Quote from: scribble on January 05, 2019, 20:33

I use my iphone and DSLR for stock photos.  My DSLR takes better photos, but I like my iphone if I need to be a little more discrete, like in a store or market.  I can make a decent photo of fruit or other products quickly and easily.

My iphone has limitations.  It is too noisy to make decent twilight photos.  And, if I have to zoom, I just forego the photo, as it will also be too noisy.

Good point which I've found true. If you need any zoom, using a phone, it's probably not going to be any good. Also same for anything without "good" lighting. That may have changed but I've had a bunch of phones and the iPhone works about the best, still can't beat optical zoom, bigger sensor or settings like ISO.

I won't say phones are bad. They just aren't as good. 

Indeed. Low light and zoom is a main problem in phone cameras but they continue working with that. New Huawei p30 is probably going to have 10X zoom and a very low light sensor.

Quote from: davidbautista on January 07, 2019, 13:38

Quote from: Uncle Pete on January 07, 2019, 13:35

Quote from: scribble on January 05, 2019, 20:33

I use my iphone and DSLR for stock photos.  My DSLR takes better photos, but I like my iphone if I need to be a little more discrete, like in a store or market.  I can make a decent photo of fruit or other products quickly and easily.

My iphone has limitations.  It is too noisy to make decent twilight photos.  And, if I have to zoom, I just forego the photo, as it will also be too noisy.

Good point which I've found true. If you need any zoom, using a phone, it's probably not going to be any good. Also same for anything without "good" lighting. That may have changed but I've had a bunch of phones and the iPhone works about the best, still can't beat optical zoom, bigger sensor or settings like ISO.

I won't say phones are bad. They just aren't as good. 

Indeed. Low light and zoom is a main problem in phone cameras but they continue working with that. New Huawei p30 is probably going to have 10X zoom and a very low light sensor.

Cool! $1,000 for a phone that makes photos? I still want a camera that makes phone calls! 

Not as dumb as it sounds, (but it is mostly humor) lets say, a DSLR that I can upload directly to a news service or agency? Doesn't have to have all the fancy phone stuff, just the ability to log onto the web and send photos. Phone would be nice, just in case I was out shooting and wanted to order pizza?

That's true. That phone is going to be 600 probably but yes

What are the best stock sites to sell mobile phone pictures images and videos footage?
I've sold a few on 123RF.
I have so many pics and vids from iPhone 8+ but, not sure where to send them except 123RF.
I've tried FOAP in the past but, deleted after I didn't like the fact that at the time it seemed I'd have to save IPTC differently and I guess I considered that tedious. Haven't gone back to the (What seems like?) exclusively mobile phone apps like FOAP sales sites. Not sure if I should. Any experience there or the other mobile sites?
I am mainly concerned with trying to find the best possibility of sales from submitting  mobile pics and videos of the main sites I share with that seem to have the most sales like SS, AS, DT, A, BS, CanStockPhoto, DP, ETC.
Thanks

Phone companies are developing computational photography, which means taking multiple photos with different exposures and baking them into the final image, plus reducing noise. Computational photography is advancing faster than sensors, which is why phone cameras are advancing faster than DLSRs these days. Computational photography as an option on DLSRs would be definitely cool.

According to what can be found on google and youtube, Google Pixel 2 and 3 and maybe iPhone XS are probably the best for point and shoot photography. LG V30 and V40 are also up there if you prefer manual controls and if you don't mind lack of image stabilization.

I guess we can conclude that the new high-end phones definitely provide good enough quality for microstock. But what about sales? Is there a significant demand for higher resolution and quality or mobile photography is good enough for most of the buyers?

And why can't some camera company build this into their product, say a bridge camera or an accessory? 

computational photography https://witharsenal.com/ for example.

You can tout the contrived data for phones vs a DSLR forever, but you can't fool Mother Nature. A phone camera is nowhere near as good, or as adjustable and controllable as a tool for making high quality images. If you want to shoot snapshots, a phone is fine. The only way a phone is as good as a DSLR is in someones dreams and imagination, because they want to believe that a tiny little plastic lens, or array of them, and a tiny sensor, can actually make a solid, great quality image.

The camera on the Galaxy S8 Active sports a 12MP sensor which has a physical dimension of 1/2.55 inches or about 12.7mm with individual pixels measuring 1.4 microns.

The Canon 5D MK3 has a 22.3MP full frame sensor featuring a diagonal measurement of approximately 1.7 inches (about 43.27mm) with a pixel size of 6.1 microns.

Pixel Size matters. Light gathering matters. Camera control really matters.

However if you are doing travel, some scenic and don't need the fine details, or maybe something portable for a situation, where you don't want a big honking giant, heavy camera, of course a phone will be fine. The word is acceptable/ A phone can produce acceptable stock photos and videos. Probably won't cost as much, in fact, one good lens can cost more than a few phones. 

An expensive DSLR is not necessary to make good enough quality stock photos. People years ago, and I imagine the same is still true, used pocket cameras and bridge cameras and made good money on Microstock. I see many of the new mirrorless cameras without interchangeable lenses that are honestly better in a number of ways, than a big standard DSLR.

People could get by with a prosumer DSLR as well? Less features, but often the same sensors and use the same lenses.

So it comes back to the usual question, which is the answer. What do you want to do? How much control do you need. How much are you willing to spend?

Sure someone could use a phone instead of a big dedicated camera. Don't expect the images to be as refined or as high quality if you are going to use a phone.

Then there's the question of sales? Can the buyers see the difference in quality or size? I don't know. Just keep in mind, I'm not sold on my phone being a camera, yet. But I still want them to build a phone into my DSLR so I can upload photos, directly from the camera.  What I mean is, you can upload from a phone, to many agencies.

Choose your tools to match your job.

In terms of resolution tweaked Nokia808 over-rank all these pathetic iphones and googlephones.