Hi, everybody, welcome to episode five of the photography explained podcast. In this episode, do I really need a camera in 2020?

I’m your host, Rick, and each week I will try to explain one photographic thing to you in plain English in less than 10 minutes without the irrelevant details.

My aim is to explain things in just enough detail to help us with our photography and no more. And I’m hoping in this episode that I’ll be sounding a little bit more natural. I’m halfway to double figures now, which is excellent.

So anyway, let’s get on with this.

If you need a camera or not in 2020 depends on what are your aims for your photography. Do you want to make a living from photography? Do you want to go professional? Do you want to learn advanced techniques? Or are you just happy wandering around taking photos with your phone? If you are happy with this then that is great, but if you want to develop your photography then yes you do need a camera in 2020.

You can listen to the episode here

Or keep on reading. Or do both. Entirely up to you!

Well, this was not the question that I was answering on this episode, I have to be honest with you. I was planning on continuing with my explanation of the exposure triangle and all that detailed stuff within there. But um, yeah, the question has been put to me by a Mrs Nicola McEvoy, from well, from where I live – she is my wife!

Yep, Mrs M has asked a question. And this is having listened to episodes 1-4. And she has made a very good point. Yeah, all this detail is great, but do I need a camera? Very good question.

Let’s have a look at answering it.

1 Firstly, what are your aims for your photography?

Do you just like going out and taking photos? Or snaps as somebody I know calls them? Do you want to make a living from photography? Do you want to go professional? Do you want to learn advanced techniques? Or are you just happy wandering around taking photos with your phone?

2 What matters.

Two things matter to me. One is that you enjoy photography. And also that you actually go out and take photos. If you do those two things it doesn’t really matter what you use, whether you use a camera or a phone, there is no right or wrong answer – it is down to everybody’s own needs and tastes.

3 What about me then?

I need a camera. I use a full-frame Canon DSLR for my architectural photography, construction photography and real estate photography work. Now a full-frame camera has a large sensor, which captures lots of information. I also have an Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera or two, which I use for my travel photography. But the Canon 6D is my main commercial camera.

4 What about my phone?

5 Shock news about phones

6 Can you get great photos with a phone?

You sure can. The software in phones these days is really quite staggering. And I’m sure that people have taken photos with an iPhone that you couldn’t tell were taken with an iPhone (other phones are available). But in my opinion, at the moment, my iPhone is not good enough for me to use in my commercial photography work.

7 Why is that?

Well, putting aside the fact that if I turned up to a job with my phone, my client would probably look at me and go, really, I’m paying for someone with a phone?

No, there’s much more that cameras do. And there’s a reason that there are cameras out there. And there’s a reason that there are cameras of varying prices, and of varying complexities.

8 Why do I need a camera?

I need a full-frame DSLR camera – that is a digital single-lens reflex camera. Another ridiculous term from the past. I need a DSLR to capture high-quality RAW images that I can process in Lightroom. And if things have gone badly in Photoshop too.

My phone just doesn’t collect the same amount of data, the depth of the shadows, the highlights the lights, the darks, a phone doesn’t capture the dynamic range that a camera does.

With a camera, you get more information than you get in general terms with a phone.

10 So where was I?

Sorry, I went off on one, then yeah. The quality of a photo taken with a professional lens is going to be higher than one with a camera phone. It’s just the law of optics really, you’ll get more detail, more sharp focus more blurred focus if that’s what you want. So the quality with a camera is better than with a phone.

11 I also have specific needs from lenses

I need a wide-angle lens, 17mm on a full frame.

12 Controls and handling

I also need the controls and settings that a digital camera has that you just don’t get with a phone. It’s also an issue about usability and handling – cameras are designed to be held in the hand. Or put on a tripod in my case.

One of my big bugbears with my iPhone is that if I don’t put it in a case, I can’t use it because I just drop it. A camera is designed to be held and used to take photos and nothing else.

13 Other stuff

I also use filters, mainly neutral density filters, to blur things.

So I need a camera. I have a camera. I have a number of cameras and I also have an iPhone. I enjoy using all of them.

14 But I love my iPhone

But I really enjoy taking photos with my iPhone. A couple of years ago I went on holiday with my Canon 6D and all the lenses, all the stuff that goes with it. But I really couldn’t be bothered getting my camera out of the boot of the car. So I just used my phone, and it was great.

This led me onto getting a much smaller Olympus Micro Four Thirds camera. I’ll get onto Micro Four Thirds in another episode.

So yeah, iPhones certainly give you the immediacy of a photo – look on the back of the screen on my Canon 6D and you can’t really see anything. It’s just not the same as the screen on an iPhone. And it’s immediate – you can share it. Not a big thing to me though.

Summary

So um, yeah. Do you, me, or anyone need a camera in 2020? Or is a phone all we need? Well, as I said before, I’ll say it again. It’s down to each person. We’re all different. We all have our own needs, wants and preferences.

And I’ll go back again to the more important point. It’s more important that we’re all out there taking photos, practising learning, photography, whatever it is that we use. Getting out and taking photos is the number one way to improve your photography – sounds like an ad doesn’t it?

Enough

Right, I could go on – believe me, I could go on about this indefinitely. But I’m going to stop there because um, yeah, I did have a plan for the episodes, I was getting into very specific technical things which I was going to explain.

But I’ve got a prompt on my iPad in front of me saying “Next on the Photography Explained Podcast”, and I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t got a clue. I don’t know what I’m going to do next because I quite like this. This high-level chat about stuff. The question was a great one from Mrs M.

I didn’t need to do any research on it. This was all in my head. So next episode, who knows I will come up with something.

Thanks

So I will say thank you very much for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode – a bit of a waffle to be honest with you. But hey, there’s some good stuff in there. If you enjoyed the episode, please leave a nice review and rating wherever you get your podcasts from.

I am now available on all the main podcast providers. And please subscribe so you don’t miss an episode.

And if you could tell anybody who you think might be interested in my podcast that will be greatly appreciated.

You can also check out my website Rick McEvoy Photography where you can find out all about me and my architectural and construction photography work and also find my blog. I couldn’t get the form working for you to just fill that in and submit your questions, so please email me at sales@rickmcevoyphotography.co.uk and I will add your question to the list.

This episode is brought to you by mainly Alta Rica coffee and Biscoff cream biscuits. They kept me going – if only that was a sponsored link!

What’s next? In the next Photography Explained Podcast episode 6 – What Are The Different Types Of Camera?

Thanks again for listening and I will see you on the next episode.

Cheers from me, Rick

OK – that was the podcast episode.

Want to know more?

Head over to the Start page on the Photography Explained Podcast website to find out more.

And here is the list of episodes published to date – you can listen to any episode straight from this page which is nice.

Let me know if there is a photography thing that you want me to explain and I will add it to my list. Just head over to the This is my list of things to explain page of this website to see what is on there already.

Let me send you stuff

I send out a weekly email to my subscribers. It is my take on one photography thing, plus what I have been writing and talking about. Just fill in the box and you can get my weekly photographic musings straight to your inbox. Which is nice.

And finally a little bit about me

Finally, yes this paragraph is all about me – check out my Rick McEvoy Photography website to find out more about me and my architectural, construction, real estate and travel photography work. I also write about general photography stuff, all in plain English without the irrelevant detail.

Thank you

Thanks for listening to my podcast (if you did) and reading this blog post (which I assume you have done as you are reading this).

Cheers from me Rick