Smartphone cameras. They may not always be perfect, but they’re getting closer

I tend to follow a wide selection of people and organisations on a Twitter. One is the National Police Air Service.

Don’t ask me how I started following them, but they do lots of good work keeping us safe from the skies. They also have a website where you can learn more about their work but they also post live updates on Twitter.

The reason why I mention all this? Well, they tend to use a smartphone when posting tweets, and they also take some pictures that way too. Last night they added some shots of London which were taken on a Samsung Galaxy S7 edge. Please do bear in mind that Twitter has obviously compressed and reduced these somewhat, but they’re still pretty stunning. Don’t forget that these have been taken by hand from a helicopter flying across London at night, and then shrunk down for Twitter. In years past we would’ve had motion blur a-go-go. Look at it now.

Meanwhile I also had to marvel at the photos I produced during a visit to a roof top pool. I didn’t take time to frame then particularly, and I didn’t use any special settings other than HDR. They look absolutely amazing. These were all taken on an LG G5..

Have we seen the back of dodgy cameras? Well no, there’s still a few mid and entry-level smartphones here at Mobile World Congress that have horrible cameras, but if you choose your phone well then they can produce some awesome imagery.