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opportunities for you.

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Making money as a photographer can be a struggle. And a significant challenge to making an income out of your images is simply not knowing where to start.

So today we're sharing this gorgeous infographic with you, as inspiration. There are a lot of ways you can make money as a photographer - probably a lot more than you ever thought. (Did you know that "scientific photographer" is a career?? We didn't!). This list is the result of our research and brainstorming, and, as thorough as we tried to be, we're certain there are even more. But these will give you a great jumping off point, and get your brain thinking about new ways that could help you bring in some income with your passion!

Take a peek at the infographic below, and then at the bottom of this post we'll chat about the list, highlight some of the exciting new ideas we included, and discuss why we excluded some very popular genres!

Without further ado...

When we started brainstorming for this list, we tried to keep the big idea in mind: How can you make money as a photographer? We weren't trying to think of "different types of photographers" but rather how can you directly make cash with your camera. This led us in some surprising directions, initiated interesting discussions, and made us think about photography in new ways. Here's what we came up with.

What Should YOU Do?

If you quickly skimmed over that list, I don't blame you, because that's exactly what I always do too. But now I heartily recommend taking another, closer look at it. There are a lot of ideas on there, and a lot of them can be further split into many different paths. So take your time, think about each idea, and imagine what it would be like to do that type of photography work.
These ideas could be super helpful whether you're just looking to get into photography, change your current direction, or add a new income stream to your existing business.
But the hard part is deciding what to actually move forward on. What should YOU do? Pick one of the trendy, popular ways? Or go with something more traditional?

We can't, of course, tell you what to do. But we can give you one piece of advice. Choose ways to make money with your photography that resonate with your own interests. The more passion and energy you have for your work, the more success you're likely to find. So as you peruse the infographic, keep asking yourself, what really interests me? What could I see myself spending years working on? If something stirs up a ton of excitement and energy in you, start doing some research and getting more information. It could be an exciting new direction for you!

People Are Big for Photographers

What might be most evident by the list is that photographing people is definitely a huge way to make money. Why is that? Simple. People will hire you to take their photo. Mountains won't.

So if you want to make money with your camera, you'd do well to start working on your portraiture skills. The nice thing is that, as you can see in the list, there is enough variety when it comes to photographing people to satisfy almost any photographer's interests.

Exciting New Ways to Make Money as a Photographer

There are ways to make money on this list that have been around as long as photography itself. Portraiture, for example. It's been around forever, and it's not going anywhere. While the ways a portrait photographer shoots and collects income might be different now than in the past (digital files anyone?) the basic idea is the same.

But what's really exciting is that we came across some brand new genres of photography that are still in their beginnings, but growing quickly, both in the number of photographers getting into it, and the number of clients looking for it. If any of these catch your eye, dive in. You might just ride that wave to success!

Let's chat about a few really quickly.

Social Media Photography

This probably got some confused looks when folks saw it on our list. We expected that, because this genre of photography is relatively new, but that doesn't mean it's not real. In fact, it's exploding.

Here's what's going on. Right now there are photographers on social media platforms (most notably Instagram) who are getting paid to create images for the sole purpose of sharing them with their social media audience.

And I'm not talking about getting paid a few bucks here and there by a local pizzeria. Companies like Mercedes Benz, Sony, Nike and Vogue are sending these photographers on the most incredible adventures, often armed with only an iPhone, to make photos for them. It darn well seems like the ultimate dream job.

But don't underestimate the work involved here. Many of these photographers amassed audiences numbering in the hundreds of thousands before they were able to start making their living this way. That takes serious time, work and dedication.

If you're really into social media, this could be a big opportunity. You can check out Tinker Street, an agency that represents a lot of the big social media photographers, and see the exciting work they're doing.

Aerial and Drone Photography

Aerial photography has been around forever, but with the advent of high quality, affordable drones, (like the mega-popular DJI Phantom), that require a relatively short learning curve, this genre of photography has blown wide open. For less than a couple thousand dollars (about the same price as the average DSLR camera) you could be creating stunning aerial images and videos.

This type of photography, now vastly more accessible to photographers and clients, is becoming increasingly popular. Eternally creative band, Ok Go, just released their latest music video, and it featured some jaw-droppingly impressive drone work.

