As much as I hate to say it, I am guilty of using the photography tag even though all my photos are simply done with a smartphone. Obviously I still think my pictures are nice and so do other users, but by no means would I consider them professional photography. I agree with you that the photography tag would be a lot nicer to browse through if it were more professional.

I guess it would be tough to constitute "professional" in there but I would assume as long as the person was using a DSLR or mirrorless style camera that it would be better. I see that the problem is actually enforcing this. Well here's what I think.

I know that the tag smartphonephotography is used by @photocontests pretty frequently, but like you said people are using multiple tags anyway so when they use "smartphonephotography" they also add "photography". The reason for also adding photography is because the much higher potential for viewers.

If we were able to push up the smartphonephotography tag to be one of the top tags on Steemit, which I feel like it should given the amount of smart phone shot that get posted here, then people would still feel very inclined to use it since it offers a higher viewership potential. At this point, however, people will most likely use both tags still.

Not sure if this is at all a thing on Steemit, but what if the "presence" that your post had with a tag depended on what order you put it in your post? Like the 4th/5th tag wouldn't show up as high on that tag even if voted a lot since the priority is given to the first and second tags?

Not sure if any of that made sense but just trying to help with ideas.