5 reasons why the iPhone is the best camera you will ever use
Tuesday, 09 March 2010 00:00
I have fallen back in love with photography. It's been a long time...
I did a lot of photography on my Art Foundation Course, nearly choosing it as a degree before doing a last minute left turn at the lights and choosing graphic design instead. Hmm.
I continued to incorporate a large amount of photography into my degree work but after leaving University it became harder and harder to access decent darkroom facilities. The rigours of full time work no longer allowed me the luxury of spending all day in the dark perfecting a print. Then the rise of digital photography seemed to take all the mystery and joy out of the process and flatten out all the light and shade. Photography became just something to do to capture birthdays and Christmases. An album of glossy snaps to put on the shelf.
However, recently I have rediscovered my first passion and we have been falling in love again. I am once again getting the buzz of creating an image, all thanks to my new favourite camera, the iPhone.
Basically I have been shooting exclusively with the iPhone and judging by my experience I think there are some very valid reasons to use the iPhone as a photographic tool. The following are just some of the main reasons that I think the iPhone may be one of the best cameras around.
1 - Step away from the technicalities
It's so easy in photography to get bogged down by the technicalities. To lose your creativity in a spiral of ISO's and pixel densities. You can easily let the equipment take hold and before you know it you have forgotten the basic bottom lines of photography - composition and the decisive moment.
The great thing about using an iPhone as a camera is that it takes away all the technical side. All you are left with is composition as a focus for your work. This forces you to consider each photograph more closely with the end result of improving your shots.
2 - Savour each shot
Pre digital, when your camera was loaded with a roll of real film with a finite number of frames you had to consider each image carefully.
As some iPhone photo apps are a little clunky and can take a while to boot up or process, in a way there is an element of capturing the pre-digital era. The slow processing time of many apps makes you consider each image just a little bit more before you press the shutter. You can't just snap away with the gay abandon of a normal digital camera. Again, slowing down and considering the shot more will help improve your images.
3 - Availability
There's a great old photography quote that states "The best camera is the one in your hand" No idea who said it but its so true. The time that you see an amazing shot is usually when your camera is sitting on your desk at home.
As you probably carry your iPhone with you 99.9% of the time it's always to hand. With the best will in the world, carrying a large camera 24/7 is probably not going to happen.
4 – Capturing the moment
Although forcing you to consider the image, old pre digital cameras had one major disadvantage in that images weren't readily available for viewing. Although exciting, time spent printing meant that your images weren't instantly available and you couldn't check if what you were shooting was working. Nothing worse than taking photos of a great moment or occasion only to discover they were all wrongly exposed and the moment has passed. The iPhone allows you to take and instantly check images, capturing a great shot and making use of it immediately via email, blogging or uploading. No more nerve wracking trial and error.
Stepping outside the technology also allows you more scope to look at the emotion and feeling of what's being photographed, to capture the moment perfectly.
5 - The magic cloak of invisibility
Lastly the thing I love most about using the iPhone as a camera is the fact that it's so unobtrusive. In these paranoid times if you start taking photos with a big professional looking camera, people get suspicious and start acting weird. You get staged images or people stop what they were doing and become self conscious. Its now also common for the Police to stop and hassle photographers in the street, questioning whether they are terrorists and preventing them from taking images.
However, pull out a mobile and no one takes it seriously. You're just taking a blurry low res snap right? The fact that you don't even need to raise the iPhone to your eye also helps. No one gets worried or threatened. So by using an iPhone you are free to bimble about taking unstaged photos without any grief.
Horses for courses
Obviously it's horses for courses. I don't think a bride would be very happy if her wedding photographer turned up equipped only with an iPhone. The limitations of the iPhone also make large resolution images impossible so its no use for large crisply detailed work. There are plenty of instances where a professional camera is the winner, but for capturing life in all its random varieties I vote for the iPhone.
I'm discovering the joy of waiting for the image. The excitement of the process. The happiness of coming home at the end of the day with a great shot I'm elated with.
All the joy of old style photography with none of the hassle. Can't be bad.
I hate spam as much as you do.
Your details are safe with me.
Comments
Looking at your work though you seem to get some great effects that I can't emulate.
What's the secret to light halo etc?
Richard
I tend to play with the vignetting to create a halo effect and shuttle photos between various applications to see what happens by layering up effects.
Have a look at Hipstamatic and tilt shift gen for some nice vignetting effects.
RSS feed for comments to this post.