I decided to buy an iPhone 4s from a friend when she got a new one on her plan. The only reason is for the camera to see what I could do with it. The iPhone has iOS 8 and is in outstanding condition.
The unit has been reset which means there is nothing on it. Unlike my Samsung Mini, the iPhone is bare. There are hardly any settings for the camera, hmmm.
This thing is immaculate, like it's just come out of the factory brand new. It was very well taken care of. This is the iPhone which was used for two articles in the Royal Photographic Society's magazine. Here's one of them.
The images aren't too bad though, better than I expected. The one thing about something so lightweight (200gr total), and small, is that it takes up hardly any room in my backpack, Since crushing a disk in my spine, last July, my pack weight has to come down and this could fit the bill..... (but I like my Leica/Lumix, it's 10 times the camera of the iPhone).
I'll do a few short treks and see how it does on the foto side of things. No SIM will go in it and I've turned WiFi off.
A few short treks eh? One was enough. I wanted a range of shots, so went to a town center and it's nearby sort of park. Buildings, people and a bit of "nature", but it is winter and the light was terrible. Very bright sun and fast moving darkish clouds. By the time I had the iPhone setup for a shot, the clouds would come over or vice-versa.
A guy in an Apple store there was helpful and I found out there are virtually no camera settings on the iPhones sold in the UK. The website I'd seen was about the U.S. model and it had a whole panel with all kinds of settings on and the author said you could set your images to TIFF format as standard (Not here you can't mate).
It looked nothing like this, the colors are really blah. There is no depth in the image and there was a lot in reality.
At first I turned the 4s sideways and the photo button became the movie button (I hadn't touched a thing). Then it went to panorama. Finally turned the iPhone off and on again to set Photo and managed to get the squirrel, just before it jumped down.
The bright bit has some green in it. I found greens generally a bit on the pale side (like my Samsung).
These were shrunk and a few very light unsharp masks in PS.
I tend to take spur of the moment shots and iPhone's just can't handle that kind of thing. Set-up ones with tons of APP's, a tripod and all the gear, yeah (there are some good shots I've seen done like that).
When you shoot travel photos, some times you only have a couple of seconds to grab the image without people or vehicles getting in the way (I've stood for over 10 minutes on occasion, waiting for a clear shot). In the mountains etc., the iPhone wouldn't work at all for methere's no lens hood or needed polarizing filter.
I will give it's due though, I had clear pictures. The anti judder is good on these. It was quite windy with a nasty chill factor, so I was shaking a bit. Yes, good photo's can be taken with the 4s, 5 or 6, but you need time.
So, are smartphone cameras really worth the effort? No. Not yet. Butthere are some ideas being bandied about. See projectara.com. Instead of a smartphone with a camera added, it's the other way around and it will be modular so that you can have it the way "YOU WANT", not Apple, Samsung or whatever's way. Google axed itstupid Google.
Next in this series .. Smartphones and those megapixels.