My recent observation of the yellow v moth, I tried both ways. Hand lens over the camera viewfinder, and hand lens over the phone viewfinder. As usual, the camera’s “close up” mode isn’t; the phone was the one that actually took a non-blurry picture. Both pictures on that observation are from the phone, because the one from the camera was as blurry as the earlier observation done without the hand lens.
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But you can get better photos with say a DSLR, a camera that I would be happy to enter its pictures into a photography competition 
Yes, I was wrong about dragonflies. I also have a lot of quality photos of dragonflies, but I meant that they are difficult to take picture because a smartphone needs a close range, unlike a camera that has zoom.
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In terms of success rate in photo’ing odonate, I’ll take my telephoto DSLR over my cellphone any day. It’s achievable with a phone but I’d rather shoot from a distance —with less disturbance of the subject —and not have to hang my phone over water.
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The big prob with using zooms at a distance is stability and available light/shutter speed/aperture range combos. But the reach is a huge advantage for shooting all manner of flying creatures.
I find I need to shut off autofocus to avoid FFF (fuzzy focus fits) in the AS system. That gives the advantage to a manual zoom with quick, easy adjustment.
I love the size/weight/convenience of shooting with a small sensor super-zoom bridge, but I am hoping that someday, one of the manufacturers will come out with a bridge model that has a true manual mechanical focus override.
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that’s a fantastic foto considering the range, perfectly adequate for an ID.
After trying to get some pictures of a heron not all that far away from me and realizing what a blurry mess it still was with a phone I got a used Nikon D3400 and the detail really blows my semi recent oneplus phone out of the water, especially at not losing all details due to denoising it does. Both have issues with bird against a bright sky and probably why i might look into a newer Nikon that has better dynamic range, and also an electronic shutter which is one advantage the phone has is being silent compared to a loud DSLR. That and the better nighttime and dynamic range is why I will probably buy a newer Nikon mirrorless.
Phone picture of a heron at a much closer distance then the further away I took with a DSLR, and this was not with any kind of crazy lens off a tripod, just holding a 200mm handheld. Granted was still able to get an ID based on knowing what I saw and the phone picture. I am not really concerned with how “artful” a picture is, but the less noise and sharpness from the extra light a camera sensor can bring in on a DSLR/Mirrorless can capture a lot more. The DSLR setup i have cost me like $350 on eBay which is really not too bad.
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Nice! Reminds me of a shot I took back in September, trying out my used Powershot SX540:
The 50x (optical) zoom was at full zoom. Probably a couple hundred feet away.
But it also has 4k video, which makes it very also handy for stuff like this, which is frame from a video taken with the zoom about 12 feet away:
I love that this camera is light and small enough to fit into my jacket pocket. And with the addition of a clip-on Raynox 250, I can get really close macro stuff too. This one is with the Raynox. The mimic spider is about 3mm long (body). Shooting distance of about 6 inches from lens, camera flash, no diffuser. The relatively short length of these bridge power zoom lenses allows you to use the camera flash for macro shots–not something that usually works with longer exchangeable lenses of a DSLR.
If anyone’s looking for an affordable good, toteable, bridge for naturalist fun, you might want to check out one with a superzoom, it’s a very affordable deal, and an easy way to get a kit that’s light in size, weight and overalll fuss for a variety of shooting situations.
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That’s an impressive range for a small camera!
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that’s right
Same… my older iPhones focused more reliably and faster than the iPhone 13.
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All of my observations are made with my phone! Admittedly I can agree that photos taken from a distance are often unclear and a camera may be better suited for that kind of job, but if you’re able to get close to your subjects then phones are great.
My phone with an attachable macro lens has been great for taking photos of small subjects in detail, down to individual trichomes on the leaves of a plant or insect larvae so small that they can fit inside of a mushroom stem. Scale that up a bit to even moderately-sized subjects like butterflies, katydids or small flowers and there’s no doubt in my mind that a phone will do perfectly fine!
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Oops. The SX540 does NOT have 4k video. Only HD. Which I realized after while playing with my newest acquisition, a Nikon P950 which DOES have 4K vid.
But even a good 1920 pixel frame in focus, beats a high rez still that isn’t. And that’s why I’m depending more and more on that little red button when shooting stills in difficult situations. It really ups your odds of getting something decent. And most cameras will let you shoot frame stills while recording (usually with a shutter press), but I tend to leave that until later while scrubbing through the video clip.
You can of course apply this to phone shots as well. If you have a high res video mode option, it might be worth looking into.
Modern smartphones do take very good quality photos in most light settings. Only downside is that macro functions in modern phones leave a lot to be desired
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I have had Galaxy phones for almost all my iNat pictures and it is quite good. It tends to figure out I want to take a photo of the bug on a sheet so I am not tapping the screen too much. I liked the pictures from the old S6 better than the S21 I have now. The macros from the S21 seem to have good focus but the surrounding area looks blurry. Plus phones have the annoying habit of focusing on what you want on the preview screen but then when you take the picture it focuses on something else. I’ve become quite good at “tap screen + snap” and repeat. I’d say you can get a useable picture of things as small as a few millimeters, and very good photos of anything >10mm. I have seen people use smartphones at sheets and their phone just doesn’t take a good picture no matter what they tap on the screen or whether they use a flash or not. The older iPhones just didn’t have good macro cameras.
Some times phones can take great pictures, especially when the opportunity happens only in a blink and you don’t have time to set up a camera or change proper lens.
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