[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Photographs bring a website to life.
It’s amazing how much longer people will stay engaged on a page or buy a product based on an image.
But getting good pictures for your site can be a bit tricky. It’s even trickier if you don’t have the right tools. One of the biggest mistakes you can make for your company is not having a high-quality camera to take pictures.
But even if you have a camera on your smartphone, it’s not enough.
Many businesses should be using a DSLR camera (also known by its full name digital single-lens reflex camera), to take photos of their products and company events. But many have argued a smartphone’s camera is just as good as a DSLR camera.
A smartphone camera won’t do the trick.
Here are the pros and cons of using a smartphone for taking pictures and using them for your website.
Compared to 8 years ago, smartphones camera quality has risen significantly. Pixels are no longer as visible in a photo, and smartphones can do some pretty amazing things.
New smartphones have some amazing specs for taking photos. However, they still lack the needed features of a being able to take images in a high-res format, like a DSLR camera.
DSLR, also known by its full name digital single-lens reflex camera, are the fancy cameras used by professional photographers.
The newest iPhone 7 has 12-megapixel rear camera (the same as the iPhone 6s) and the ability to shoot 720p quality video, which is slightly above the norm.
While that is excellent quality, it just doesn’t hold a candle to any of the big brand cameras like Nikon or Canon.
For example, the Nikon D3300 has 24-megapixels and has a max resolution of 6000 x 4000.
So most DSRL’s have twice the amount of pixels quality than newest Apple iPhone has, and the resolution quality blows anything an average smartphone can do out of the water.
Your business should be using a high-resolution camera to take photos of staged events. Whether it be your company picnic day, or especially if you’re photographing specific products you sell.
Anytime you’re planning to take photos; you need to be using a DSLR camera. If you’re an E-Commerce store, you need to take the best photos possible to entice people into buying from you.
Nothing turns away buyers more than seeing blurry and small pixelated pictures of products you sell.
Should you ever use a smartphone?
Using a smartphone is still appropriate for a lot of situations.
One of the great things about smartphones is they are always with you. When you’re at a trade show or a conference, no one wants to lug around a heavy camera and tripod. Smartphones are ideal for capturing impromptu moments that you didn’t bring your big fancy DSLR camera too.
What situations work the best for each camera? Well, we sent two of our employees to test out our Canon against one of our smartphones.
The contenders, an Apple 6S iPhone and Droid Turbo 2 versus our company camera a Canon Rebel T3I.
Here’s what they found from testing a variety of image types.
They tested for the following circumstances.
- Food shots
- People shots
- Zoom shots
- Landscape shots
- Dark shots
- Action shots
Here are their results.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][ultimate_heading]
Food
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Canon Rebel T3I
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Apple 6S iPhone
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]The food speaks in part for itself, the cheese and meat looks way juicier with the Canon, but not a bad attempt from the iPhone.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][ultimate_heading]
People
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Canon Rebel T3I
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Apple 6S iPhone
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We had to shoot in fluorescent lighting which looks horrible, but it’s a real test to see which camera can hand dreary light better. And to be fair, if you’re a business, chances are you have poor office lighting anyway!
The Canon keeps more of the colors vivid and manages not to wash people out like the iPhone does in the dim light.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][ultimate_heading]
Zoom
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Canon Rebel T3I
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Droid Turbo 2
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Ick, the zoom one speaks for itself. The Droid two doesn’t even come close compared to our Canon’s close up shot.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][ultimate_heading]
Landscape
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Canon Rebel T3I
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Droid Turbo 2
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Landscapes are fairly evenly matched, except the trees are slightly sharper and brighter with the Canon photo over the Droid 2 photo.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][ultimate_heading]
Dark shots
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Canon Rebel T3I
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Droid Turbo 2
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]This is another drastic one, but the Canon photo looks like there’s an extra light source, which there isn’t, we took a selfie to prove it.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”5290″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
Droid Turbo 2
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Action
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Canon Rebel T3I
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Droid Turbo 2
[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]We had to be creative here, but fortunately another team member let our photographers spin her around in her chair to get some movement shots.
As you can see, the Canon does a better job of keeping the image crisp, all of our smartphone shots were a tad blurry, or very blurry.
Is a smartphone better in any instance? Well, the one way a smartphone is better is when you are sneakily trying to take a photo. Here it looks like you’re texting, and nobody’s the wiser.
With a DSLR, it’s a different story.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”5286″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center”][vc_column_text]
It’s hard to take photos stealthily.
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Final thoughts.
Your business can’t get away with not using a high-resolution camera and expect the same results using a smartphone.
A good rule of thumb should be if it’s a situation you can prepare for, then you should always use a DSLR camera, but your smartphone can capture some of the unexpected moments in business.
Contact us if you want to learn more about how we can help you facilitate high-res images for your company’s websites.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]