iPhone Photo

Downtown Penn Yan Gull, iPhone 13 Pro Max

Every now and then I get a nice one with the phone. It's not for lack of snapping—I take pictures with the iPhone every day, some of them practical notes, most of them pointless. This is the most recent one I actually like—taken two nights ago when I stepped out of a restaurant on Main Street. It had been raining all day, and would rain again a while later. In the meantime the skies were clearing dramatically and clouds and the light were gorgeous. I was just going to take a little memento of the sky—I do that a lot—when I noticed this fellow flying in circles above the street. He probably had his sights set on some discarded morsel and was waiting for his chance to swoop down and nab it. So I framed the clouds between the two rows of buildings lining Main Street and then took an exposure every time he (or she) flew into the frame. Fortunately—chance is always in play—I got this. Large, it conveys the light, I think. Beautiful evening.

Clouds—check; bird—check. You might have noticed, if you've looked through my B&W pictures, how often I'm taking pictures of clouds and/or birds. (Although it's kinda quixotic to go around taking pictures of birds with a 45mm-e normal lens.) Water, swimmers, and the shore used to be my favorite subject, but even when I was young I figured that sometime later in life I'd start paying more attention to clouds. When I was 27 I used to picture myself ending up as a white-haired octogenarian living on a cliff on the north shore of Lake Superior with an 8x10 camera set up on the widow's walk, taking pictures of the ever-changing skies. In the manner of André Kertész, late in life, confined to his apartment, taking SX-70 Polaroids out of his window. (The book, called From My Window, is long out of print. It's not the book of his to buy first anyway.)

I think my attraction to birds started because my friend-of-longest-duration*, Jim Schley, announced several years ago that he had become a bird watcher. This isn't surprising, as he and his wife live on the back side of a ridge in a solar, semi-communal land co-op in Vermont; they must get a lot of bird life. While I'm not a bird watcher per se and not a good learner about them (my head is already too full, and the filing system is breaking down), I've started to pay a lot more attention to them.

Something else
I'm terminally ambivalent about the iPhone. I saw this coming many years ago, in the dawn of digital—I figured that a.) digital would eventually put us at the mercy of whatever the manufacturers decided to give us, and that b.) one day some lowest-common-denominator solution would become sufficient for the vast mass market and we'd run the risk of being trapped there with them. It's not as bad as all that yet, but it has halfway happened so far—the stormclouds are certainly on the horizon. Smartphones dominate camera sales by far. And although we still have larger-sensor interchangeable-lens cameras (ILCs) plentifully at hand, that market is already contracting and the players in that space are beginning to drop away. Consider that sales of dedicated cameras in camera-mad Japan have fallen from 11.11 million units annually in 2008 to 910,000 units today, and household penetration of ILCs in Japan has fallen below 50% for the first time in 19 years**.

We should probably enjoy the heck out of the biggest, baddest, highest-resolution cameras and most over-the-top interchangeable lenses we possibly can, while we still can! Our best hope is encapsulated in the fact that you can still buy vinyl records, you can still buy film—and you can still ride horseback and buy fountain pens and mechanical watches and ICE two-seaters with stick shifts. And books on paper. What usually happens when a market falls out of the mainstream is that it becomes a much smaller niche (pronounced neesh as most of my readers would know), but those niches continue to thrive. So the likely outcome of the smartphone takeover is that big cameras, big lenses, and big inkjet printers will continue to exist in a smaller way for a shrunken but still passionate group of aficionados. Fingers crossed.

I love taking pictures with the smartphone. And you could argue that smartphone pictures have gotten as good as the tiny-sensor digicams of 15 and 20 years ago. (Actually in some ways they're better, in some ways worse.) They're good, and, for most people, good enough. But whenever I happen to get a good picture with the phone, I almost always wish I had been shooting with something else, something better still. 

Mike

*We started saying that in our fifties to avoid the term "oldest friend."

**From an annual survey of 5,000 Japanese households of two or more adults taken by the Japanese Cabinet Office, via Nikkei, via Scottish pro John Aldred at DIY Photography.

Original contents copyright 2024 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. (To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below or on the title of this post.)

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Comments

[Robert Roaldi]

It's no surprise to me that humans are fascinated with birds. Basically, I think we're jealous. Anytime you're sick of something, or bored, or scared, or annoyed, you just fly away. Geez, isn't that a fantasy and a half.

I have never been to the north shore of Superior despite the fact that I've never lived that far away from it, a day's drive more or less, for most of my adult life.

