Photography

Cuprajake I thought you learned from your coffee equipment purchases already, should have bought EOS 5D Mark IV straight away.

Only joking 😃

I moved from mirrorless to smart phone 3 years ago. It made the reviewing of machines much easier, and did photo and video with ease. Much longer battery life as well.

Ah ok.

What a pain in the a*se. Never fun dealing with people messing around with sales.

Doram

In terms of lenses though. With a camera if you put a 50, or 85mm lens on and shoot a portrait at 1.2 or something from a distance, and shoot the same shot with a smartphone, there’ll be no focal point on the phone, it’ll just all be in focus. It might be sharp, well rendered colour etc, but the camera will have beautiful depth of field (blurring the foreground and background) and far more actual sharpness.

I know there’s ‘portrait mode’ etc these days where software attempts to blur the background but it’s not really the same.

I don’t disagree that phone cameras are incredibly good though, and for 99% of people do a brilliant job as an all-round, carry everywhere camera.

Cuprajake Doram what phone

Pixel 6a.

Doram - That’s the phone I have. Switched from a 6.5 year old iPhone (iPhone 6s) which was essentially asking me to retire it. The Pixel 6a camera is great. (I can see a trend of number 6 here….)

Disclaimer: haven’t got a clue about photos, but all my friends say the camera is amazing and ask me to take photos with my phone instead of their fancy phones! 🤣🤣🤣🤣

Doram The point I’m trying to make is that for a long time I refused to believe that phone companies could compete with photographic giants such as Nikon, Canon et al. in the photography arena. Given their experience, their history, their optics, the physical available size and the prices of their products, I was convinced that anything a phone can do, they can do much better. I couldn’t fathom the idea that a phone could compete with any of that.

I completely agree with this. With their tiny optics and sensor, what phones can do is incredible.

Ernie1 I’m a longtime iPhone user (mainly just because I use 2 Macs/iPad for home/work and the connectivity between them all is seamless)

Same here. I have everything Apple, at work and at home. But, as Jake says… “I have an itch to scratch” and went for the Pixel 6a, not only for the great price, but also to check out on the Android OS as I haven’t used it for a very long time.

The phone is great, and, in all honesty, for me, it has everything you could possibly wish for and need. And it’s £300 rather than £700+. But you are right: The Ecosystem plays a big part in it, and I do miss the iOS ecosystem and how seemliness the integration is not only with your own devices (file transfer, photos, find my device, text messages, key chain, apple pay), but also with your family devices, out of the box, without having to install any 3rd party or extra apps.

Exactly. And it’s only gotten better over the years.

Copy on phone, paste on Mac. That thing where you can be browsing the web on your phone and then carry on the session on the same page on the laptop etc

Also display sharing and I find AirPlay for things like Sonos and the TV is great too.

But yeah, camera, not so much.

Photography has long (and Imean, 50-ish years) been a hobby of mine, and I agree that what you can get from a modern phone is quite astonishing …. in most circumstances. And, it’ll do for most people, most of the time. But there comes a limit. One is macro, another is very long telephotos, a third would be very low light situations, and all three of those, and others, start to show their limits with large sized prints. Of course, that assumes you have a large-sized printer and if you do, you’re an enthusiast or a business already. ;)

As for software, I used PS since about v3 back in the ’80s and no, not pirate versions. I moved from Micrografx Picture Publisher. I wasn’t a photographer as such, but did use it in my business. But I draw the line in the sand, absolutely adamantly, at subscription software. If it was still a business expense …. maybe. But it ain’t. And I might use it intensively for a few days or a week, then not touch it for several months. Subscription? “Bleep”, no.

So I hunted around. Yes, there are free options, including GIMP, and Darktable. At this point, I think we get into the realms of how experienced a user is, how much they’ll use it, and how much of a learning curve they want. That said, PS itself was never exactly learner grade either. Ultimately, for me, it came down to what “clicked” with me. What was powerful enough, and yet, easy enough. It just wasn’t free.

I ended up with Affinity/Serif’s Affinity Photo for an editor, and ACDSee Ultimate, as a Lightroom-type “manager”. Not hugely expensive, perpetual licence (sort-of, with ACDSee) and (IMHO) extremely good, but not super cheap either. A LOT less than PS though.

