stabilization works by taking two pictures and picking the least blurry of the two. If both are blurry because of long shutter speed, camera movement and not having any other form of stabilization, you’ll have blurry pictures no matter what, right? In other words, most people suck at taking pictures with a cellphone for the same reason that most people suck shooting a handgun; it’s an unforgiving tool which sacrifices performance for portability. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/36 "2013-06-02T13:25:24Z")
I think true digital image stabilization is only for video. Video resolutions cap out at 1080P which is just over 2 megapixels, but a still camera has much, much more resolution. So the idea is you can select which part of the image sensor to use; if you jerk the camera up while videoing the active part of the image sensor shifts down to compensate. Now YouTube needs to add a “horizontal only” filter for their searches. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/37 "2013-06-02T14:13:14Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Also, are there are phone cameras which use anything better than digital stabilization? > > From what I understand, digital stabilization works by taking two pictures and picking the least blurry of the two. If both are blurry because of long shutter speed, camera movement and not having any other form of stabilization, you’ll have blurry pictures no matter what, right? Not sure if there are phones that do it, but one method is to take several short images instead of one long image, then stack them. With camera algorithms for HDR and panoramas that also require matching images, this method becomes easier. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/38 "2013-06-02T15:10:40Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > From what I understand, digital stabilization works by taking two pictures and picking the least blurry of the two. That may be a software workaround in tinycams, but I have a case full of Canon lenses with IS that is active and mechanical. They work for both still and video photography. ---
**Author:** ![Mdcastle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/958977/32.png) [@Mdcastle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mdcastle)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/39 "2013-06-02T15:26:47Z")
Canon lenses use optical image stabilization, not digital. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2013, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701/40 "2013-06-02T16:13:11Z")
> [@Mdcastle](#): > > Canon lenses use optical image stabilization, not digital. That’s precisely what I said. 🙂 Some of the bodies and most of the P&S models also have digital stabilization. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-so-many-people-incapable-of-taking-a-decent-picture-with-a-cellphone/659701.md?page=3)