Practically every review I have read mocks using a tablet for photos, and I do understand, you look pretty stupid, and it can be an unwieldy device to take a picture with. However, I don't think it's that simple at all. I believe if you look past the two aforementioned issues, it's actually quite the opposite - it's almost a perfect device to take pictures on.
The new iPad doesn't have top of the range image quality, it is however adequate enough to produce usable images from, especially for showing friends and family. What makes the iPad an amazing photography device though is the live viewfinder, aka the retina display. A 2048x1536 viewfinder 9.7" in size, with accurate colors, is actually a god send to people interested in photography. The ability to tell what is in focus, frameing and exposure is immeasurably easier on the iPad than it is on the iPhones screen.
The screen makes takeing pictures an easier task than it normally is. Every picture you take is going to be good, because you are effectively seeing it in full size anyway - you can tell whether the exposure is right, the focus is correct, and the framing is good. This is not so true of a phone or point and shoot camera, the screen makes the above quite difficult.
So, you've lined up your perfect shot on the iPad and took the picture. Great, now you have what I believe to be the strongest attempt at putting a powerful picture editor on a tablet: iPhoto. Small performance issues aside, it has all the options you need 90% of the time. You can sharped, soften, desaturate or saturate different parts of the image.. and much more.
Then once you have made your original photo look even better, you have all the options iPhoto gives to upload, and if none of them suit you, there are countless other apps out there supporting different services to upload too.
I really do think the iPad is underrated as a camera. Yes you look stupid, yes it can be hard to hold, but it also presents you with all these powerful tools in one great compact device.
If this thing came with a full frame sensor and interchangeable lenses, I would actually use it for serious photography. Honestly. The other features are just so good, the actual camera performance is by far the weakest link - but by no means useless.
This is just a snap I got indoors at the window earlier in fairly bad lighting. Two minutes work in iPhoto saturating it up, softening the background and applying a bit of sharpening really improves the photo. By no means a great photo, but it is a mere example of what could be achieved if more time and effort was put into it.
Click to enlarge.
Nice shot. Nice little bokeh.
Couple years ago we were at another waterpark, saw this guy trying to chase his kids around with his D300/70-200VR lens, seemed to me he was missing out on all the fun and I swore I'll never be that guy; seeing people with iPads in their face everywhere though really took that to another level. Here's one of the many I saw at Universal Studios LOL.
