Photography Thailand Forum

[Marc Schultz]

I don't mean that seriously of course, but this is interesting. Barnaby Britton takes look back at how the iPhone has transformed his photography. And, with the iPhone now the most popular camera on photo-sharing site Flickr, and a multitude of photography apps available, how the device has transformed cellphone photography as a whole.

http://www.dpreview.com/articles/0735714500/how-the-iphone-changed-my-photography

[Marc Schultz]

One of my own iPhone 4 snaps I posted in early July is here:

[Michael Luthi]

Marc, you can actualy mean that very serious, with a little addition: "who needs a compact camera when you have an iphone"
It appears that the 4S has taken a step forward towards the compacts as is now only trailing by the lack of a zoom lens. It is light years ahead when it comes to connectivity and in-camera adjustments. This is where it beats even a DSLR and what most people want. The to take photo, modify and share it, all within a couple minutes from the same device. Also the ability to moniker all sorts of digital and film cams sells.
Fear it should they work out how to make a zoom lens that fits into iphone

[Gregg Spradling]

I absolutely loath taking pics with my iPhone 4. The noise level is just horrible. Even on a sunny day with good conditions the noise levels are just unacceptable to me. I have night shots at ISO 3600 (550D, not a pro or semi-pro body) that have far less noise than my iPhone in broad daylight.

The shutter lag is something I just can't get used to. I think I could send a kid to China and raise him to 18 years old and still be faster than the shutter on the iPhone.  

I will say the video (720p) is actually quite good for a cell phone. Low light is not so great, but with such a small sensor that is to be expected.

The connectivity is nice, but honestly there is no pic that is so important that I need to upload it to Flickr or Facebook immediately. Most images I like to run through a bit of post processing, so posting immediately is secondary to making sure the image looks like I want it to. Granted, in the Facebook era, most only care about getting an image out there (even if it is out of focus or a horrible shot), not about the quality of the images.

It is light years ahead when it comes to connectivity and in-camera adjustments. This is where it beats even a DSLR and what most people want.

Are you saying the in-camera adjustments beat a DSLR, or that the connectivity beats it? If the former, I don't see how an iPhone could be more complex than a DSLR when it comes to shooting options (unless they are talking about in camera post-processing stuff).

[Marc Schultz]

You both raise some very valid points. Meanwhile I would just like to pause here to reflect on Steve Jobs' passing yesterday. I just happened to be in an Apple store yesterday buying an iPod as a gift for a friend right around the time of his passing. He was probably the greatest innovator and visionary of our time. He inspired the world and changed the way we live our lives. Few people like him ever walk this planet and we are blessed to have had him. A great and sad loss for the world as a whole. RIP.

[bjorn slis]

(from apple's think different campaign)
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

to me that is Steve Jobs

[bkkdave]

First my sincere regret of the passing of Steve Jobs; of course I never knew him personally and his passing really was not that unexpected however I am still in a bit of shock. I feel sad!

iPhone camera: My son was here in July and his iPhone shots as well as his iPod shots were impressive to say the least.
Attached is something I doctored up from a friend with the original iPhone. It was printed as an 8x12 and did not look too bad.

[Michael Luthi]

you liked the guy or you hated him, but he changed things dramatically and this thread exists thanks to one of his products. A genius as they only come once in a while. He will be missed.

back the thread. At Gregg: i guess i was purposely a bit pointed in my remarks. Now a tiny sensor as found in the iPhone will shurely not compete against a APS sensor of a DSLR but it competes with a compact camera. Like the iPhone compacts do pretty bad when it comes to low light performance, no doubt not comparable to a big sensor. So lets compare it with compacts and the compact user. The compact user typically wants his/her photos out of the camera now with minimal work involved and this is where the iPhone excels. You shoot you post. If you don't like the look of your photos you can buy an app that lets you easily change it, you can shoot macros and panoramas. There is even photoshop and snapseed to post process your shots. The cam is essentially programable and you can have an individual look. i don't know of a compact that can do that. If the optics are being improved now in iPhone 4S and things really start to look dark for compacts... the only saver is the zoom, but i guess this is only a matter of time till it finds its way into a phone.

Now there are things i would like that they find their ways into a DSLR. I shoot with a D300 and i would love if it would allow me to transfer photos wireless to a laptop or the internet (with buying an expensive add-on), i would love have higher programability of the cam (what i assign to buttons), why not let people tinker with the firmware and see what others could tweak out of it? The iPhone is really a hardware platform and apples allows others develop functionality for the platform. A DSLR could work in a similar way, Nikon develops the platform with a basic functionality but allows others to build on the platform and extend its capabilities. you just load the apps into the cam and it starts behaving differently.
so what i say is that the iPhone concept beats the current DSLR concept and it is only a matter of time till someone in a big or small camera company starts to understand this.
In a way this is also one of the last ways to be innovative with DSLRs, where can they still go? In the last 10y we have seen them going from 1megapix to now 16-24MB, do we need more? low light capabilities are far better than we have ever seen in film and so are AF and metering systems. Improvements will be only marginal... a programable DSLR however would change the game

[Marc Schultz]

In all fairness I'm not sure how anyone could actually hate him unless they knew him personally. In fact, he made such large contributions to the world and made personal electronics into a lifestyle and an extension of how we think and interact with the world. Case in point, I am sitting on the skytrain at the moment while using an iPhone to continue conversations with all of you about photography in Thailand. Something I couldn't do 5 years ago.

If you want to talk about hating people that most people don't know personally, I can think of a number of world leaders and dictators from the last century who have caused death and poverty for the sake of greed and megalomania. Hate on that level makes more sense to me.