The Suicide of the Point and Shoot Cameras

I saw this article on TechCrunch the other day and I found it to be quite interesting.

The article shows how camera companies are committing Seppuku or suicide with their point and shoot cameras. The main reason is the lack of innovation, not in terms of the technical ability of the cameras, but in terms of how people are using their cameras nowadays. Sure, they get better at low light situations, higher ISOs and speed, but they die in social networking or sharing your photos.

I can tell from personal experience, that while I prefer using a point and shoot compared to an SLR due to the size, I prefer using my iPhone now more than using my point and shoot.

Is my P&S better than the iPhone? In many situations yes. It's great when shooting in snow, low light or fast action. But it's a pain to carry all the time whereas I have my iPhone with me all the time.

To share my photos with my P&S, I have to plug it into the computer and then upload the photos.

With my iPhone, I just connect through WiFi or 3G and upload my photos to Facebook or Flickr right away. So my iPhone has actually taken over as my main camera and I only use my P&S occasionally.

And as you can probably see from some of my photos lately, a lot of these were shot using an iPhone, they were also editing in the iPhone. They will never beat the sharp photos of a high end DSLR, but if nothing else is around, a low end camera with you is better than having a P&S or DSLR that's not with you.

The best camera is always the one that's with you and the iPhone is always with me.