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National Geographic Photographer Praises iPhone 5s Camera

ThunderSkunk said:
My father is a pro photog as well, and had a similiar experience with the 5s. Its handiness combined with its quality is striking.

He uses it for location scouting and whatnot, then returns with his gear and shoots with the big beast.
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Yup, now anyone can take professional print photographs.

This will make the "photojournalist guild" that makes up a short list of the go-to photographers for any mainstream media even more exclusive.

I'm sure they'll make up more arbitrary standards and rules to keep others from entering their faux exclusive assignment list. If there isn't a rule banning the use of smartphone cameras, I'm sure one is in the works.

Know one that tried to sue these guys for not letting her in on their assignment schedule. Came down to the process server could not identify anyone in jurisdiction who claimed maintence of such a "list" or if this list even existed.

She just could never get any assignments while having the talent to take the photos. Her career ended up teaching in colleges for lack of finding professional work.
 
Pyrrhic Victory said:
Wrong, your post is completely illogical. If those people didn't think photo quality was important, they wouldn't be buying those cameras. Anyone with any camera and minimal skill can get press as a photographer, as long as they are (a) photographing exotic places, people, or things that are interesting and rarely seen, OR (b) have media connections, or some kind of reputation and following that will cause media to take notice. That's it. Many people take incredible photographs that the media never see, and the media see many people who never take incredible photographs. There is little or no correlation between the two at all.
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What's illogical is your assumption that photography is 99% who you know and 1% what you know.

And the fact that you believe that is astounding.
 
macs4nw said:
These pictures were taken with the 5S; am I missing something?
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Yeah, i just noticed that....

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MacSince1990 said:
Sigh. Nowhere in this article is the 5C mentioned. Also, the 5C is just a rebadged and repackaged 5, which is already established as a good quality camera.
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Yup. I just realized... When I scanned the article this morning I thought it said 5C for some reason....
 
gmcalpin said:
There isn't the slimmest chance that it actually looked like that? I think the professional National Geographic photographer who was actually there might know.
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Sure he might know what it looked like - that doesn't mean he knows how - or cares - to make the photo match reality. I shoot real estate photography with a much better camera than the iPhone, so I've taken more than my fair share of outdoor landscapes, and I know what correct exposure and white balance looks like. This image has zero highlights and there are some areas in excessive shadow. It's just flat out underexposed. And I know what color skies, trees, mountains, and water look like in real life. Here is s rough estimate of what the white balance should have been (bear in mind I'm going off of an image heavily downsized to web resolution so I don't have nearly the editing flexibility as he had).

BackGround1_zps3211058a.jpg


Compare that to the original images;
BackGround_zps89382aca.jpg


If you tell me the second one is more believable, either your lying or your monitor is badly miscalibrated.
 
giantfan1224 said:
What's illogical is your assumption that photography is 99% who you know and 1% what you know.

And the fact that you believe that is astounding.
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What's illogical is that you think "photography" is the same as "getting press as a photographer"

And the fact that you believe that is astounding.
 
Pyrrhic Victory said:
Wrong, your post is completely illogical. If those people didn't think photo quality was important, they wouldn't be buying those cameras. Anyone with any camera and minimal skill can get press as a photographer, as long as they are (a) photographing exotic places, people, or things that are interesting and rarely seen, OR (b) have media connections, or some kind of reputation and following that will cause media to take notice. That's it. Many people take incredible photographs that the media never see, and the media see many people who never take incredible photographs. There is little or no correlation between the two at all.
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Although what you are saying may be true to some extent, it is definitely not true on such a large scale as you are saying it is. Good photographers get noticed. Bad ones usually don't. Even when they do have "connections."
 
Marc-SP said:
The issue is that it is not actually a real square format sensor. It is just cropping = wasting a lot of pixels, and it can be done is post processign very easily, allowing for some reframing. Maybe Apple could use a multi format approach.

From Dpreview.com:
"Nokia is the only phone maker we know of that uses multi-aspect ratio sensors: everyone else simply crops a native 4:3 sensor to get “wider” formats that aren’t really wider, just shorter."

Or crop 16:9 sensors to make 4:3 or 1:1, I would add.
I am not sure if Apple uses a 16:9 or 4:3 sensor i the 5s. In the 4s and 5 it was the same Sony sensor, the IMX145. If I am not mistaken it has a native 4:3 ratio.
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There are some good explanations of this tied to the fact that the diagonal of the image at any format doesn't change, albeit some manufacturers don't include a square format. So the Nokia uses a bigger imager to gain the multi format capability, i.e. the 16:9 at the imager's diagonal.

Most manufacturers typically use a 4:3 imager at full pixel effectiveness, and then crop for wider formats or square formats, and in Apple's case, the panorama mode is so good using the 4:3 imager that users probably don't find the need of 16:9 as much.
 
If you use Instagram, you're someone who shoots for fun, not professionally.

This is by no means a pro reviewer.
 
Pyrrhic Victory said:
Sure he might know what it looked like - that doesn't mean he knows how - or cares - to make the photo match reality. I shoot real estate photography with a much better camera than the iPhone, so I've taken more than my fair share of outdoor landscapes, and I know what correct exposure and white balance looks like. This image has zero highlights and there are some areas in excessive shadow. It's just flat out underexposed. And I know what color skies, trees, mountains, and water look like in real life. Here is s rough estimate of what the white balance should have been (bear in mind I'm going off of an image heavily downsized to web resolution so I don't have nearly the editing flexibility as he had).