I think it’s a very subjective choice. Those two, for me, hit the right blend of powerful enough while being easy enough to use. I do know some pro photographers that agree, and dumped Photoshop/Lightroom for them but, be prepared to adapt your workflow. They won’t do everything PS will, especially in a commercial print enviroment, but certainly do everything I need as a hobbyist photo nut.

Would I recommend them? Up to a point. It depends what you need and, also up to a point, whether the UI clicks with you, too. It did with me, and as a one-off (sort-of) I can stomach the price. Will it suit you? All I can say is, if the price isn’t a barrier, then they are both work a good, hard look, for a pixel-peeper/editor, and for a photo management/development tool. From there, you mileage may vary, to mine.

I read people buy the stuff then swap lenses with their faulty ones. I always take a photo of serial numbers of items also.

Glad you got the camera back. You just do not know who you are dealing with nowadays. As I have got older I have become more cynical. It’s a shame as there are some good people out there.

Returning to the mobile vs camera thing, my wife photographs birds usually the other side of a lake where I don’t think a phone would be of much use though I haven’t tried any of the telephoto gizmos. She also does funghi and we have a bookcase of mushroom pictures, we haven’t found the phone quite so good for that either. Currently she uses a £300 bridge camera a Panasonic Lumix fz82 with a 20 - 1200 lens which is a lot easier and lighter with no swapping of lenses required we tried that with a Canon and got very fed up with lugging the kit about. A few years back my daughter in law brought her full frame Canon along with her grey 400 lens (I think the grey ones are a bit better and a lot pricier than the black ones) and taking pictures of birds on a very distant tree, by the time you’d zoomed in on the computer there really was no difference in quality, they were both fuzzy but the Canon cost a great deal more. I believe to get that amount of zoom (1200) Bridge cameras use the same size sensor as a phone so perhaps a phone is as good as good as a camera.

SurreyAlan A few years back my daughter in law brought her full frame Canon along with her grey 400 lens (I think the grey ones are a bit better and a lot pricier than the black ones) and taking pictures of birds on a very distant tree, by the time you’d zoomed in on the computer there really was no difference in quality, they were both fuzzy but the Canon cost a great deal more. I believe to get that amount of zoom (1200) Bridge cameras use the same size sensor as a phone so perhaps a phone is as good as good as a camera.

In my opinion, those are two of the most obvious areas where “proper” cameras are going to wn out over mobile phone camera functionality in every situation bar one, that being portability and convenience. It comes at a price though.

As for “grey” lenses …. yes. Those SLR lenses come in what could be categorised as ‘consumer/prosumer’, and ‘professional’, but the ‘pro’ class would certainly include serious enthusiasts if they have the funds to afford them. Canon’s high-end lenses have an “L” designation. Most, but not all, L lenses are in white/grey, and I’m not aware of any non-L lenses other than in black. But there are some L lenses, especially the physically smaller examples, that aren’t white, so being white isn’t definitive as to whether it’s L or not. I have or have had two L lenses that aren’t.

Both “macro” photography (like the mushrooms) and high magnification telephoto (or zoom) work certainly come with their own challenges. In the case of macro, it’s often either getting enough light on the subject (enter specialist flashguns, etc) or, getting enough of the subject matter in focus (enter huge fun with “focus stacking”). In the case of the long range stuff, it’ll again be light (hence expensive, or VERY expensive, lenses with very large maximum aperture (smaller f-number), and that then brings up issues of both solid support for camera and lens because handheld is often no practical) and/or image stabilisation.

You mentioned “1200”. Canon used to have a 1200mm telephoto, though I think it’s deleted/superceded now. Some years ago, courtesy of a Canon UK product manager, I managed to have a play with one. That thing was collossal, a real beast. It must have been getting on for 3.5 feet long for a start, and weighed so much I used not one but two tripods supporting the lens, with the camera just hanging off the end. I certainly didn’t want the tripod, and you NEEDED tripods, overbalancing. At that time (maybe 20 years ago) that lens was :-

• built only to order, not manufactured for stock,
• priced, I was told, according to the Yen ecxhange rate when ordering, and
• in the realm of UK £80,000.

