So how do you really feel,
@ApfelKuchen?!
You think people don't know you're taking photos with that iPhone?
It's a hell of a lot less obvious than taking them with a 35mm DSLR dangling from my face!!
Do you take those photos with the phone held to your ear, or pointing at the ground while you tap on the screen?
Often, I hold it at waste level tilted slight up so it might look like I am texting. (Certainly never at face level.)
I'd wager the vast majority of smartphone users recognize a smartphone held for photography. Since nearly everyone (but you) uses a smartphone, they're all clued-in. If your subjects don't seem to respond to you as if you're taking a photo, it may be due to the fact that smartphone photography is so ubiquitous that they don't care.
I'm sure people paying attention can see what I am doing. But then again, I can think of numerous situations where I could reach out and touch someone and I have taken several photos and they were none the wiser...
Speaking as someone who's been a "serious" photographer with "serious" cameras for around 50 years... Of course people change their behavior in the presence of a big, serious camera. They always have. The less serious the camera seems, the less likely they are to self-consciously pose/respond to the camera's presence. Even back when we were taking candids as high school yearbook staff members, our subjects were more likely to notice me with my Nikon F than my fellow staff member with his smaller Leica M2 (a very serious piece of hardware, of course, but what did the masses know?). That was a key feature of Henri Cartier-Bresson's technique. iPhone or Leica... not much difference, really, when it comes to how people respond when you point one in their direction (and the technical quality of the negatives that came from early Leicas wasn't exactly embraced by the magazine editors of the day).
All valid points. Back in the day when I used to shoot more, I used a Nikon D1X and a Mamiya RZ67, so yes, those would get different reactions.
But you're assuming some thing that aren't correct... I am not taking portrait photos. Also, I am not going out of my way to photograph people. I am doing photojournalism and "street photography", even though I will be the first one to admit that I am NOT (yet) a professional journalist. And, thus, that is why I need something more like a Leica than a D1X...
Although you prefer to think the iPhone's not a camera... of course it is. It takes photos. It has a lens, image sensor, view screen, exposure system, image storage... Perhaps if you thought of it as a proper camera you'd find you can do even more with it than you do.
Valid argument. I guess I am old school, and I don't consider something without a physical lens to be a true "camera". (I had a hard enough time accepting that a "camera" could exist without film!)
As a photographer, don't you hate it when people say, "Boy, your camera takes great pictures?" Your skills at composing the shot are what count, right?
Spoken like a true photographer, yes!
But then, plenty of people also say that a smartphone isn't a computer. People get too caught up in how it differs from the stereotype of "camera" or "computer," obsessing over particular missing features or capabilities, and ignoring the fact that in every fundamental way they are cameras and computers.
Yes, I suppose so.
Why are you ditzing around with the camera's screen-based controls at all? It has a wide angle lens with deep depth-of-field, autofocus, and auto exposure. You can trigger the shot with either the screen-mounted shutter button, or the volume-up button. If you hold the shutter button, it shoots in burst mode - you could begin shooting before you even raise the camera into position. Just grab and go, like the old days of pre-set manual exposures and setting the lens to a hyperfocal distance.
Well, this is because of my ignorance of iPhones. As I mentioned above, I *thought* that when you zoomed in, you'd get a better picture like you would with a lens camera. I had no clue that you aren't really zooming in.
So maybe that is the biggest thing I get out of this thread - is learning more about my "equipment" and also learning better "techniques" to use my new equipment.
If I am understanding what you say, then there probably isn't any benefit of zooming in. And I'm not sure with my iPhone 6S Plus, but on a newer iPhone, the quality is probably good enough, that I could zoom in and crop later in say Photoshop and not lose any detail - at least in most situations.
And for what it's worth, since I always have my iPhone with me, in recent years the vast majority of my successful photos have been taken with the iPhone, not my "good" camera.
That is what I discovered when my old Nikon DSLR (not my D1X) died last Fall... I realized that I had a new iPhone that was still in the box after nearly 4 years, and that it would probably take as good of pictures as my Nikon D70, *plus* I could always have it in my front pocket when I needed it. (And as mentioned, in *many* situations, it would be much less obtrusive than my 35mm.)
So, yes, I admit it, while I HATE cell-phone culture, I think the device itself is very cool, and I feel like I have been taken to the next level as street photographer.
It's the camera I have with me, every waking hour. Opportunity! Unusual weather or lighting conditions? Click! A flock of turkeys crossing Main St. at rush hour? Click click! No, "Damn, I should have brought my camera!"
You are 110% correct.
My only stumbling block is to make sure I bring my phone with me, since I am not tethered to it like everyone else.
I started leaving it sitting on top of my wallet - as I'd never leave my place without my wallet and keys. That seems to work, although I have a bad habit of leaving my iPhone in my laptop bag when I go to work. But I am learning that even if I walk across the street to FedEx, *always* have my camera - I mean iPhone - with me!
I do a lot of hiking with outing clubs. From a standpoint of social dynamics, doing the Ansel Adams thing with big camera and tripod just doesn't work - I can't make them wait for me to catch up every time I stop, setup, and take a shot. So, it's (relatively) grab-and-go. More shots taken, more good shots to choose from. Does the technical quality compare to a large-sensor camera? No, but "publication" these days is on a digital screen, not the cover of Life magazine, National Geo, or as a 16x20 on a gallery wall. Subject, composition, light, shadow, color... the images speak very well, even if they lack a perfect Oxbridge accent.
Yes, I agree. And since my "street photography" is mainly for a website that I am working on, the quality doesn't need to be much at all. (Although, with a camera I 8always* shot RAW so that if I ever wanted to frame a 16 X 20 or larger, I'd have the choice. I'm sure an iPhone will be coming to do that soon enough?!)
Thanks for the pro-photographer "pep-talk"!!