Image

Compare that to the original images;
Image

If you tell me the second one is more believable, either your lying or your monitor is badly miscalibrated.
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I buy into the photographer's explanation of how difficult it was for him to adapt to the camera's limitations but over a short time, he did, and enjoyed using the iPhone, which was the point of the article. People can master the iPhone as a photography tool, albeit there are other, better tools available.

Either way, you are focussing on a single image, not the 4000 available in the photographer's iPhone 5s portfolio. Seems like much ado about not much at all.
 
Pyrrhic Victory said:
Sure he might know what it looked like - that doesn't mean he knows how - or cares - to make the photo match reality. I shoot real estate photography with a much better camera than the iPhone, so I've taken more than my fair share of outdoor landscapes, and I know what correct exposure and white balance looks like. This image has zero highlights and there are some areas in excessive shadow. It's just flat out underexposed. And I know what color skies, trees, mountains, and water look like in real life. Here is s rough estimate of what the white balance should have been (bear in mind I'm going off of an image heavily downsized to web resolution so I don't have nearly the editing flexibility as he had).

Image

Compare that to the original images;
Image

If you tell me the second one is more believable, either your lying or your monitor is badly miscalibrated.
Click to expand...
To be honest, I don't like the white balance of the one on top, I find it too bright and cold to represent the true appearance of nature; the whole thing looks more like a caricature than real life. On the other hand, you were working at a disadvantage, not having access to the original source.

You clearly are of a different opinion, so perhaps some of the things you are objecting to in the original photo are to some extent a function of personal taste. There's more to white balance and exposure than following an algorithm; it comes down to artistry, which is more subjective, and in this context, the challenge of bringing realistic representations of nature into the digital world.
 
kunai said:
If you use Instagram, you're someone who shoots for fun, not professionally.

This is by no means a pro reviewer.
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Gimme a friggin break... you mean professionals aren't allowed to use Instagram for sharing some of their work? You mean since I shoot video professionally, that I'm not allowed to share any of it on social media? If I'm shooting some of my own material on my own time, I'll share it wherever I choose to. Got it?
 
kunai said:
If you use Instagram, you're someone who shoots for fun, not professionally.

This is by no means a pro reviewer.
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He's photographed more than 25 stories for National Geographic. With a real camera. His works have gone on international tours. Photography is his life's work. That doesn't mean that he can't post shots he takes for recreational purposes on Instagram.
 
Pyrrhic Victory said:
The white balance of that photo is horrible. It is way too cool and there is too much magenta as well. It also looks about a stop underexposed - where are the highlights?
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I'm actually inclined to agree with this as demonstrated in your post with the adjustment but that is a matter of personal taste and artistic interpretation. A pity we can't get the RAW files from our phones to do this properly.

There is no denying that 'National Geographic photographer' Jim Richardson has the eye for a photo, however; if he had said that the image quality of the photos from the iPhone 5S were good enough for the magazine itself rather than Instagram then it would be something worth paying attention to.

I'm not disparaging Instagram by the way, it is what it is, which is to say just not my cup of tea, not least because of the restriction to square format. Oh and all the pictures of food; what's with all the pictures of food?

Please feel free to lambast my credentials, I could do with the traffic ;-)
www.zackerythomas.com
 
longofest said:
I can't believe a professional said this:



I think I just threw up in my mouth a little bit. :eek:
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Maybe he just uses it for promotion. I HOPE he does. Even if you don't like Instagram (like me), there's no denying that it's one of the easiest ways to gain publicity as a photographer.
 
I'll take my DSLR (Canon 70D) over the iPhone (or any other phone/P&S, FTM) any day. You'd have to be insane to bring a phone as your only camera on a "once in a lifetime" trip! This story is bogus. NG would not pay his expenses if all he had with him was a phone camera.
 
koban4max said:
They shouldn't call the phone a iPhone...since many people use it for camera...might as well call it icamera.
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True, I mostly only use it as a phone when some idiot insurance company calls me while I'm doing something, and I leave them a nasty message... or in the car with Bluetooth. I use it at least 3X as often as a camera.
 
akadmon said:
I'll take my DSLR (Canon 70D) over the iPhone (or any other phone/P&S, FTM) any day. You'd have to be insane to bring a phone as your only camera on a "once in a lifetime" trip! This story is bogus. NG would not pay his expenses if all he had with him was a phone camera.
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Well geez Captian Obvious. Someone give this man a round of applause... :rolleyes:
 
winston1236 said:
Lol a "professional" who shoots for posting instagram. Right. Thats not even close to a pro.
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I would guess there are more professional photographers on Instagram than there are professional photographers not posting on Instagram. (At least in the US)

So, you don't believe someone who gets paid by National Geographic to take pictures that are published in their magazine is a professional photographer? Perhaps you should read his bio on the National Geographic site: http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/photographers/photographer-jim-richardson/

Can we see your bio on the National Geographic site? Or anywhere for that matter?
 
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akadmon said:
I'll take my DSLR (Canon 70D) over the iPhone (or any other phone/P&S, FTM) any day. You'd have to be insane to bring a phone as your only camera on a "once in a lifetime" trip! This story is bogus. NG would not pay his expenses if all he had with him was a phone camera.
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He didn't say that he brought only the 5S and not the Nikon, but if I had a Nikon with me, I wouldn't use the 5S!

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imaginex20 said:
Well geez Captian Obvious. Someone give this man a round of applause... :rolleyes:
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But the pro photographer didn't understand this. My bet is that he just did it to get publicity as a pro photographer using an iPhone 5S. Look, he got an article on MacRumors.
 
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