Yeah, £80k, 20-ish years ago. Dropping it would not have gone down well’ It’s the kind of thing used by the BBC Wildlife unit, and for National Geographic magazine, for ultra long ranges. That, obviously, is taking things to the extreme, but the very cheapest of those L lenses are around £500 mark, and you can top £2k pretty easily, wth many being significantly above that.

As might be obvious, I’m pretty keen on my photography, but while a little of my photo work has been commercial, I’m most certainly not a professioal photgrapher. More of a keen amateur that happened to get paid work sometimes. And while I would certainly maintain that that kind of equipment knocks mobile phone cameras into a cocked hat 100% of the time for image quality, IF your needs are demanding enough, many mobile phones are certainly astonishingly good at most things, and for most people most of the time, every bit good enough. And I use my phone camra a fair bit, not least because it’s the one I almost certainly have with me.

I’ve also known a few pro photographers use phones in SOME situations. For a start, trying to shoot “candid” or “street” photography with a ruddy great SLR with a dirty great white lens on it? Well, let’s just say you stand out a mile. Click away with a good phone, though, and barely anybody will notice let alone give a hoot.

IMHO, it’s horses for courses.

Many years ago I was into photography in a big way. There was something we often used to say. The very best cameras in the world, is the one you have with you. Even the professionals used to carry a Trip or XA2 around as a spare

Mobile phones today take astonishing photos and video considering their size, lens and sensor, with awesome battery capacity for these functions. I changed to a mobile phone for my review photos and videos many years ago, because it was just so much easier and simpler to do it and transfer the images and videos.

DavecUK I changed to a mobile phone for my review photos and videos many years ago, because it was just so much easier and simpler to do it and transfer the images and videos.

I suspect a lot depends on what you’re aiming for. A pretty high proportion of so many, ummm… reviews is as much or more about entertainment than information/education. And in that environment, production values are more important. If people go to the review for information/education, and that is where yours truly excel, then (IMHO of course) the mobile phone is quite simply good enough. What am I REALLY looking for, and/or care about? Professional lighting, HDR colour, 4k ….. or rock solid actual content.

With some reviews, even for me, probably entertainment, but when I’m after actual meat and potatoes, i don’t really care about the colour of the candles on the table. 😀

Has your moile phone ever detracted from the standard of the info? Not in my opinion.

More broadly, can I remember ever cutting a video I was watching short because vid quality isn’t top draw? Nope. I have dumped a few, and I don’t mean yours, for lousy sound. For anyone setting up a studio, my suggestion for a limited budget would be get the sound right before spending a fortune on fancy camera gear or lenses. A mobile phone will do a perfectly acceptable job. A tad below perfect image quality is fine, but lousy sound …. that can be a deal-killer or me.

I’ve got a mate who is a photographer, started doing freelance work in the late 80’s taking photos at gigs and selling them to music magazines. He went on to work for several reasonably well known bands, touring with them as their photographer. He does other stuff too, he’s got a graphic design business so takes product photos, some motor sport stuff. I’ve been out with him at shoots. A lot said here about the advantages of one camera or another - very little written about the skill of the shooter.

My experience is even when sharing equipment - the difference in our shots is frankly unbelievable - and more than a little disheartening! I’ve been interested in photography for the same length of time as him and have a good understanding of the equipment and have read loads trying to get better at composition. But for the same reasons that I can’t paint like Van Gogh even with good canvas and paint, or play guitar like Jeff Beck even with a good amp and guitar, my photos are average even with a 1D and L glass.

I’ve got a decent consumer Canon DSLR and a case full of lenses and flashes but they stay in the cupboard most of the time. I can get similar results with my phone because I’m the weakest link!

THe Jeff Beck / Van Gogh (though I’d go maybe Monet/Manet, etc personally (not a fan of vanG)) is very valid. A Stradivariusis is not going to turn me into a Bach, Brahms or Paganini (unfortunately). More like it’d turn me into a good emulation of a pee’d off castrated cat. If anyone gets too near me with a violin, they’re going to be wishing to upgrade to someone murdering a set of bagpipes as a cultural upgrade.

By the same logic, an F1 car would turn me into a disaster waitung to happen, not a Lewis Hamilton redux.

The better the tools, the better the ‘artist’ needs to be to get anywhere near the best out of them.

The X-Pro2 turned up. Love the form factor and looking forward to getting out and about with it.

Couple of pics straight out the camera using the film sims.