[Chris Kern]

Mike: I love taking pictures with the smartphone. And you could argue that smartphone pictures have gotten as good as the tiny-sensor digicams of 15 and 20 years ago. (Actually in some ways they're better, in some ways worse.) They're good, and, for most people, good enough. But whenever I happen to get a good picture with the phone, I almost always wish I had been shooting with something else, something better still.

Since they started incorporating computational photography techniques, cellphone snapshots have achieved an image quality that belies the tiny size of their light sensors—at least, as long as you don’t examine them at 1:1 resolution. I carry a “real camera” whenever it seems practical to do so, but having that little gizmo always in my pocket has allowed me to exploit some image opportunities that either (1) weren’t going to be repeated or (2) wouldn’t justify a return trip.

[J. Paul Thomas]

Beautiful picture, Mike. To me it clearly shows one of the shortcomings of a smartphone. That picture should be made into a large print, framed, and hung on your wall to be admired every time you look at it. Alas, if resides on a tiny smartphone sensor. Perhapst one day, if it is not already an available, AI will come to the rescue. On the other hand, your can always have it there in your pocket.

[Stan B.]

Somehow, I was actually looking for a surfboard before I noticed the seagull.

[John Camp]

According to the OED, neesh is the preferred pronunciation of niche in England; nitch in the U.S. Both countries recognize the other pronunciation as correct, if not preferred.

[John Krumm]

I've been practicing more with my phone. My main problem is the app store and the internet. Both are huge distractions, and I probably should not have them on my camera, as I am prone to diving into distractions for long periods, like right now. I've experimented enough with the phone to conclude, that at least with my iPhone 15 Pro Max, just using the standard camera app, set to the standard 24 mp output, not raw, works best. Apple processes their raws like crazy anyway, so I don't see the point, and if you strip the processing, you get a subpar file, so why bother? But the standard 24 mp jpeg or heic is just fine, especially in the daytime. I even like the 12 mp output of the telephoto lens, like this shot I took in a parade a couple days ago...

[Eric Brody]

I appreciate and agree with your analysis of the camera market. One of the few advantages of being in the age range considered "elderly," though I really do not feel that way, is that I'll likely not see these long range disasters. I'm also with you in that every time I take a photo with great content with my iPhone 13 ProMax, I wish I had a "real" camera. That was also true in my film days when I went out with a "small" camera, eg 6x6 and wished I had brought my 4x5.

I've always said to those who worry about unimportant things like bokeh, and other things no one but us wacko photographers care about, is that content is king, technique is important, but content is king.

The great photographs of the 20th century would not stand a chance on many of today's fora. I'm totally convinced that Ansel and Edward would be using digital cameras were they here today.

[Albert Smith]

For me, my "Birds" are bicycles. I must have several thousand images of parked, unmounted bikes. I love the design and mechanism of things and bikes have that out in the open, so my eye and camera can't resist a bike parked in an environment.

[Mike Chisholm]

Mike,

I won't be the only one saying this, I'm sure, but: you *are* using an app like ProCamera or Halide that delivers raw files, aren't you? Files that bypass most of Apple's overcooked Californian eye-candy processing?

If not, I'm not surprised you find your phone pictures lacking. After all, I'm assuming you don't rely on JPGs from your other cameras... Surely not?

Mike

[You can turn on raw right in the iPhone, but I seldom remember to do so. I should have in this case, probably, although the look of the file seems fine to me. You just can't look too closely. --Mike]

[KeithB]

Interesting thread on the Apple communities:
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255725780?sortBy=oldest_first

A commercial photographer of multiple decades is not satisfied with her iPhone pictures - the camera is out-thinking them.

It appears that the alternate camera app Halide is coming along to save the day.

[robert e]

Wonderful photo! I was surprised that it was taken from such a mundane setting and altitude.

I'm intrigued by the latest version of the Halide app, which can bypass all the standard image processing on the iPhone so that we can have our non-HDR shadows and our sensor noise, but it's pricey and I first have to get over my aversion to paying extra to turn off features that I presumably paid for.

https://petapixel.com/2024/08/14/halides-anti-intelligent-update-makes-iphone-photos-truly-natural/

[darlene]

I recently visited my “friend of longest duration”; we met at age 12 and are only weeks apart in age. Your bird-in-flight photo is lovely. I've always been captivated by clouds—Alfred Stieglitz's "Equivalents" series hooked me years ago.

