'61 VW with 409 V8 at the Triple X Drive in

 

Scott Morgan of Preston, WA brought his 1961 VW beatle to the Lance Lambert car show on 6/26 at the Triple X Drive-Inn to show his handy work of fitting a 409 V8 engine into the trunk of this 61 VW. This little hummer goes from 0 to 60 in 9.9 seconds and tops out at 135 MPH... not your fathers VW. Every hour at the car show Scott fired up the engine and answered questions for a crowd of 20 to 30 onlookers.

A Tribute to the Triple XXX Drive in Issaquah, WA

 

After 55 years Issaquah's Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive-in closes its doors on November 29, 2023. This makes me sad - it was one of my favorite places in Issaquah!!

Above is a 360 photo I took back in 2003.

This historic old XXX drive-Inn is the last XXX on the planet. It's Filled with 60's memorabilia, frequently hosts classic car and truck shows and still serves great sloppy-juicy burgers and root beer. The colorful collection of 60's signs and memorabilia hanging from the walls and ceiling create a visually stimulating room. The checker board floor only adds to the visual effect. 

When an iPhone Camera is Better Than a Full Frame

In this video Tyler Stalman gives a great summary of the uses a iPhone 14 Pro is better than a full frame mirrorless camera. In particular many time shooting video a iPhone 14 Pro is better.

How to Get Better Photographs from your Phone Camera

 

1. Clean the lens: A dirty lens can affect the quality of your photos. Clean it before taking a picture.

2. Use grid lines: Enable the grid lines in your camera app to help you align your shots and apply the rule of thirds for more balanced compositions.

3. Adjust exposure: If a photo is too dark or too bright, you can adjust the exposure by tapping on the screen where you want to set the focus and exposure.

4. Use natural light: Avoid using the flash whenever possible and opt for natural light instead. This will give your photos a more natural and professional look.

5. Experiment with portrait mode: Many newer phones have a portrait mode that can create a shallow depth of field effect for more visually interesting photos.

6. Stabilize your phone: Use a tripod or stabilize your hand to avoid camera shake and get sharper photos.

7. Edit your photos: Use editing tools to enhance your photos, such as adjusting brightness, contrast, saturation, and sharpness.

8. Store and back up your photos: Regularly back up your photos to avoid losing them in case your phone is lost, damaged or stolen.

Tecno has announced the Phantom X2 Pro with a Retractable Portrait Lens

 

An article over at PetaPixel points out that the Chinese brand Tecno has announced the Phantom X2 Pro, a high-end smartphone that features the world's first retractable portrait lens that helps achieve true optical bokeh. Other SmartPhone manufacturers are bound to follow if this turns out as good as it appears.

Camera-to-Cloud is the Start of the Computational Revolution for Cameras

Adobe recently acquired Frame.io and announced some new camera to cloud integration. A great article over at PetaPixel.com goes into detail. I find it puzzling that camera manufacturers haven't done something like this a long time ago.

Initially only a couple of cameras will use this feature but very likely this is just a first step. This functionality will allow camera manufacturers to build features into cameras that most SmartPhones have had for a long time.

The First Phone That Could Replace My Camera | iPhone 14 Pro -- Alex Armitage

The video above by Alex Armitage is from a post over at Fstoppers where Alex compares the Canon R5, the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro. This caught my interest because I've been feeling the same thing since purchasing a new iPhone 14 Pro.

One thing I found interesting is that the people making comments on the YouTube video mostly agree with Alex whereas the people commenting on the Fstoppers article don't agree with Alex.

Smartphone Cameras vs Reality! - by Marques Brownlee

One of the major things that Smartphones do to excel over DSLR and Mirrorless cameras is computational imaging. That is, they have the compute power to many things to change and improve the images.

Many would be surprised to find out how much of this image modification goes on in high end Smartphones. In the video above Marques explains some of the image modification that Smartphones are doing. I was amazed to find out about many of these modifications!

The End of Professional Photography - by Lee Morris

This video and the accompanying post by Lee Morris on fstoppers.com highlights the fact that the software on smartphones is getting sophisticated very rapidly and will make conventional cameras obsolete in the near future.

The big factor that Lee points out is AI image processing that is used in art generators like MidJourney and Dall-E 2. There's no reason this kind of image processing couldn't be adapted to smartphones.

Smartphones are REAL cameras - by Tony Northrup

 

In the above video Tony responds to a poll he did for his readers on whether or not they think Smartphones are real cameras. Since Tony is a long time professional photographer and uses his iPhone 13 Pro Max in much of his work, I think he is in a good position to comment on this subject. I think he does a good job and has many examples that compare images from his iPhone 13 Pro Max and his other cameras.

Sony says smartphones will kill of the DSLRs within three years

Techradar.com has an article that goes into much more detail on this subject. As described in the article, the President and CEO of Sony Semiconductor Solutions (SSS), Terusi Shimizu, made this assertion in a business meeting in Japan. Also, Sony expects the sensor size in "high-end" model phones to double by 2024.

The broad conclusion of this article is that smartphones are expected to continue their imaging evolution and, for most people, standalone cameras will become redundant.

iPhone 13: A Photographer's Review - by Tyler Stalman

 

 Tyler Stalman has a companion video (see above) to the one I cited below that reviews the new features of the iPhone 13 from a Photographers point of view rather than a Filmmaker's point of view.

Great review! Thanks again Tyler.