If you always loved remote control toys, and photography, there couldn't be a better way to make money than drone photography. Look into it.

Birth Photography

This type of photography still gets an eyebrow raised, and a "Really? People want that?" when we bring it up, but I can tell you, from personal experience, that birth photos are among the most amazing images a client could ever own. I've been fortunate enough to be on both sides of the lens here, and I'm not surprised at all that this genre of photography is growing rapidly.

Birth photography requires a particular sensitivity, and a whole lot of stamina and dedication, but it is also one of the purest expressions of what draws so many people to portraiture - love, amazement, and joy.

If this type of photography piques your interest then check into it further. It's becoming more and more accepted, and in demand, and a great birth photographer could quickly become worth their weight in gold. Literally. (Ok maybe not quite literally ...)

But What About Fine Art? Or Landscape??

Now this certainly was a point of discussion here, and I'm sure that convincing arguments can be made either way.

But here's what we decided.

We were looking for specific ways to make money as a photographer. When it came to things like wedding photography or real estate photography, it was clear to us that you could be hired to shoot those things, and you'd make money simply by taking the photos (and, presumably, delivering the files).

But landscape photography? Fine art photography? By and large, those genres of photography require a different approach in terms of making an income. Landscape photographers make their money by selling prints, books, teaching, or running photo tours. They aren't generally hired to go out and create photos. They do it on their own, and then have to work to sell the images afterwards. Fine art photography is the same thing.

Are there exceptions to this? I'm sure there are. I'm sure there are fine art photographers out there who are commissioned to shoot something, or landscape photographers who are hired to go and shoot a mountain.

But generally speaking, they use the "Other Ways" to make their income. And so we didn't include them as a way to specifically make money.

What Do You Think?

But what do YOU think? Are we wrong? Should landscape and fine art be on the list? Did we miss something else? Do you disagree with what we did include? Do any of these surprise you? Interest you? Have questions about an idea?

Let us know what you think in the comments below! This list is, above all, a great way to start a discussion. Making money as a photographer can be challenging, but when we have more ideas of ways we can turn our images into an income, that challenge becomes a little bit more manageable!

So help us out and leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

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Infographic: 36 Ways to Make Money as a Photographer

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Making money as a photographer can be a struggle. And a significant challenge to making an income out of your images is simply not knowing where to start. So today we're sharing this gorgeous infographic with you, as inspiration. There are a lot of ways you can make money as a photographer - probably a lot more than you ever thought.

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1. Pick a location that is spacious, full of light and reflects your aesthetic.

2. Remember: Less is more.

3. Get all your details you'd like photographed together and in one spot.

4.Savor the moments.

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Congratulations, you just scored an awesome new camera. Welcome to our annual guide to getting started with your new tool.

Whether you're shooting on a DSLR, mirrorless, or a top-notch point-and-shoot, these tips will get you on your way. The rest is up to you.

What do I need to buy?

Extra lenses
All but the most expensive cameras usually ship in packaged kits with some variation on an 18-35mm zoom lens. For the most part, these kit lenses are versatile and functional, but they aren't the best for getting creamy beautiful out-of-focus backgrounds or shooting in low light. Quality lenses are really important-frequently they're more important than the camera's image sensor. In other words, you're not crazy if you're already considering some lenses. Just be forewarned that any lens worth buying will cost you.

If you're using a tiny mirrorless camera, your first lens acquisition should definitely be a small wide-angle prime lens that will help you make the most out of the camera body's compact size. Who needs a shrunken camera if you need a bag to carry it around all the time? If you've got a new DSLR, go for a 35mm or 50mm prime with a maximum aperture of f/2.0 or faster (the lower the number the better).

Upgrade your Strap
The camera strap that came in the box sucks compared to what you'll get for a small investment. You could start by making the bundled strap better with this pad from Domke. Or you could buy a new strap altogether. A few good options are this sling from Black Rapid or Joby's hot Ultrafit Slingstrap.

Learn your shooting modes and take control

Your new camera comes with a buttload of modes. I count at least six million different "scenes" modes on your typical camera-foilage, kids & pets, fireworks, snow, miniature, hookers in unflattering light, etc. They are fun. But if you really wanna learn to shoot, there are 4 notches on the dial you should pay attention to for photography: P, S (Tv on Canon), A (Av on Canon) and M: Program, Shutter priority, Aperture Priority, Manual.

