Words and pictures by Mark Power
The TOP post from the other day, "The Most Amazing Thing About Photography Circa 2019," is a wonderful reflection on the growing acceptability of the cellphone camera. Mike's experiences with analog photography bought back a lot of memories because they exactly parallel my own experiences back in the day. Some time ago, I realized that everything I learned from doing analog photography has mostly disappeared from my conscious memory. A while ago, a student who had revived an old analog camera asked me how to use a light meter. At first it was as if he handed me an exotic animal—it was that unfamiliar. But as if they had a life of their own, my hands picked up the meter, took a reflected light reading, and suddenly it was all there. Somewhere inside me was a complete recollection of a Weston V light meter, one that I had used a thousand times in my own photography.
So those buried memories still inform my digital photography, although mostly in the post-processing with the enhancement and printing of the image. As far as the camera goes, the only technical thing I do is to adjust the HDR setting once in a while. For the rest I depend on the algorithms and they are usually spot on.
But that’s with a cellphone camera. In the eighteen or so years I have been doing digital photography, I've found using conventional digital cameras as demanding as working with film cameras. There are too many choices and too many confusing menus, and it got worse as the cameras became more advanced. I think Mike has commented on this phenomenon a number of times in his posts. So, I began to simplify. I went from a full frame Sony to a Sony RX10 because with the sizes I print—13x19 and 16x20 inches—I could see little difference between a full-frame sensor and the smaller one. That simplified the lens issue (the RX10 has only a fixed zoom) but there were still the menus, and before a shooting session I still had to check the screen to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently used the wrong settings. And there were a lot of settings to consider. And as I considered them, images were fleeing like bubbles in the wind. So the next step was the cellphone camera.
Of course I already had one, an iPhone, but I didn’t think the camera was quite enough for the pictures I wanted to make. Then came glowing reviews of the Pixel 2, so I traded in the iPhone and soon I realized that the pictures I was making with the Pixel2 compared quite favorably with the digital images made with larger sensors, and that was true for prints also. Yes, you could tell the difference by pixel-peeping, but given normal viewing distances with the sizes I print, the difference was negligible. So for the past year and half I have been photographing almost exclusively with the Pixel 2. The RX10 is gathering dust.
Which brings me to the meat of Mike's posting. Sorry, I thought this was going to be a short response but it seems to have taken on a life of its own.
Mike and his correspondent Dennis say:
Dennis: I know plenty of people who have turned away from entry level cameras (ILC or fixed lens) in favor of their phones, but I think that's due to the ease of sharing photos taken with a phone.
Mike: For some number of people, a number that's growing all the time, Dennis is exactly right. They will accept picture quality that's not quite good enough in exchange for the improved convenience of having their camera in a slim little pocket-sized wafer they have to carry with them anyway.
Yes, convenience was a strong motive, but the fact that picture quality met my standards was even more important. Then the more significant differences began to make themselves known. The separation between a "picture session" and life vanished. Because the camera was always in my pocket, life itself was a picture session. Now there were only about two or three settings I had to think about instead of dozens. I found myself happily surrendering control to the algorithms. Shooting suddenly became fluid and part of everyday life. There were drawbacks, of course, but even these began to seem benign. Cellphone camera screens don’t make the best viewfinders but I began to rely on my eye more than the viewfinder. I discovered as long as I pointed the camera in the general direction of what I wanted I would get a usable (and is some cases surprising) image. It was as easy to make four five variations of an image as it was to make a single picture. Cellphone cameras are also not very ergometric, they’re slippery among other things, but the advantage is that they easily fit into a pocket. As I think you noted, photography had become fun again.
And maybe even more important, when you take a cellphone out of your pocket you are surrounded by other people holding a cellphone. You’re just one of a hundred photographers at any gathering and no one pays you any attention. Well, I have been accosted a couple of times but nothing compared the how a larger camera on a neck strap isolated me from the herd, so to speak. Then I was a photographer among the people and it sometimes made the people nervous of participating in the ceremony of ‘getting your picture taken.’ Now if there is a ceremony, it’s the selfie.
