Photography or iPhoneography

Is your primary camera your smartphone? Do you have another camera, but use the phone camera most of the time?  If you answer yes to either of these questions, you are not alone. An entire culture has evolved around smartphone photography, and while all smartphones include cameras, the popularity of the iPhone has coined a new word — iPhoneography.

Photographers are often asked what is the best camera to use? One answer is that the camera you have with you is the best, because you can use it for the spur of the moment photo opportunity. The next question asked is if photos taken with a smartphone are as good as photos taken with a good point and shoot camera? While the question is open to debate, it is evident that smartphone cameras have been improving with every upgrade cycle, and the phone cameras on the market today rival the photographic quality of many point and shoot cameras. This winter I upgraded to an iPhone 6, with its enhanced camera options, and I find that it has become my camera of choice when I am not using my much larger DSLR (digital single lens reflex) Nikon. A good photo relies as much, if not more, on the photographer than the equipment and thus with a bit of work and understanding, excellent results can be accomplished from a smartphone camera. 

A major differences between a traditional point and shoot camera and a smartphone camera is that the point and shoot does only one thing — take pictures. Other differences include the type of zoom lens (optical vs digital) and the option of using manual control, which will be covered in more detail next week. A smartphone is multifaceted, and to preform each function, a specialized software application, or app, must be installed. All smartphones come with a native camera app preinstalled by the manufacturer, and there are hundreds of third-party apps available for download. While other apps may offer more features, I prefer the simple to use iPhone Camera app which can be quickly accessed from the iPhone lock screen. To use it press the Home Button to turn on the screen and swipe up on the tiny camera icon that appears in the bottom-right corner of the screen.

Understanding the controls on your camera app is the first step to obtain good photos, and it is a good idea to read an app’s online documentation and learn, from the developer, how to use its features. The iPhone camera app is very straight forward and anyone can pick up the phone and begin snapping photos, but for better photos a little knowledge goes a long way. What follows is an overview some of the features of the most current version of the iPhone Camera app. Next week OnMouseClick will cover how to use these features to take better photos.

With the iPhone Camera app you can easily select the focal point and adjust the brightness of an image. In addition to taking standard format photos, the iPhone Camera app can take square format and pano (panoramic) photos. Square aspect is just as it sounds, the borders of the resulting photo will be square instead of rectangular. A panoramic photographic is a unique feature that offers a much wider view than normal, usually by taking multiple, overlapping photos and stitching them together using additional software. With the iPhone you focus on what will be the left side of the image and slowly move the phone to the right until you come to the end of the desired image. The iPhone does the rest, instantly stitching the entire scene into one, long photo.

The iPhone Camera app also features three video modes — standard video captured at 60-frames per-second, time-lapse video captured at 2-frames per-second and slo-mo (slow-motion) video captured at 240 or 120-frames per-second. 

The Camera app also features a flash that can be set to auto, on, or off; a timer, a rear facing camera for self-portraits, better known as selfies, and an HDR feature. The HDR feature is probably the most misunderstood, yet used outdoors it produces a much richer images. HDR stand for high dynamic range and the iPhone version of HDR adds subtle improvements to the exposure and contrast of an image.

Another relatively new feature is burst mode. Hold down the screen shutter button and the camera takes continuous photos, at 10-frames per-second, until you remove your finger. When previewing the burst mode images, you can then choose to save all of them or only the best ones. This feature works especially well when trying to capture a moving object.

Check back next week for a look at tricks for taking outstanding pictures with the iPhone Camera app. If you want to check out some of my iPhoneography, visit my photoblog, Linda’s Lens,  at www.digitalquinn.com/photoblog