* Program mode is essentially an automatic mode that lets you have some control over some settings-like ISO sensitivity or whether to use flash. (Typically, in full auto, the camera locks all settings.) Start here, and play around. If you're outdoors, set the ISO low between 100 and 400. If you're indoors, set it high between 800-3200.

* Shutter priority is semi-automatic. You pick the shutter speed, the camera picks the appropriate aperture setting for a proper exposure. Shutter priority is useful if you find your photos have motion blur after shooting in low light. Often cameras set shutter speeds too low in full-auto mode. To remedy this, switch to shutter priority mode and set the shutter speed at about 1/100 minimum (the smaller the fraction, the less likely it will be that photos are blurry). Bump the ISO up so you're pics aren't underexposed.

* Aperture priority is also semi-automatic. And guess what? You set the aperture, which dictates how much light comes into the camera. Do you want a nice, shallow depth-of-the-field with blurred background? Set a large aperture size (that's the lower number on the dial, like f/1.8). Are you in bright sunlight or want to catch the whole scene in focus? Set a low aperture size (higher numbers, like f/16).

* Manual. Well, you figure it out.

Stop destroying your photos with flash

Your camera's built-in flash? Don't touch it. Ever. Okay, well, there are a few circumstances where you have little choice, like when it's blacker than the black heart of Socialist Nazi Terrorist, or in daylight when you need a little fill.
If you MUST use the built-in flash, at least follow these tips:
* Bounce or diffuse it: It'll make the light look more natural and keep things like this from happening. You can make one for cheap.

* Try slow-synchro flash: On some point-and-shoot cameras, like the S110, this is what exactly what the "night portrait" scene mode does: Uses a longer shutter speed while firing the flash, so you get the benefits of a longer exposure and flash-you can see the foreground and the background, and maybe turn out one of those hipster-y, rave-y photos with wavy lights in the background.

Brace yourself to beat the dark

How do you avoid using flash in low light, you ask? You could use a tripod and along exposure time. Or, you could shoot your camera like a sniper. Hold that thing steady. Tuck your elbows. Use your camera strap (or whatever) as a brace. Exhale. Squeeze the shutter button.

Also, fortunately for camera buyers, the megapixel war between camera makers is largely over. Now, their focus is all about ISO and low-light performance. So situations where you used to need flash might be a bit more flexible with a newer camera, compared to one from a couple years ago. So, step one. Boost your ISO settings. On newerish basic DSLRs, like the Canon T4i, you can usually get away with up to ISO 3200, or even 6400, before things start getting really wonky. On good point-and-shoots, like the Sony RX100 and Canon G7X, you'll want to keep to keep things at ISO 1600 or below. The important thing is that your photo is properly exposed. An underexposed image will make noise stand out detail recede. If your image is nice and bright, noise will be much less noticeable.

Shoot RAW and tinker with your photos on your computer

If your new camera has interchangeable lenses, or simply cost over $500, it almost definitely shoots RAW. RAW images consist of uncompressed data, unlike run-of-the-mill JPEGs, meaning you're better able to manipulate them using Adobe Lightroom or other software without losing much quality. You will be shocked at how much you can recover from a photo you thought was completely under or over exposed. Find a photo that has a yellow or blue cast? RAW images can be fixed instantly and easily.

Before you shoot anything, go down the camera menu and select that you'd like to shoot in RAW or JPG + RAW at the same time. The files are huge, but external drives and online backup storage are so cheap these days, that there's really no reason to skimp on image quality.

You don't need to splurge for Photoshop to work with RAW files. Adobe Lightroom is cheaper, and they'll let you turn bad photos good with an army of potential adjustments.

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How to Use Your Fancy New Camera Like a Pro

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Congratulations, you just scored an awesome new camera. Welcome to our annual guide to getting started with your new tool. Whether you're shooting on a DSLR, mirrorless, or a top-notch point-and-shoot, these tips will get you on your way. The rest is up to you.

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How to work a digital camera.

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by Chris Woodford. Last updated: November 1, 2020.

