The incredible iPhone camera

“We meet again,” said one of two pretty ladies as I walked Killian, my rescue Irish Setter, yesterday at nearby Boughton Park.
One had hair as red as Killian.
They had greeted us earlier — me and my chick-magnet.
“It looked like one of you guys was taking photographs,” I said.
“That would be me,” red-head said.
I took my iPhone out of my pants-pocket. “I’ve said this a thousand times. This is the best camera I ever had. And I also have a Nikon D7000. You see which one I carry.”
“Yep,” red-head said. “Carry it in yer pocket, and get fabulous photographs. Even manipulate.”
“What I do is e-mail ‘em home to manipulate with my Photoshop. And I hardly hafta do anything.
All I do is ‘shaddup-and-shoot;’ the iPhone is doing the technical stuff. That allows me to be more aware of composition.”
“In college I was a photo-editor, and was always altering tonality,” red-head said.
“So you remember darkroom days,” I said. “Brown finger-tips.....”
“....and the toxic smell of fixer,” red-head added.
“You probably also know what ‘burning and dodging’ are.”
“Yep,” red-head said. “Did ‘em all the time.”
“My brother took a fall-foliage photo, and I boosted the color-saturation with Photoshop. ZOW-EEE WOW-EEE,” I said. “You couldn’t do that 40 years ago.”
I hated to leave, but Killian was barking: “Come down outta that tree and fight!”
“There’s something else I wanted to say here, but I forget. I’m sure I’ll remember in a little while.”
“Enjoy yer photography,” they said as they walked away.
I remembered later. “This iPhone must be shooting through a pinhole. The depth-of-field is incredible.”
I bet red-head would get it.

• A “rescue Irish setter” is usually an Irish Setter rescued from a bad home; e.g. abusive or a puppy-mill — or perhaps its owner died. (Killian was a divorce victim.) By getting a rescue-dog I avoid puppydom, but the dog is often messed up. —Killian was fine. He’s my fifth rescue.
• “Burning and dodging” are part of photographic printing. Print-paper and film sensitivity are more extreme than the eye. Print a negative to print-paper and usually the sky — clouds — bleach out. That area gets additional exposure = “burn-in.” Dark areas of a print usually over-expose, so what information may be on the negative gets lost. To save that, one “dodges” that area = blocks exposure with a piece of cardboard, whatever.
• RE: “Boosted the color-saturation.......” —Reds are more red, yellows more yellow, greens more green, etc.
• A “pinhole” is a tiny light-emitting hole that projects any image passing through it — the hole is as if done with a pin. A small pinhole will project near-infinite depth-of-field (area in focus), like from infinite to almost to the pinhole. An iPhone is in focus from infinite down to almost a foot or two. The wider the lens (not a pinhole), less will be in focus.

Another late night

Last night yrs trly stumbled upon a video posted to the Facebook of my aquatic therapy instructor.
It was how to take impressive iPhone photographs. It prompted a deluge on my part — another late night.
It’s because I consider my iPhone camera mind-blowing. My aquatic instructor also has an iPhone. Some of my photos on this blog were iPhone. Take a photo, then e-mail it home for Photoshop if needed — often it’s just crop and resize.
My iPhone camera was reason to stop carrying my Nikon D7000, a bulky digital single-lens reflex. I’d be walking my dog at a nearby park, and often I came upon a “photographer” photographing lovers.
“This thing is fabulous,” I say, unholstering my iPhone. “When are Nikon and Canon gonna catch up?”
The “photographer” was usually driving a megabuck digital single-lens reflex, often with a gigantic telephoto lens. Lovers are around 80-100 mm, not 300. Why are “photographers” driving telephotos? To me the test of a photographer is how well they drive wide-angle. It requires an eye for composition, plus imagining what you’ll get.
I don’t consider myself a photographer. I take photographs of trains, and became aware of lighting. I have some idea of composition, but really I’m just “shaddup-and-shoot.”
Artistic input is to peruse my photos and decide what worked. There are photos I planned, but didn’t work.
Train-photography with an iPhone doesn’t work. I think an iPhone opens shutter-speed to allow low light. I shoot “shutter-priority” with my Nikon. I need 1/500th or even 1/1000th to stop a train. My brother’s “point-and-shoot” compares to my D7000, but often it widens shutter-speed blurring a locomotive-front.
Beyond that with an iPhone I don’t get a viewfinder. I compose better in a viewfinder, and the image displays only on the iPhone screen. My Nikon also has a large screen to display the image, but I use the viewfinder.
A viewfinder puts the shutter-trip right in-my-face. With an iPhone I gotta hold at arms-length to view the image, and the shutter-trip is also at arms-length. What I get is spastic, especially if it’s moving.
The video had interesting suggestions, but failed to note the importance of lighting and composition. We were told to “pay attention;” that extraordinary photos are all around us. It displayed two ho-hum photos of grass and wood flooring. The wood flooring was fairly interesting because of its pattern of light and shadows — not noted.
The video also failed to note the most grievous error of Smartphone photographs. No verticals please. Rotate yer camera 90 degrees. Most photos are horizontal. Yer TV is horizontal. —My niece’s daughter, a millennial, implied I was stupid to suggest she rotate her iPhone camera.
Nevertheless I’m impressed with my iPhone camera. My mother’s Instamatic was antediluvian.

• RE: “Train-photography......” —I’m a railfan, and have been well over 70 years.