It depends, what kind of photography do you do?

At the moment I'm using my phone to take pictures of my design work and for personal use. They are not horrible but I do wonder how much difference there would be in quality with a proper digital camera.

As for general observations, camera phones are easy to use, fast, and always available (you have it with you all the time). The downside to this is that the functions are limited compared to a camera.

Do you publish the photos of your design work or do you just use them for personal reference?

Not sure what you mean about personal reference? I do use them for my portfolio, which I then showcase to my clients (or I used to, before the coronavirus. Now I do everything online).

By 'personal reference' I meant taking pictures but not sharing them or publishing them on a website, as in using them as reference for your projects without the pics going to the client, but I can see that isn't the case.

As for your situation, because you do use your pics for a portfolio, you should consider a camera. For example, you can change lenses on a DSLR which allows you a lot of flexibility when it comes to focal length. You don't have that in a phone.

There's other aspects too but, at the end of the day it comes down to convenience Vs functions.

Ah ok, that makes perfect sense. Thank you, I will do some research about this.

Posted by: @foundational

As for general observations, camera phones are easy to use, fast, and always available (you have it with you all the time). The downside to this is that the functions are limited compared to a camera.

@foundational

How important are the functions nowadays? The quality of new camera phones has improved greatly thanks to AI and in some instances you can't tell the difference.

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@nazart

Yeah, in a way AI on your phone is great - it does everything for you.

But when you take pictures you can't tweak the settings should you have a need to.

So if you want a different shutter speed or a different aperture, you're out of luck.

I have an iPhone 12 and the camera takes some amazing pictures, you don´t shutter speed etc. in the native app, but in general everything is done for you. 

You could download an app like ProCam that has all the functions, including shutter speed, to have more personalised photography.

I've got a Leica, it is quite a few years old but if you know how to use it properly the quality is still good.

Hi, I just googled cameras vs phones, I found these articles

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/phone-camera-vs-dslr-cameras
This is about an experience and how it would have been better to have a proper camera

https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones-vs-cameras-closing-the-gap-on-image-quality/
This is a non-biased view talking about how close phones are to the digital camera. It goes very indepth.

https://digital-photography-school.com/pros-cons-upgrading-phone-real-camera/
This one is ok, he makes a couple of useful points but nothing earth shattering.

Thanks @forzamodernist very useful.