After retiring, I faced a choice in amateur photography: focus on bird photography or landscape photography, but not both. I would need to acquire specialized gear for birding, but my budget was already heavily invested in big cameras and film. I've always marveled at stunning bird photography, having been a long-time Audubon member. So, I rented an honker of a lens and gave bird photography a shot at my local wildlife refuge. While experimenting, I reassured myself that my passion for big cameras and film was the right path for me. My admiration runs deep for the birds and the photographers who masterfully capture their beauty.

Here's my take on consumer cameras and cell phones: I fondly recall a black and teal plastic camera from my childhood, which was likely a Diana model. With money tight, that camera was my mom’s high-tech gadget of the time. It was ‘the’ magic box that captured our sandy escapades on Santa Monica Beach. Thanks to that plastic fantastic camera, I have priceless memories of my sisters and me lounging in the sun and digging up tiny crabs as the waves raced from the shore. Those snaps turned out darn good with everything considered, proving you don't need bells and whistles for a bit of photo magic on a low-budget income.

I give a high-five to the cell phone camera for making it possible to capture beautiful memories, making them accessible to everyone with a phone, regardless of income. I know my mom would have enjoyed having one.

Now that photography has genuinely evolved into an art form embraced by society (photography is finally respected as art, Alfred), it is accessible to all, not just those with technical expertise. As the medium continues to captivate artists, and possibly the cell phone pulls them in, the traditional aspects of photography—like film and specialized equipment—will continue to thrive in artistic niches; they are not going away. That’s my 2 cents, and I am sticking to them. ;)

[Tom Burke]

I have both an iPhone (currently 14 Pro Max) and an ILC (it doesn’t really matter which ILC). With the ILCs (there have been several) I’ve generally used a standard zoom (24-105 or 17-70 with APS-C) and a 70-200.

I have found that I take different pictures with the two systems. With the ILC I tend to live at the long end of a standard zoom - I just like that compressed perspective. I do use the ILC lens at the wide end but somehow my shots at that focal length from the ILC just don’t convince me. With the iPhone I’m more comfortable with the standard lens (24mm equivalent), close up to my subjects. Not really macro - the iPhone won’t do that, not really - but closer than I would get with the ILC. Perhaps I like the depth of field that the iPhone give me? Anyway, I think that in recent years some of my very best images have been taken with the iPhone. I’m seriously considering getting rid of the ILC and just using the iPhone, and accepting its limitations.

Technical stuff: With the iPhone I generally shoot Apple Pro Raw, and then export the images (‘Export unmodified…’) to LightRoom Classic where I edit them. Then I’ll delete the originals from Apple Photos and re-import full-size JPGs from LR back into Photos - I’ve still got the Raw files in LR on the iMac from where they are backed up locally via Time Machine and remotely via BackBlaze. ILC images go straight into LR, of course.

[Elsa Louise]

Heavenly.

[MikeR]

I hope you were out with the clouds today, Mike. Had I not been chauffeur for our family gathering across the lake from you, for a trip to Seneca Falls, I probably would have been out with my infrared conversion, capturing the drama as well as I could.

[James]

But they are far, far better than digicams of 20 years ago.

One time, I was at a show at the Mercury Lounge in New York with a Casio digicam designed to fit in an Altoids tin. The stars aligned, and I caught a shot at 1/4 second exposure. It was in focus, the lights were good on my subject and guitar, and the subject motion wasn't so bad. Neither were my hands. It was good for 640x320. Plus I had to torture the file in post.

Later, I sent it to her, and she asked if I had any more like it. Of course not!! That photo had no real chance of working. I don't think I could have gotten another picture that would have worked at a technical level if I had shot another year of shows.

Now? Flagship phone cams be like brrrrrr.

[Speed]

The world is full of things I didn't know ...

About Apple ProRAW

On iPhone 12 Pro and later Pro models with iOS 14.3 or later, you can take photos in Apple ProRAW. ProRAW gives you greater creative control when editing photos.

Apple ProRAW combines the information of a standard RAW format along with iPhone image processing, which gives you more flexibility when editing the exposure, color, and white balance in your photo.

About Apple ProRAW

More at the link.

[Dave Levingston]

Nice one, Mike. Lovely light indeed. Pretty much perfect. Camera doesn't matter in the least.

[psu]

> And you could argue that smartphone pictures have gotten as good as the tiny-sensor digicams of 15 and 20 years ago

IMHO they are better in many ways. In fact they are better than big giant sensor cameras from 20 years ago too (e.g. D200). This is especially true for low light pictures that don't need a lot of detail to work.