Digital cameras give a whole new meaning to the idea of painting by numbers. Unlike old-style film cameras, they capture and record images of the world around us using digital technology. In other words, they store photographs not as patterns of darkness and light but as long strings of numbers. This has many advantages: it gives us instant photographs, allows us to edit our pictures, and makes it easier for us to share photographs using cell phones (mobile phones), e-mail, and web sites.

Photo: A typical low-cost digital camera. The circle is the lens; the rectangle above it is a xenon flash lamp. You can see what this camera looks like inside in the photo lower down this page.

How ordinary film cameras work

Photo: An old-style film camera from the late 1980s. The film loads in a spool on the right and winds across to another spool on the left, passing in front of the lens on the way. When you take a photo, the shutter lets light enter from the lens and expose the film. It's all very 19th-century compared to digital photography!

If you have an old-style camera, you'll know that it's useless without one vital piece of equipment: a film. A film is a long spool of flexible plastic coated with special chemicals (based on compounds of silver) that are sensitive to light. To stop light spoiling the film, it is wrapped up inside a tough, light-proof plastic cylinder-the thing you put in your camera.

When you want to take a photograph with a film camera, you have to press a button. This operates a mechanism called the shutter, which makes a hole (the aperture) open briefly at the front of the camera, allowing light to enter through the lens (a thick piece of glass or plastic mounted on the front). The light causes reactions to take place in the chemicals on the film, thus storing the picture in front of you.

This isn't quite the end of the process, however. When the film is full, you have to take it to a drugstore (chemist's) to have it developed. Usually, this involves placing the film into a huge automated developing machine. The machine opens up the film container, pulls out the film, and dips it in various other chemicals to make your photos appear. This process turns the film into a series of "negative" pictures-ghostly reverse versions of what you actually saw. In a negative, the black areas look light and vice-versa and all the colors look weird too because the negative stores them as their opposites. Once the machine has made the negatives, it uses them to make prints (finished versions) of your photos.

If you want to take only one or two photographs, all of this can be a bit of a nuisance. Most people have found themselves wasting photographs simply to "finish off the film." Often, you have to wait several days for your film to be developed and your prints (the finished photographs) returned to you. It's no wonder that digital photography has become very popular-because it solves all these problems at a stroke.

(Incidentally, if you want to learn more about film cameras and traditional photography, see our main article on how film cameras work.)

How digital cameras work

Photo: A typical image sensor. The green rectangle in the center (about the size of a fingernail) is the light-sensitive part; the gold wires coming off it connect it into the camera circuit.

Digital cameras look very much like ordinary film cameras but they work in a completely different way. When you press the button to take a photograph with a digital camera, an aperture opens at the front of the camera and light streams in through the lens. So far, it's just the same as a film camera. From this point on, however, everything is different. There is no film in a digital camera. Instead, there is a piece of electronic equipment that captures the incoming light rays and turns them into electrical signals. This light detector is one of two types, either a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a CMOS image sensor.

If you've ever looked at a television screen close up, you will have noticed that the picture is made up of millions of tiny colored dots or squares called pixels. Laptop LCD computer screens also make up their images using pixels, although they are often much too small to see. In a television or computer screen, electronic equipment switches all these colored pixels on and off very quickly. Light from the screen travels out to your eyes and your brain is fooled into see a large, moving picture.

In a digital camera, exactly the opposite happens. Light from the thing you are photographing zooms into the camera lens. This incoming "picture" hits the image sensor chip, which breaks it up into millions of pixels. The sensor measures the color and brightness of each pixel and stores it as a number. Your digital photograph is effectively an enormously long string of numbers describing the exact details of each pixel it contains. You can read more about how an image sensor produces a digital picture in our article on webcams.

How digital cameras use digital technology

Once a picture is stored in numeric form, you can do all kinds of things with it. Plug your digital camera into your computer, and you can download the images you've taken and load them into programs like PhotoShop to edit them or jazz them up. Or you can upload them onto websites, email them to friends, and so on. This is possible because your photographs are stored in digital format and all kinds of other digital gadgets-everything from MP3-playing iPods to cellphones and computers to photo printers-use digital technology too. Digital is a kind of language that all electronic gadgets "speak" today.

