I would like to offer a different opinion.

The whole point of picking up photography is to learn all the functions that a DSLR can offer such as aperture (to control depth of field), speed (to capture fast motion, blur motion or low light), ISO, rule of third etc. And for landscape photography, one can start to learn about filters, ND grads etc for taking sunsets or waterfalls.

Let's be honest, who would play with all the abovementioned features with a smartphone? You just whip out your phone and take a snap. And the result will usually be a "snapshot" at best.

Also for the photography enthusiast moving on to bigger goals, such as having their prints enlarged up to A3 or larger sizes for display or exhibition, they will start to realise the limitations of smartphone images. A smartphone image is usually heavily enhanced by the camera's AI unless you shoot RAW -- and who would shoot RAW with a smartphone?. When this heavily enhanced image is printed at large sizes, one can see the "artifacts" such as pixelation, extreme sharpening etc. A DSLR simply offers a wider dynamic range because of the size of the sensor and lens.

For TS, I would suggest to pick up a good secondhand DSLR or at least a MFT with some good lenses. One cannot go wrong with a Canon, Nikon or Panasonic-Lumix.