There is a good chance that it would look mostly the same.
There are really two things that an ILC (interchangeable lens camera) offers that smartphones don’t have:
As the name implies, you can attach different optics (lenses). Well, that means you need to have (=buy) lenses and you need to carry the right ones with you when you want to use them. Your phone has 1, 2 or 3 lenses that a single typical kit lens (the lens that you can buy in a kit with the camera) easily covers. In addition you can have specialty lenses, such as tele lenses, macro lenses, tilt-shift lenses.
More buttons. Seriously. No, with a good camera app you can pretty much control the same things, but the point here is that these cameras are built for deliberate creation of pictures. With a phone you (mostly) take a picture (= a snapshot), while you make the effort to carry a DSLR or a mirrorless camera to make a picture (meaning you deliberately design your scene to include only what you want to be in it). The buttons on the camera allow you control many more technical aspects of photography than most folks care about. Most folks should stick to a phone camera and save the money.
You can buy into a rich ecosystem of accessories that allow you to take pictures as the pros. After that it’s up to you to make it work. There are many tricks to make good pictures. It’s not just the gear. Most tricks and techniques work just as well on phone cameras (maybe they require a special app).
A famous saying is that the most important tool in photography is located a few inches behind the camera.
Will you get up at the crack of dawn to capture the run rise over that beautiful bay? Will you haul your camera on your hike up the mountain?
So, to come back to the original question:
I think to make your sample picture look better you need something other than more expensive gear.
I’m not a photographer at all. But I grew up with my dad and mom both hobby photographers with eventually a professional studio. One of the things I observed is the time taken to compose a shot. This was before digital. And developing film was relatively expensive. I remember my dad developing black and white photos in the basement. He did a lot of experimentation. Some pretty wild looking photos, unfortunately I have none. Anyway, I would concentrate on framing the picture first, then snap the pic. Then there won’t be as much to edit.
The only thing I remember is to try to use thirds when framing the pic. So the horizon is at the top third, the road at the bottom third. Vertical things like trees follow the same basic rule. Look at pics and see if you can find what makes it stand out to you and copy that.
There is a good chance it would look much worse on the DSLR before post processing, and if you shot on auto and the DSLR is from 5 years ago and saved the shot on the card in anything other than raw, it would look worse on the dslr even after post processing
If, on the other hand, your dslr was mounting a lens appropriate for the shot (either a fixed 50mm lens if you have a full frame sensor, a 28mm if you have a smaller sensor, or a 18-70mm) with a low enough aperture (2.8 or less), if you set up the ISO correctly, if you told the dslr you wanted to focus on the lower center part of the frame, if you either shot in manual or took the time to select the proper spot with the proper lighting, set that on the camera, then shoot the frame you wanted, then after post processing you would probably be able to make it look better and, if you know what you are doing in post, you would definitely be able to make it look much better (for various degrees of better)
Given that you said you don’t want to do post processing at all, that you just want something that you can point, shoot, and then share with a better quality compared to what you have got, and given your expertise with traditional potography techniques is not much, I’d suggest you get an iphone max and/or a current oppo/sony/whatever with a hasselblad lens and go with that …
Rule of thirds is a common composition, yes, and makes a good default alternative to centering the subject. It does tend to get overused, though, and IMO the point’s really just to think about how subject placement within a frame affects storytelling.
Also, if planning to crop, it may be preferable to center the subject and then create compositional offsets in the crop. A lot of the time it doesn’t really matter but, for example, there are some long glass combinations where more peripheral MTF drops pretty low.
From just a technical perspective at downsized display of 5 MP, yeah, totally. People usually react differently to more substantial cameras than to phones, though.
Probably closer to 20 years. And f/4 might be fine. EXIF’s mostly stripped but, given how the phone’s doing, doesn’t look particularly demanding of aperture or ISO.
Difference from .RAW and Straight-From-Camera
RAW image files, are full information baseline images. Any post-processing applied,
does NOT overwrite, the original reference point [allowing for multiple edit mindsets]
+Can also revitalize image(s), to make it work [ex. underexposed]
I might be getting too philosophical about it but taking pictures is not just about having a proper device to capture a moment.
For me it’s the chance to capture what I feel, highliting what prompted me to take the photo in the first place.
All of this can be done with a smartphone too. If you shoot in RAW and use Snapseed for some quick edits you can get a lot done. Sure, any cheap mirrorless will wipe the floor with any smartphone but it’s not all about the megapixels, the sharpness and the technical quality of the product.
I suggest you this: train your photographic eye in your neighbourhood, get in the mindset and use that experience to help you find what camera might suit your style beyond all the technicalities.
I went with a relatively inexpensive Sony ZV E10 which has an APS-C sensor. I had a DSLR a few years ago, but I didn’t use it much since it was too big.
Fujifilm X100V was my first choice, but the low stock drove up the price in my part of the world.
While it’s true smartphones can and do take great photos…I have more smartphone in my life than is healthy.
A real camera means one less reason to take out that phone.
2nd hand interchangeable lens mirrorless camera is what I would go with. And start out with a standard range zoom, or a prime around 35-40mm full frame equivalent. But it would depend on the used market where you live. Where I am I could resell most of the stuff I got 2nd hand a few years ago for almost double what I paid for it. So that could be a problem for you.
I bought a used Canon 50D DSLR about a decade ago, not knowing if I’d use it a lot. And other than one trip, I didn’t. It’s bulky to carry around, and without good lenses, uninspiring.
I had bought one that took Compact Flash so it had the bandwidth to run Magic Lantern and take videos. I never did get it working right on the 128 GB cards I had, but I also haven’t touched it in years.
I also learned that I should have bought a full frame camera to be more satisfied.
I have a nikon d3500 with 2 kit lenses and a 50mm prime. Yes its bigger than my phone but ive found that i get alot of grain on zoomed in photos on my phone than with my camera. Mirrorless is cool but if your just staring with a full camera i would suggest a nikon like mine or a Canon rebel series. They are cheaper and the senors are good. Glass is king when it comes to a camera. If your looking for something on youtube i would suggest froknowsfoto. The man’s name is Jared polin. He does reviews on cameras, glass and techniques to help anyone get better at taking photos and videos with a standard camera
