Fast forward to 2021. I’ve had two major back surgeries, lost my clientele to Covid and made a major life change to Oregon to a small beach town with one of the famous Haystack Rocks offshore. With my change in lifestyle I will be blogging more to catch up on life in general. My approach will be helter skelter but at some point will make sense. The bottom line will be about the images and the art.
Equipment: Nikon Z6II, 14mm, 28-300 and an Apple iPhone 11
All images are from Italy and Barcelona.
Take a five minute break each day and renew your vision and creativity. The only way you’ll get better is if you shoot. The more you shoot, the better you will get. The more you shoot the more your vision and creativity will evolve. Five minutes a day, that’s all you need. So you don’t carry your dslr everywhere everyday with you? Good.
Pull out your Iphone (At&t or Verizion, it doesn’t matter) and start searching. It doesn’t matter if your subject is a landscape, saturated color or a detail item, the important thing is you do the exercise. You can do it at home, on a walk or in the office. The beauty of the Iphone, or Blackberry, is that it’s basically a limited camera with minimal control. The main control becomes your eye. Learn to see with limited resources and watch your vision grow. Learn how to be good with this camera and then watch what happens when you pick up your “real” camera. Watch how you start looking at things different. You will change. Change is good. Have fun, turn your snapshots into art.
More of my work can be seen at www.zwink.com although there aren’t any Iphone photos on it. They will be on a Iphone gallery soon which I will share.
Well, I’ve finally had the new Iphone long enough to do a review on the camera portion of the phone. Frankly I love the phone. By no way am I an expert on the phone but I’m a semi-power user. I use it everyday and even in the evenings. I use the text and email functions religiously. I’ve even started playing an app called Flick Fishing since I don’t have time to do the real thing. Right now I’m listening to the Aztec postgame show while writing this post. But I digress.
When I did my first review I was excited about the new camera in 4.0. I’ve definitely used it to come away with a mixed review. One of the exciting new features was the new led flash. Although it’s a great improvement over the previous non-flash version there are mixed results. Red eye is a major problem. If your subject looks straight at you there will be this effect every time. The problem is because of the flash being so close to the lens. So, you either need to run it through a red eye reduction program or have the subject look slightly away so the flash doesn’t hit the back of the retina in the eye.
The image and lens quality are greatly improved. All the images above were made with the new Iphone. There is improved sharpness, image detail and color capture. The color capture is fairly accurate until you use the flash. My images turn to turn warm (slightly yellow) which can be easily adjusted in Photoshop or any other editing software.
The video on the camera is excellent. It give a good capture and the sound quality is excellent. On top of that you can upload your video to your MobileMe account and share with family and friends or….. even a client.
The original Iphone camera was a piece of junk, especially for the price you had to play. The 4.0 is much improved and hopefully Apple won’t be satisfied with it. With a little practice you can make some fun, even creative images. You can share, print and publish them with good results, provided used small. There is even a hdr capability I’ll expand on later. Thank you Apple for the improvement but you have a long way to go. (btw Apple, how about a photo contest to show the awesome Iphone images being created and show your support for photographers by not doing a right grab in the process.)
Tech info: I’m providing very little. the exposures varied but the ISO ranged from 80 – 800 for the night images. The still camera function is aperture priority with a fixed 2.8 lens. I may provide more in my next review but I’m more inclined to show and discuss creative possibilities with this fun phone.
Subjects: l-r Halloween decorations at our home, Lake Wohlford mailboxes, California Screaming at Disneyland, graffiti at Cal Tech, Lake Wohlford Cafe restroom and Casa Bandini entry design.
My other work can be viewed at: www.zwink.com
I finally ordered my Iphone4. It should be here early next week. I can’t wait. Finally it appears it has a camera that is actually useful. I have not actually tested it but I have used each generation’s camera and cried…… For a high end phone there was never anything high end about the camera. Can you believe not one version had a flash? My wife’s cheap $99 camera phone had one, but not the Iphone, until now. The new Iphone4 will have a 5 megapixel camera, digital zoom capability and a led flash. Can’t wait to play.
I’m not convinced there is any professional use for the phone except for scouting photos and creative fine art. Don’t get me wrong. There has been some great “art” produce and posted on the web. One of the top photogs creatively using the Iphone is Chase Jarvis who not only has shot jobs with the Iphone but has written a book and App about the Iphone. Here’s a link to his blog: /blog/2009/09/the-best-camera-iphone-app-book-community/ If you like to shoot photos with your phone check it out.
I’ve been trying to do more personal shooting, but I can’t take my D3 with me all the time, I want to stay married. So the Iphone is the choice for me. Because it’s really limiting it make you use your imagination and creativity more. I don’t think that I would ever use one on a job, I’m not that crazy, but it sure is fun when there’s no motivation to shoot other than to have fun.
Hopefully with the Iphone4 I won’t have to take a separate pocket camera or separate video camera. Less, is definitely better. I can’t wait for it to arrive. Maybe eventually there will be an Iphone photo on Zwink.com.
The lead photo is of a maniquin photographed in a store display window in Kauai, Hawaii with a Apple Iphone 3G
My other work can be viewed at: www.zwink.com
