When an iPhone Camera is Better Than a Full Frame

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!!

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. 

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.

Tyler Stalman Reviews the iPhone 13 Camera Features

I got my new iPhone 13 Pro on Sept 24 and I've been working hard since then to understand all the great new features. The new features are pretty amazing!

I've found that Tyler Stalman does a great job of explaining and reviewing all the new features. Tyler's video above goes in the the new Cinematic Mode. Another great explication of the new camera features is on Tyler's podcast (listen to it here) where he spends 29 minutes talking to the camera engineers at Apple that designed all the new camera features.

Thanks Tyler for doing such a great job explaining this stuff!

Checkout the iPhonephotographyschool.com site

 

I wanted suggest that everyone serious about iPhone photography should checkout Emil Pakarklis's iPhonephotographyschool.com site because it it loaded with great advice and iPhone photography tips and tricks. 

The video above is an example of Emil's great work. Even though you probably didn't think you needed any advice about releasing the iPhone shutter Emil gives some great advice for how to use all the shutter release methods.

Do Pro Photographers Use SmartPhones?

Felix Richter over at statista.com did an interesting poll. He asked 881 professional photographers about their use of SmartPhones. 64 percent of the respondents said they use SmartPhones for at least half of their work. See Felix's article here. 

Max Yurvev Explains how The iPhone 13 Pros will likely use LiDAR

 

In the video above Max explains how Apple will probably use LiDAR in the iPhone 13 Pro models to enhance computational photography and make photos and video look like they were shot with a high quality lens that blurs the backgrounds. Very cool technology!

Tony Northup explains the Death of the Consumer Camera

 

In the above YouTube video Tony Northup explains the Death of the consumer camera or what happened to create the chart below in my June 9th post about the impact of SmartPhones on the camera industry.

Tony's video is going on five years old but this phenomena that he describes has been continuing since he did the video. Each year there are fewer and fewer reasons that demand professional photographers use a DSLR/Mirrorless camera. I think many professionals use DSLR/Mirrorless cameras because that's what they are use to. They understand the controls and nowadays using a big camera makes you look professional and using a Smartphone makes you look like a beginner.

All this is continuing each year. It is interesting to see the amazing jumps in technology that Samsung and Apple take.

The Apple Photos App Provides a Smooth Convenient Way To Organize and Edit Your Photos

As a user completely immersed in the Apple ecosystem, and someone that has used Lightroom and Photoshop since it was invented, I find the Apple Photos App a strong motivation to use the iPhone as my main camera.

The photos and video that you shoot just migrate from the iPhone you use to shoot with to your iCloud account and the Photos App of all your other Apple devices (iPad, iMacs and laptops) without you needing to do anything. In the video above Paul Minors describes how he uses these features. This is the way all cameras should work!

While the Photos App provides many useful photo editing features, you will probably want more and it provides a way to use other more powerful editors too. As an example here is a great editing tutorial by Emil Pakarklis from iPhone Photography School.

The iPhone Photography Book By Scott Kelby

Scott Kelby, the world's best selling photography techniques author has a new book called The iPhone Photography Book that is a very readable and covers iPhone Photography and photo editing.

One feature that I love about this book is that each page covers a single concept, a single tool, or trick that will make your iPhone photos to the next level. This feature makes it very easy to scan through the book and find the particular subjects that you are interested in.

I think it is particularly significant that Scott decided to write this book since Scott is a long time professional photographer and photographic teacher it shows the importance and increasing popularity of iPhone photography.

Even though iPhone photography has been around for years I've never found a comprehensive book like this about the subject. Thanks Scott - great work!

We Are Officially in The Post "Peak Camera" Era; What Now?

Hugh Brownstone at the YouTube channel Three Blind Men and An Elephant has a great discussion on the way we are transitioning from traditional camera gear to Smartphones that is well worth watching.

One observation that Hugh makes that is insightful is that the camera manufacturers are working hard to continue building and selling big heavy gear like they always have, yet most of us like small pocket size convenient gear.

The impact of smartphones on the camera industry

As an avid camera user for over 50 years, both professional and non-professional, I ran across the above chart (click on it for a larger view) a couple of years ago and was amazed how much this data reflects my personal use of camera equipment! Since originally seeing the chart, I keep running across confirmations that smartphones are destroying the camera industry.