Photo: Digital cameras are much more convenient than film cameras. You can instantly see how the picture will look from the LCD screen on the back. If your picture doesn't turn out okay, you can simply delete it and try again. You can't do that with a film camera. Digital cameras mean photographers can be more creative and experimental.

If you open up a digital photograph in a paint (image editing) program, you can change it in all kinds of ways. A program like this works by adjusting the numbers that represent each pixel of the image. So, if you click on a control that makes the image 20 percent brighter, the program goes through all the numbers for each pixel in turn and increases them by 20 percent. If you mirror an image (flip it horizontally), the program reverses the sequence of the numbers it stores so they run in the opposite direction. What you see on the screen is the image changing as you edit or manipulate it. But what you don't see is the paint program changing all the numbers in the background.

Some of these image-editing techniques are built into more sophisticated digital cameras. You might have a camera that has an optical zoom and a digital zoom. An optical zoom means that the lens moves in and out to make the incoming image bigger or smaller when it hits the CCD. A digital zoom means that the microchip inside the camera blows up the incoming image without actually moving the lens. So, just like moving closer to a TV set, the image degrades in quality. In short, optical zooms make images bigger and just as clear, but digital zooms make images bigger and more blurred.

Why digital cameras compress images

Imagine for a moment that you're a CCD or CMOS image sensing chip. Look out of a window and try to figure out how you would store details of the view you can see. First, you'd have to divide the image into a grid of squares. So you'd need to draw an imaginary grid on top of the window. Next, you'd have to measure the color and brightness of each pixel in the grid. Finally, you'd have to write all these measurements down as numbers. If you measured the color and brightness for six million pixels and wrote both down both things as numbers, you'd end up with a string of millions of numbers-just to store one photograph! This is why high-quality digital images often make enormous files on your computer. Each one can be several megabytes (millions of characters) in size.

To get around this, digital cameras, computers, and other digital gadgets use a technique called compression. Compression is a mathematical trick that involves squeezing digital photos so they can be stored with fewer numbers and less memory. One popular form of compression is called JPG (pronounced J-PEG, which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, after the scientists and mathematicians who thought up the idea). JPG is known as a "lossy" compression because, when photographs are squeezed this way, some information is lost and can never be restored. High-resolution JPGs use lots of memory space and look very clear; low resolution JPGs use much less space and look more blurred. You can find out more about compression in our article on MP3 players.

Most digital cameras have settings that let you take pictures at higher or lower resolutions. If you select high-resolution, the camera can store fewer images on its memory card -but they are much better quality. Opt for low-resolution and you will get more images, but the quality won't be as good. Low-resolution images are stored with greater compression.

Turning ordinary photos into digital photos

There is a way to turn photos from an ordinary film camera into digital photos-by scanning them. A scanner is a piece of computer equipment that looks like a small photocopier but works like a digital camera. When you put your photos in a scanner, a light scans across them, turning them into strings of pixels and thus into digital images you can see on your computer.

Inside a digital camera

Ever wondered what's inside a digital camera? What takes the photo? Where's it stored? What makes the flash work? And how do all these bits connect together? When you take electronic gadgets apart, they're much harder to understand than ordinary machines (things that work through a clear physical mechanism): you can't always see which part does which job or how. Even so, it can be quite illuminating to peer into your favorite gadgets to see what's hiding inside. I don't recommend you try this at home: opening things up is the quickest way to invalidate your warranty; it's also a good way to ensure they'll never work again!

The main parts of a digital camera

Photo: The parts in a basic digital camera. Were it not for the LCD screen and batteries (the two biggest components), you could probably make a camera like this as small as a postage stamp!

I've opened up the camera in our top photo-and these are the parts I've found inside:

1. Battery compartment: This camera takes two 1.5-volt batteries, so it runs on a total voltage of 3 volts (3 V).

2. Flash capacitor: The capacitor charges up for several seconds to store enough energy to fire the flash.

3. Flash lamp: Operated by the capacitor. It takes a fair bit of energy to fire axenon flash like this, which is why a lot of indoor flash photography quickly uses up your batteries.

4. LED: A small red LED (light-emitting diode) indicates when the self-timer is operating, so you can take photos of yourself more easily.