I don’t mean to sound like a proselytizer. I don’t argue with my friends who still use larger digital cameras and if I were still teaching, I wouldn’t try to persuade my students of the virtues of a cell phone even though I am pretty much of the opinion that the future of digital photography lies with these small, palm-sized cameras with their remarkable algorithms.
Anyway, this post has gotten way too long so I’ll stop here but I did want to tell you about my two websites at beyondtheimage.net and markpowerdigital.com. Some of the pages on the digital site have many cellphone camera pictures mixed in with images made with my larger Sony. I would be interested in any comments you might have, pro or con.
Mark
Mark Power is a photographer and writer about photography with many shows and publications to his credit. Mark and Frank DiPerna were my third-year teachers in the Photography Department at the Corcoran School of Art on 17th Street and New York Avenue, Washington, D.C., either a million years ago or the month before last, seems like. The Corcoran had a fantastic faculty in those days—I didn't have a single teacher I didn't like. It was after seeing a museum exhibit of faculty work, an exhibit that included Mark's "Victor Carroll" series work, that I decided to apply to the program. —Mike the Ed., BFA, Photography, Corcoran School of Art 1985
Original contents copyright 2019 by Mark Power. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to TOP affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
Want to help?
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Kenneth Tanaka: "Thank you, Mark, for your open, thoughtful, and practical post. Of course you don't have to convince me of the increasing sufficiency of today's smartphones as serious photographic instruments. Your comment regarding the relative unnoticeability of smartphone photographers is particularly keen. It's a luxury I've often enjoyed.
"One point that I wondered if you didn't intend to make as a former teacher: As with any other camera you have to practice, practice, practice using a smartphone camera to become adept with it.
"P.S. I also enjoyed rummaging through your online work. I can see why Mike thinks so highly of you.
"P.P.S. As I wrote this comment I saw this very interesting, albeit marketing-driven, item posted at DPReview."
Jim Arthur: "FYI—Tonight's episode (March 25, 2019) of NBC's 'Tonight Show' will be shot entirely on a Galaxy S10+ smartphone and its wide-angle camera."
Peggy: "I think Mark is correct on his reasons for switching to a cellphone camera. I too am planning on upgrading my current cellphone to a Pixel 3xl just for the camera alone. Why? Simplicity and the algorithms. Because if I am going to have this mini computer/camera on my person all of the time, I want a better camera than what my current cellphone, a Galaxy S5, has. I've been using my Pentax K200D since it was first released. I like to think I know it inside and out. But sometimes I still struggle with all of the menus. I'm not ready to give up my big DSLR just yet. Although, if my arthritis keeps advancing at the rate it is, I may have to put the larger camera away. But not yet.
"And by the way Mark, I love the photo in this article of the elderly woman with the earrings. Beautiful lighting and amazing bokeh. It has a painterly feel to it. Just absolutely beautiful!"
Speed: "No matter how good the technology, we will find its limits. The technical limits of phone cameras are still more restrictive than those of dedicated cameras and likely will be as long as we still have 'real cameras.' My favorite picture from 2018 was made with my phone."
Rob Campbell: "Using a cellphone for anything beyond making visual notes has caused me nothing but frustration. Convenient for speech and text messages (whooda thunk!) but a self-defeating, masochistic perversion for photography. Perfect for snaps. The only difficulty all photography offers is finding a subject worth the effort. Regarding complexity of reasonable tools that could be called cameras: set everything as manual as you can, avoid priority programmes and try to learn at least the basics of photography as you did with film, and the electronic complications might as well not exist because you don't have to use them. If learning the basics is beyond you, then you are no photographer and yes, you may as well take your cellphone to bed with you too. If you want greatness in your visual life without having to learn anything, then just become a viewer."
