Hello everyone,
I’m just looking at that title again and am now wondering about cameras that talk. Would they look at the picture you just took and start describing it like alt text ? Would they critique your style or make suggestions ? Could it say “Bright light bright light” if the exposure is too much ?
I think we need a picture …
Aww. That’s lovely dear heart Ben who was with us for quite a few years. Always a little bundle of staffy bull terrier love, very inquisitive and deeply protective of his people. And the perfect model to start off the post with. Good to see the old chap again.
I was wondering about cameras and what to recommend people get. That picture above is with the ancient iPhone 5 camera, apparently downscaled to 960×720 from the camera’s native resolution. Bit fuzzy but still a nice picture there, if you ignore the crack in the lens :-D. The crack was actually the catalyst to me changing phones over to the Samsung Galaxy S7 which kept me going until I switched to the exceptional Pixel 4.
(side note – gotta admit I’m struggling for mental batteries at the moment although I was able to demolish a couple of books over the weekend, we’ll see where this post goes).
I didn’t have the Pixel 4 for that long before disappearing over to Canada for work … and then a pandemic broke out and I wasn’t taking pictures of much except for apparently my old sketch art.
Hopefully the more processed version of that is visible at the top of the page. I should probably attempt the sketching again, I kinda moved back to more digital art and the photography stuff in particular.
That’s a more recent one, taken on my desk. Yep, looks like I was using my little pen torch for extra illumination too. This actually gets me to a first point about mobiles vs cameras … usability !
I knew we’d accidentally stumble upon the purpose of this post eventually :-D.
I’d been thinking about whether it’s worth people getting a full sized camera these days, or if it’s ok to stay with a mobile phone. The phone cameras have come a long way since those early days. Ignore the number of pixels (although I’ll come back to that), just think about usability and how much the camera does for you.
In the case of the dwagon dice, that could have needed 3 hands because a phone is actually a bit awkward to hold as a camera. There’s no strap with them usually and you can’t be touching the screen. So you have to hold them by the edge and with a spare finger for the shutter button. Add a third hand if you’re using a separate light. However, you can get round that by using the timer. Sorted !
Depth of field can be a curious thing to play with as well … For this close work, I’ll traditionally hold the camera away from the thing I’m taking the picture of and cut it to size. Try it with your own cameras … see what you think. If the camera is close, it’ll all go a bit fish eye. If you hold it back a bit, then it’s a flatter image. Check it out ! Experiment, see what happens and enjoy learning how to get the best out of what you have. And there are so many pixels in our cameras now that we can easily crop out the extras (no one sees my desk 😀 ) and still have an amazing image.
I could use the R50 for these but … is it necessary ? One big difference is that with the strap to hold it normally, I can quickly pull that camera up with one hand and tap the shutter button. Maybe the left hand is operating the in and out of the zoom lens. The Ixus was a bit different there, as the zoom was on a ring around the shutter button. Actually physically moving the lens works better.
Proper camera time ?
There’s a cricket one taken by the Ixus a few years ago. One thing here is that the picture is taken with the camera braced on my knee, with it maybe being a bit too small to comfortably sit in an exact position. The picture isn’t quite centred there because it would move on the shutter. If you’re able to zoom in there, it’s a bit more mushy than …
That’s from the R50, taken this summer. It’s kinda night and day there with the sharpness, especially when you consider that it looks like the Ixus picture was taken in much better light conditions.
That gets me to another point ! Is it worth buying a cheaper digital camera in this technological age when mobile phone cameras are so incredibly good ? I don’t honestly think it is.
Let’s see :
Mobile phone camera – easy, portable, maybe a bit difficult to use one handed but includes a timer function that helps there. Huge amount of intelligence in the software tools to help make a perfect image. (Except for that tool that picks out different faces for people – I think that’s a bit of an abomination). You can take selfies with them.
Cheaper digital camera – don’t bother, they’re too compromised. It was exceptionally difficult to reliably get a good picture with the Ixus, although the image stabilisation has hopefully been improved. However, you can’t change the lens, you can only work with what’s been provided. Selfies were impossible with the Ixus (too blurry).
DSLR or Mirrorless camera – if you can afford them (and I got the second cheapest Canon), then they are massively worth the investment. The R50 has made it ridiculously easy to take snapshot pictures that have all turned out really well. Another one ?
That’s actually a resurrected one from Comic Con. The original saw the people there in silhouette due to the lighting behind them. You couldn’t really see their outfits. This is with a basic Auto – Equalise filter in GIMP which has started bringing out the colour again.
Whereas I’ve done that in post processing in GIMP, a recent mobile (my Pixel 4 is from 2020) will include similar enhancement abilities.
One issue though is the battery. I did a precautionary change of the R50 battery on the Lords day with over 294 pictures taken with it on the day with a bunch deleted because they weren’t interesting. If you’re looking to use a mobile phone as a camera, you’ll need a couple of power bank things to take with you and that leads to awkward when you need to charge them up.
So …
Cheap camera like the Ixus’s and Powershots – don’t bother, use a mobile phone instead (with a powerbank to feed the battery regularly). It’s just so much easier to do stuff with the pictures via the mobile, you can upload them direct to where you want to show them off.
Mobile phone – I’m really impressed with how much they can do now. However … they do have their limits imposed with the space they have to fit in to. It’s pushing the boundaries of the physics of how the light travels around. (And battery life is nasty)
DSLR or Mirrorless camera – I think they’re worth the investment if you’re going places with a camera and want to share what you’re seeing with people. The ability to swap over lenses adds a lot of flexibility there. The bigger R50 (compared to the tiny Ixus) is a lot easier for my suffering eyes to set up a shot.
I think that’s it for my brain for tonight. Hope this was useful for anyone thinking about cameras.
Just remember, it’s your money to spend, you don’t have any obligation to spend it if you’re not comfortable that it’s going to the right place. Check out what you’re looking at via independent reviews. I don’t count me as independent, even if I’ve had no freebies, I only have recent knowledge of the Canon cameras (haha, no free samples to test the opposition with!) and older knowledge of a massively battery hungry Nikon.
And if you do go to fun places and want to share, enjoy the day out, capture the memories and share the best ones.
Goodnight everyone, have a great rest of the week.