5. Lens: The lens catcheslight from the object you're photographing and focuses it on the CCD.

6. Focusing mechanism: This camera has a simple switch-operated focus that toggles the lens between two positions for taking either close-ups or distant shots.

7. Image sensor: This is the light-detecting microchip in a digital camera and it uses either CCD or CMOS technology. You can't actually see the chip in this photo, because it's directly underneath the lens. But you can see what it looks like in our article onwebcams.

8. USB connector: Attach a USB cable here and connect it to your computer to download the photos you've taken. To your computer, your camera looks like just another memory device (like ahard drive).

9. SD (secure digital) card slot: You can slide a flash memory card in here for storing more photos. The camera has a very small internal memory that will store photos too.

10. Processor chip: The camera's main digital "brain". This controls all the camera's functions. It's an example of anintegrated circuit.

11. Wrist connector: The strap that keeps the camera securely tied to your wrist attaches here.

12. Top case: Simply screws on top of the bottom case shown here.

Another important part, not shown here, is the LCD display that shows you the photos you've taken. It's mounted on the back of the electronic circuit board so you can't see it in this photo.

What are "mirrorless" cameras?

There are effectively four different kinds of digital cameras. The simplest, known as point-and-shoot, have a lens to capture light (which may or may not zoom), an image sensor to turn the pattern of light into digital form, and an LCD screen round the back for viewing your photos. At the opposite end of the spectrum, DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) cameras look like traditional, professional film cameras and have a moving, hinged mirror inside that lets you view the exact picture you're going to shoot through the lens (for an explanation of how SLR works, see our article on film cameras). The most recent innovation, mirrorless digital cameras, are a sort of hybrid of these two designs: they abandon the hinged mirror system in favor of a higher-resolution LCD viewfinder mounted nearer to the image sensor, which makes them smaller, lighter, faster, and quieter. Finally, there are smartphone cameras, which resemble point-and-shoot models but lack features like an optical zoom.

How do digital cameras compare with smartphone cameras?

From what I've said so far, you can see that digital cameras are great things-if you're comparing them to old-style film cameras, that is. Thanks to their superb, cutting-edge image sensors, there's really no good reason (other than a nostalgic preference for analog technology) to use film. You might be forgiven for thinking sales of digital cameras would be rocketing as a result, but you'd be wrong. Over the last few years, digital cameras have seen double-digit falls in sales in parallel with the massive rise of smartphones and tablets (which now sell more than 1.5 billion each year). Check out a photo-sharing site like Flickr and you'll find the most popular "cameras" are actually phones: in September 2019, at the time I'm updating this article, Flickr's top five cameras are all iPhones. Is there a good reason to own a standalone digital camera anymore or can you now do everything with a camera phone?

Photo: The pros and cons of digital cameras and smartphones summarized in three photos. Even point-and-shoot digital cameras like my old Canon Ixus have bigger, better, telescopic lenses (top) and sensors compared to the ones in the best smartphone cameras, like my new LG (middle). But smartphones undoubtedly score on connectivity and they have bigger, better, and clearer screens (bottom). Here you can see my smartphone's huge screen pictured in a preview photo on the Canon's tiny screen.

Sensors and screens

Step back a decade and there was no comparison at all between the rough and clunky snapshot cameras on cellphones and even the most mediocre compact digital cameras. While the digitals were boasting ever-increasing numbers of megapixels, cellphones took crude snaps little better than the ones you could get from a basic webcam (1 megapixel or less was common). Now all that's changed. The 10-year-old Canon Ixus/Powershot digital camera I use routinely is rated at 7.1 megapixels, which is perfectly fine for almost anything I ever want to do. My new LG smartphone comes in at 13 megapixels, which (theoretically, at least) sounds like it must be twice as good.

But wait! "Megapixels" are a misleading marketing ploy: what really matters is the size and quality of the image sensors themselves. Generally, the bigger the sensor, the better the pictures. Comparing the raw technical data, the Canon Ixus claims a 1/2.5" CCD while the LG has a 1/3.06" CMOS (a newer, somewhat different type of sensor chip). What do those numbers actually mean? Sensor measurements are based on needlessly confusing math that I'm not going to explain here, and you'll have take it on trust that both of these cameras have tiny sensors, about half the size of a pinkie nail (measuring less than 5mm in each direction), though the Canon sensor is significantly bigger. The Digital Ixus, though eight years older than the LG smartphone, and with apparently half as many "megapixels," has a significantly bigger sensor chip and one that's likely to outperform the LG, especially in lower light conditions.