I do agree that the more recent iterations of the iPhone system cameras are doing a bit more work behind my back than I really want. But I also regularly have this experience where I take pictures side by side with the phone and some other system camera that I have and I can't make the picture from the "real" camera look quite right having seen what the phone did.

Photography has always been at the mercy of the industry that creates the tools for it. I think the phone camera situation is just a lot more explicit than in older times with cameras and film. But film, if anything, is/was in many ways very similar to what we have now with adapting to a various styles of in-device processing.

[Mike Plews]

My exercise routine includes a two mile walk through our corner of the scenic Loess hills of Western Iowa.
For years my walkaround camera was a Canon S95 and occasionally a D7100.
Lately my Google Pixel 8pro seems to be ok. The D7100 is more rewarding and it comes out occasionally but in this setting the phone is fine. The quality of phone cameras has skyrocketed lately.
But beyond camera quality what amazes me is the powerful image editing abilities available on a phone.
Beyond the impressive abilities on the camera the inclusion of Lightroom and Epson print make a phone into a powerhouse.
A while back I picked up a nice sunset on my phone during my walk. I pulled it up, edited it in Lightroom, sent it a friend on Guam and had an excellent print waiting for me when I walked back in the door.
I'm 74 and the whole thing put the zap on my head.

[Dave]

I was going to comment that the sky looked too richly blue, but then I visited E. Meola's site: https://www.ericmeola.com/AMERICA/30/caption

Eric M. and Pete Turner had "blue photos" in Kodak's "The Art of Seeing". So, maybe your cell phone sky photo wasn't all that unnaturally blue. (Although, the clouds have quite a bit of blue in them.)

[david place]

Has anyone tried Halide on iOS? They now offer a way to strip out most of what the iPhone or iPad has done with the image taking it to a near RAW state. Haven’t had time to try it yet as the email about it came this morning. Seems to be an interesting idea from an interesting company.

[Ivan]

I feel the same way you do about using the iPhone. To combat the regret, I bought a do-it-all anti-phone camera (Canon R10/18-150) with super bird detection and tracking that would have made short work of your gull and any other avian in the vicinity.

Long story short, I quickly got bored of raw editing and regressed to the camera's idiot mode, called Creative Assist, and topped off my blasphemy by activating Touch Shutter - effectively turning my $1279 wonder into a second phone camera with a longer zoom and a viewfinder.

Oh, well. But it's a much better camera than the DSLR that's been sitting on my bookshelf for two years and has allowed me to stop losing sleep over the iPhone's harebrained oversharpening. So I agree - get a good camera now, while you can, and have some fun.

[Luke]

Vinyl, horses, squirt pens, wrist clocks, ICE smog, stick shifts, and tree paper. I'd hate to see the giant stack of punch cards needed just to boot your computer.

[John Krumm]

One thing about "pro raw" when shooting Apple, at least on my 15 Pro Max, the noise reduction is still very, very strong. There is no way to turn it off. So stuff in the distance, especially, tends to look smoothed over and plastic, especially if the ISO crawls up from the base level (but even at base iso). What I find, if you apply a generous amount of digital grain, you can make the photos look kind of like photos again, as opposed to AI generated illustrations.
The 24 mp files that the iPhones 15 app can generate look better, but unfortunately Apple seems to limit other apps from using this size. They are stuck with 12mp or 48mp. I still apply the grain to the 24mp files.

[Don Craig]

Worth a look at yesterday’s PetaPixel article with statistics showing the collapse of the dedicated camera market. https://petapixel.com/2024/08/22/the-rise-and-crash-of-the-camera-industry-in-one-chart/

[psu]

I have occasionally tried to use Halide, but I found it frustrating.

I use the phone to take pictures specifically when I (usually) want the smart pipeline to make sure that there is a high probability that the thing will look like I want without me needing to work at it.

It's never been clear to me why you would try to capture the best possible non-processed RAW files off of a the tiny phone sensor that is specifically designed to be the starting point of a relatively involved computational pipeline and end product of which is usually a pretty high quality image. In my experiments with iPhone RAW (and maybe Pro Raw I don't remember)I would sometimes get images that were just completely wrong in weird ways (bad color and constrast, no sharpness, that sort of thing). So I would try and figure out what happened instead of just taking pictures.

Generally with Halide and RAW I found myself fiddling with too many things and fighting the camera because I had taken away what the camera is actually really good at (smart post processing). I was also never really happy with the control interface in Halide. It's just different enough from the built in camera app that it's confusing.

So I have up and just carry a non-phone camera when I want to avoid the phone's post-processing shenanigans.