Kjell H Andersen (partial comment): "I'm pretty sure the phone camera was the main reason why I got sick and tired of photography at some point. When I got kids a few years back, I ended up, as most parents, taking mostly pictures of them. It turned out to be a bit boring in the long run. I love my kids, but it wasn't all that fulfilling for me to photograph them only. The main problem was that during the first years, my carrying capacity was occupied by kids and accessories, no room for a camera, which meant my phone was all I had. I really hate those little cameras, good or bad as they might be. No ergonomics, slippery as a bar of soap, and a virtual shutter button on the screen which is only responsive when you test it, but not when you really need it to work. And last, but not least, they generally have my least favourite lenses fixed to them.
"But just around new year, I realised that the kids are old enough that I don't need to watch them all the time. I dug out my old Pentax K7, and I even treated myself with a used K3 (for a bargain price) and a new lens. It was such a joy. I finally enjoyed taking pictures again."
bt: "I was at a well-known building in Chicago in August. There were a lot of people with pretty nice cameras. But I noticed the even people with pro-grade cameras were using their phones to take and share some cell phone pix in addition to the shots they were taking with their real cameras. I did this once or twice myself. So it's not one of the other; you use the one you need. Cell phone pix are no replacement for a real camera when you are visiting the Farnsworth House and want the best images you can get, but there you are wanting to text some photo to a friend in real time and you whip out the phone and bam."
emptyspaces: "For me a lot of the joy is in going back and forth with cameras. I went through a film phase. I shot Canons. Now Micro 4/3. Had an intense affair with Instax for a bit. Lately it's the phone camera again, just because of a couple of apps I like. Action cameras. The variety keeps me moving, I think. Last year I traveled abroad and kept it light as I could—Nikon Coolpix A around my neck, with a 40–150mm loaded on my Olympus camera. Wide and tight, each with a big sensor. This year I am traveling again, and I am taking just my phone and a Sony RX100 VI."
Mark Power responds to the comments so far: Kenneth Tanaka makes an excellent point: it does take practice to get the most from smartphone cameras, maybe even more so for a camera that’s so radically different from hand-held cameras that superficially have looked and felt the same since the days of the first Kodak, or at least since the first Leica.
On the other hand, it is amazing how people who have only used a phone camera take to it so quickly, particularly children. Nevertheless, to make meaningful images, practice is necessary. And practice is pretty easy with a phone camera; in fact, maybe too easy; I went for a stroll the other day and in my mind I had taken about three pictures but the camera contained 75 exposures, most of which turned out to be just practice. Maybe the real practice, and for me the value in years of accumulated experience, comes in post-processing, and I have found that an image straight out of the camera is almost never usable; it requires fine-tuning with the ubiquitous three, Camera raw, Photoshop, and Lightroom or their equivalents.
When I was teaching (I retired in 2013) it was the rare student who used a phone camera for anything but having fun. I suspect students today would be using them as serious instruments and I hope I would be counseling the virtues of practice. One thing I would advise is to ignore all those presets (most are present in Camera Raw if you need them) and don’t try to process an image in the camera, cellphone or otherwise; it is simply too small a screen to do anything meaningful to the image. Like many, I do all my editing work on a desktop computer with a large monitor. In the old days, post-processing was called ‘printing,’ you couldn’t see the image unless you made a physical print. Now the image is electronic, and printing is the last stage that is often overlooked or ignored and I have to admit I am pretty far behind in my printing. Another subject that Mike has explored in some of his posts. Also, someone mentioned the lack of usable telephotos on current smartphone lenses and I have to say when I want to work with telephoto images I get out the dusty RX-10 which has quite a reach, going from wide-angle to 600mm and beyond. But the next generation of smartphone cameras are addressing the issue and apparently the Huawei camera has a very usable telephoto lens. So I will probably have to wait for the Pixel4 ( or maybe Samsung?) to give me that capability.
Finally, many thanks to Mike in being so generous by offering me his TOP space for the day and to you, his readers, for your many thoughtful and useful observations.