The Canon also scores with a much better, telescopic lens (technically rated 5.8-17.4 mm, which is equivalent to 35-105mm)-better quality and telescopic to boot-that can take everything from infinity-distance landscapes to close-up macro shots of spiders and flies. But I have to upload my photos to a computer to get a sense of how good or bad they are because the Canon only has a tiny 6cm (2.5-inch) LCD screen. The LG is over twice as good on the diagonal screen dimension, with a 14cm (5.5 inch) "monitor." Where Canon estimates that the Ixus screen has 230,000 pixels, the LG boasts quad HD (2560×1440 pixels), or roughly sixteen times more. I might not be able to take better photos with the LG, but at least I can instantly assess and appreciate them on a screen as good as an HD TV (albeit still pocket-sized).

Bear in mind that my Canon is just a point-and-shoot compact, so this is not really a fair comparison between what you can achieve with a really good digital camera and a really good smartphone. My LG is right up at the better end of smartphone cameras, but the Ixus isn't anywhere near as good as the best digital cameras. A professional DSLR would have a much bigger sensor than a smartphone-up to 3.6cm × 2.4cm-so it would be able to capture really fine detail in even the lowest of light levels. It would also have a bigger and better screen and better (interchangeable) lenses.

Photo: This is a closeup of the camera inside the LG (with its cover popped off). What you're looking at here is the lens: the image sensor chip is directly underneath it. (In case it's not clear, the red thing is a pen I'm pointing with.)

Social media

Of course, where smartphone cameras really score is in the "smartphone" department: they're computers, in essence, that are pop-in-the-pocket portable and always online. So not only are you more likely to capture chance photos (because you're always carrying a camera), but you can instantly upload your snaps to the aptly-named Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. And that's the real reason why smartphone cameras have surpassed old-school digitals: photography itself has changed from the digital-equivalent of the 19th-century Daguerreotype (itself a throwback to the portrait paintings of old) to something more off-the-cuff, immediate, and, of course, social. For the purposes of Facebook or Twitter, often viewed on small-screen mobile devices, you don't need more than a couple of megapixels, at most. (Prove it yourself by downloading a hi-res image from Instagram or Flickr, and you'll find it's seldom more than a couple of hundred kilobytes in size and 1000 megapixels or less in each dimension, making less than one megapixel in total.) Even on better photo-sharing websites like Instagram and Flickr, most people will never be browsing your photos in multi-megapixel dimensions: they simply wouldn't fit on the screen. So even if your smartphone doesn't have masses of megapixels, it doesn't really matter: most people flicking through your photos on their smartphones won't notice-or care. Social media means never having to say you're sorry you forgot your DSLR and only had your iPhone!

Smartphone add-ons

Now it's absolutely the case that photos taken with a top-notch Canon or Nikon DSLR will beat, hands down, snapshots from even the best smartphones-but that's often because it's not a like-for-like comparison. Often, we're comparing good amateur photos taken with smartphones to brilliant professional photos taken with DSLRs. How much of what we're seeing is the camera... and how much the eye of the photographer? Sometimes it's hard to separate the two things

Professionals can achieve amazing results with smartphones-but so can amateurs, with a bit of extra help. One of the drawbacks of smartphone cameras is the lack of manual control (generally even less than with a basic compact digital camera). You can get around that, to a certain extent, by using add-on apps that give you much more control over fiddly, old-school settings like ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and white balance. (Search your favorite app store for keywords like "professional photography" or "manual photography".) You can also add snap-on lenses to smartphones to get around the drawbacks of a fixed-focal-length lens (though there's nothing you can do about the tiny, poorer-quality image sensor). Once your photos are safely snapped, there are plenty of photo-editing apps for smartphones as well, including a slimmed-down, free version of PhotoShop, which can help you retouch your amateur "sow's ears" into professional "silk purses."

So why still buy digital?

