Should photographers always carry a standalone camera, or can a smartphone sometimes be enough?

After several minutes of wandering around, I turned the street corner to head toward the lake. Shining back at me was the most beautiful of sunsets gracing the sky. It was gorgeous with swirling deep yellows, oranges and intense tomato reds that seemed to glow and bounce from cloud to cloud. As I approached the lake, the sunset's reflection on the water was just as intense. We get a lot of great sunsets around here, sometimes nearly every day, but never before like this one. And all I had was my iPhone 12 Pro. Mathew Anderson holding a smartphone camera outdoors. Mathew Anderson All I had was my iPhone 12 Pro. 'All I had'… I felt ashamed as I held the phone in my hand to take a few opportunistic photos. 'I work at DPReview with a community of photographers that have proper equipment they carry with them wherever they go, and here I am whipping out my phone as if I were too lazy to bother bringing along anything else, convenience be damned', I thought to myself.