Very amateur photography question

[albionmoonlight]

I am planning to take various landscape shots of personally significant places over the course of the year and make them into a calendar for Mrs. A's 2017 Christmas present.

Having priced real cameras, I am not interested in going that route.

I have an iPhone 6. Is it worth buying a ~$100 point and shoot camera to take these pictures with? Or are they not going to be any better than my iPhone? I don't want to pay $100 for nothing, but if it makes a real difference, then I'm willing to do that.

Thoughts?

[sovereignstar v2]

I decided to get a new camera when my daughter was born. Wanted to spend 200-ish and bought something with the help of Consumer Reports. My experience was that it didn't take much better pictures than my at the time iPhone 4s and that it was much more inconvenient. My opinion would be that you need to spend more than 100-200 dollars on a PaS for it to count.

[Castlerock]

An iPhone6 has a pretty decent camera. Unless the $100 point and shoot has manual controls (and then you are not using it as a point and shoot) I don't think you gain anything. I have not looked but I doubt a camera in the $100 range has manual controls. And even if it did, you would need to learn to correctly use those manual controls to improve from the PaS settings. Stick with the iPhone.

[dawgfan]

The camera on an iPhone 6 is pretty damn good and extremely convenient. Unless you want to drop real money on a high-end DSLR, I just don't see the point of buying a point-and-shoot camera.

[dolfin]

I'll jump in and agree as well. Though you can probably go the route of a fairly inexpensive dlsr and get good results. Got my wife a Canon EOS Rebel SL1 with a couple of lenses for about $350 at xmas. Normally its about $4-500 though.

[AnalBumCover]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

The camera on an iPhone 6 is pretty damn good and extremely convenient. Unless you want to drop real money on a high-end DSLR, I just don't see the point of buying a point-and-shoot camera.

There are plenty of tips online on how to shoot landscape photography with your iPhone. You don't need a P&S camera, especially a $100 one.

[albionmoonlight]

Thanks guys. Seems like a strong consensus, and one that keeps me from wasting $100 to boot. A win/win.

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by dolfin

I'll jump in and agree as well. Though you can probably go the route of a fairly inexpensive dlsr and get good results. Got my wife a Canon EOS Rebel SL1 with a couple of lenses for about $350 at xmas. Normally its about $4-500 though.

Yeah, there are some really good DSLR cameras out there in that price range. The downside is once you go down that route, you'll start wanting a variety of lenses of increasing quality which starts to add up. And you need to start learning more about how to best operate those cameras to get the most out of them.

I love my EOS7D and used it quite a bit when I first got it, but over the past seven years I've been using it less and less as the cameras on my iPhones have gotten better and better. Now, it's only when I have a very specific need that I use it - for everyday use, the iPhone is so much more convenient for not a lot less quality.

[stevew]

Do those add on lenses for iPhone actually do anything, or are they just hype?

[dawgfan]

Originally Posted by stevew

Do those add on lenses for iPhone actually do anything, or are they just hype?

There are some legit good add-on lenses, but the whole idea works against the best part about taking pictures with an iPhone which is quickness and convenience. If you are setting out specifically to take nice pictures with your iPhone, then yes - some of those lenses do a nice job adding functionality.

Here's a couple good ones:

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/bes...es-for-iphone/

[stevew]

Originally Posted by dawgfan

There are some legit good add-on lenses, but the whole idea works against the best part about taking pictures with an iPhone which is quickness and convenience. If you are setting out specifically to take nice pictures with your iPhone, then yes - some of those lenses do a nice job adding functionality.

Here's a couple good ones:

http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/bes...es-for-iphone/

Hmm. Thanks for the info. I def see value there. Generally the $100 price point for cameras didn't get you much but it seems like that moment lens may actually be worth spending $100 on.

Another thought might be to grab something like a Sony QX-100 (no idea on reviews tho) off of eBay, put it through the paces for a year and then relist it if you don't see the value. Or look into older DSLRS on ebay.