I Upgrade My Smartphone for the Camera (And You Should Too)

howtogeek.com:

You can run most apps just fine, with very little lag, on a five-year-old phone. It's when someone sends you a photo taken on a newer model that you start to notice how old yours has gotten. Smartphone cameras have become remarkably good and are one of the most standout reasons to get a new phone.

If your phone is a few years old, you may just be blown away with just how good our phone cameras have become. Here's what stands out about newer phones.

​It's So Easy to Get that Beautiful Background Blur

There's a type of photo that signals to many of us that the photographer is using a good camera. We may not know the name of the effect, but we know the look. It's a crisp subject with a blurry background.

The technical description is that such a photo has a shallow depth of field. Traditionally, you need a DSLR camera with a wide aperture lens to most easily capture such a shot. You also need enough knowledge to know what this means, unless you happen to have someone around who just hands you the right gear.

Now you can achieve this effect with minimal effort on your smartphone. Sometimes you can get the look by simply pointing and shooting. If that doesn't work, switch to portrait mode. This is usually just a swipe away in your default camera app.

As the name suggests, portrait mode is great for taking a photo of a single person, but it's also good for macro photography in general. Macro photography refers to up-close shots of just about anything, the type of photography you often see you on sites like ours. I use portrait mode on a smartphone to capture many of the images I upload alongside my writing. I sold my old dedicated camera to help me afford a newer phone with a camera good enough for the job.

Each of the photos in the gallery below was captured on a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 5, with no additional edits applied.

​Videos Have More Detail, Are Smoother, and Shake Less

Phones have demolished point and shoot cameras. They're