Great bokeh. No parentheses.

Everybody’s raving about that dual camera on the iPhone 7! “Looks great for a smartphone camera.” “Impressive for a smartphone.” “Terrific but can’t match a truly professional-level camera.” The pixelpundits are saying it’s even better than the camera on the Samsung Galaxy Note 7, previously hailed as “the best camera ever installed on a smartphone.”

Sounds great (for a smartphone camera). But what if you want a great camera without parentheses? Just as the best margarine in the world will only remind you that it’s not as good as butter, and the finest instant coffee will only whet your thirst for the real stuff, every advance in smartphone cameras just underlines the point: DSLR cameras will always take better pictures.

We had trouble finding Creative Commons photos taken by this specific camera because it’s relatively new. So this shot was not taken by the Canon EOS Rebel T6 we’re selling - but it could not be taken by a smartphone:

Apple’s really good at cramming more tech into fewer and fewer millimeters to make each successive camera a little bit better. But not even Apple can warp the laws of physics. A bigger sensor and a bigger lens will always capture more information, more detail, more color. It will always take better pictures in low light. It will always have a much greater depth of field.

This Canon EOS Rebel T6 is an entry-level DSLR, and its sensor is orders of magnitude larger than the iPhone 7. The technology around it isn’t exactly chewing gum and bailing wire, either. This is Canon we’re talking about. Again, the Canon EOS Rebel T6 did not take this shot, but there’s no smartphone on Earth that could:

That soft bokeh, that pinpoint detail, that luminous light you see in professional photos? Apple’s getting better at simulating all that with software, edge detection, even adding a second lens. But a simulation is all it could ever be. Smartphones can only fake it, and whether you know the reasons behind it or not, it just doesn’t look the same.

Then there’s the fact that you can add many more and better lenses to a real camera, for vastly better zoom and wide-angle shots. The fact that you can manually control shutter speed and ISO settings. This is all old news to you pro photographers and serious hobbyists - feel free to belabor the point in the forum.

But even dilettante dabblers like us can see the difference. Here’s one more shot not taken by the Canon EOS Rebel T6, but that could never be taken by a smartphone:

We love the smartphone camera in our pockets. We use it constantly. There’s no better way to document an unexpected fleeting moment and share it with your friends. But it is what it is - and what it is is pretty good (for a smartphone camera).

Photo credits (top to bottom):
Benjamin Balázs - Flickr
Jane Kostenko - Flickr
Ryan Kilpatrick - Flickr
All used under a Creative Commons 2.0 license