Tbh i’m in the camp of the modern phone is better alot of the time.
For 95% of “photographers” a modern phone camera will suffice, there’s a misconception that rocking a DSLR/mirrorless will make your pics better.
A pro photgrapher skilled in adjusting for lighting, reflection control, and an eye for composition using a potato will blow the socks of a hipster with a Leica, who insists RAW is the only way and spends way to much time post processing. (Thank god HDR abuse of the mid 00s is less common place)
The squishy thing behind the lens, as well as the lens it’s self matter most.... modern sensors are almost all good enough at the end of the day.
For wrist shots, in particular you have two moving elements, the arm with watch, and the arm holding the camera, the heavier the camera, the more shake.... and in anything but bright sunlight, you’ll find you need to ramp up the iso and run wide open reducing your focal depth.
In this instance, a phone which weighs a fraction of a mirrorless camera will induce less shake, if you’re taking a wristshot (allowing you to run a lower ISO, there are apps like ProCamera on Ios that give you a similar level of flexibility as a proper camera)
There are tricks to lock both arms together as one, so the watch remains static relative to the camera, but usually its more unweildy with a heavier camera.
Both phone and a camera can be tripod mounted, and particularily with a phone you can just shove it your back pocket if you need to take a more composed photograph. You can get spectacular results tripod mounting a Phone.
Plus there’s the organic nature of phone photography which alows faster candid shots.
Now where phone cameras fail is color contrast/replication, but if you can compensate if your know the camera’s limitations and chose and appropriate background.
Black and white contrast is okay, but color replication is a big problem, ie you have a bright yellow dial, next to a purple and blue background, stuff gets a tad muddy vs a mirrroless/dslr.
Focus & sharpness are also a con vs a decent bit of glass on a proper camera, it’s doable Manual Focus can also be a bit dodgy too on phones, even with focus peaking in apps, but this may also be down to resolution limitation of my iphone Xs.
Going back to tripods, personally, if i were taking a more composed photograph, i’d probably run a mirrorless rather than a phone, purely to make use of the better lenses, and remote shutter.
Not saying that a mirroless is bad, i own 3, but its worth considering how you intend to use the camera, and trying to maximize the kit you’ve got, before adding new stuff.
Afterall the garb,
Pics as examples probably help
https://www.instagram.com/time4nothing/
I’m no photographer, would never consider myself, but i’ve been using allosorts of cameras since the days of the Spotmatic F
most of them were taken on an iphone SE or Iphone Xs, but to break down when I use which camera:
wrist shots, all iphone.
candids, random out and about pics, all iphone
staged arty pics, iphone + tripod mostly (unless there’s alot of color contrast ie purple Moser)
Lume shots, NEX-7
macros with an NEX-7,
Anything else a RX1R II (fixed fullframe, 50mm mirrorless, and not ideal for watch pics... but it has got 42mp, so you can be lazy and leave some space for cropping)