Since many people now own a smartphone, the real question is whether you need a digital camera as well. It's very hard to see an argument for point-and-shoot compacts anymore: for social-media snaps, most of us can get by with our phones. For this website, I take a lot of macro photos-close-ups of circuits and mechanical parts-with my Ixus that I couldn't possibly capture with the LG, so I won't be jumping ship anytime soon.

If you want to take professional quality photos, there's really no comparison between smartphones and DSLRs. A top-notch DSLR has a better-quality image sensor (up to 50 times bigger in area than the one in a smartphone) and a much better lens: these two fundamentally important things make the "raw" image from a DSLR far better. Add in all those fiddly manual controls you have on a DSLR and you'll be able to capture a far greater range of photos across a far wider range of lighting conditions. If you really care about the quality of your photos, instant-uploading to sharing sites might be a less important consideration: you'll want to view your photos on a big monitor, retouch them, and only share them when you're happy. Having said that, you can now buy hybrid digital cameras with built-in Wi-Fi that offer similar instant-sharing convenience to smartphones. And, of course, there's nothing to stop you carrying a smartphone and a DSLR if you really want the best of both worlds!

A brief history of photography

Artwork: The original digital camera, invented in the 1970s by Steven Sasson, worked a bit like an old-style camcorder and needed a separate playback monitor. First (top), you took your photos with the camera (blue), which used a CCD to record them onto a magnetic tape (red). Later (bottom), when you got back home, you took out the tape, inserted it into a computer (orange), and viewed the pictures you'd taken on a computer monitor or TV (green). Artwork from US Patent 4,131,919: Electronic still camera by Gareth A. Lloyd, Steven J. Sasson courtesy of US Patent & Trademark Office.

4th century BCE: Chinese invented the camera obscura (a darkened room with a hole in the drapes that projects an image of the outside world onto a distant wall).

Late 1700s: Thomas Wedgwood (1771-1805) and Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), two English scientists, carried out early experiments trying to record images on light-sensitive paper. Their photos were not permanent: they turned black unless permanently stored in a dark place.

1827: French Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) made the world's first photographs. His method was no good for taking portraits of people because the camera shutter had to be left open for eight hours.

1839: French opera-house scene painter Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) announced the invention of photos on silver plates that became known as daguerreotypes.

1839: William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877) invented the photographic negative process.

1851: British artist and photographer Frederick Scott Archer (1813-1857) invented a way of taking pin-sharp photos onto wet glass plates.

1870s: British physician Dr Richard Maddox (1816-1902) developed a way of taking photos using dry plates and gelatin.

1883: American inventor George Eastman (1854-1932) invented the modern photographic film.

1888: George Eastman launched his easy-to-use Kodak camera. His slogan was: "You push the button and we do the rest."

1947: Edwin Land (1909-1991) invented the instant polaroid camera.

1963: Edwin Land invented the color polaroid camera.

1975: US electrical engineer Steven Sasson invented the first CCD-based electronic camera with Gareth Lloyd at Eastman Kodak.

1990s: Digital cameras started to become popular, gradually making film cameras obsolete.

2000s: Advanced cellphones with built-in digital cameras began to make standalone digital cameras redundant for everyday snapshot photography.

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The Smart Phone Photography Guide: Shoot, Edit, Experiment, Share by Peter Cope. Carlton, 2018. From selfies to VR, this book has lots of tips for getting the most from your smartphone camera.

Digital Photography For Dummies by Julie King. John Wiley, 2016. An illustrated, basic introduction.

Digital Photographer's Handbook by Tom Ang. Dorling Kindersley, 2016. A good, basic introduction to digital techniques, but experienced photographers may find it too simplistic. Presented in the very visual DK style.

The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby. Peachpit Press, 2006-2014. A series of five more detailed books exploring different aspects of practical photography.

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by Chris Woodford. Last updated: November 1, 2020. Digital cameras give a whole new meaning to the idea of painting by numbers. Unlike old-style film cameras, they capture and record images of the world around us using digital technology. In other words, they store photographs not as patterns of darkness and light but as long strings of numbers.

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Week 1  (finding the meaning of photography)

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Week 1  (finding the meaning of photography)

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pho·tog·ra·phy

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noun: photography

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