It's fun to get out of town, travel, and see how stuff gets done in public in other cities/countries. Since college students are back in school, and young families have finished with their vacations and are back at school and work, the travel scene in early October looks to be a bit.... gray. Almost geriatric. Especially in a city like Montreal which appeals to people who like to see old stuff. Which isn't all bad since the people around you at tourist sites aren't generally getting blind drunk, screaming at the top of their lungs, diving off rooftops or whining for juice boxes and attention. The crowds we encountered in Montreal; from museums to historic plazas, were mostly comprised of tourists over 50 years old and moving slowly.
In one way this seemed to tilt my usual nearly subconscious, but always running, "camera count" a bit further toward "many DSLRs" and away from "completely overrun by smartphone cameras." Up to a point the older the male person in the crowd was the more likely he was to sport at least one DSLR or mirrorless, interchangeable lens camera. Habit? Training? Taste? Or a discomfort with the operational feel of using a smartphone for a primary camera? I'm going to guess that it's a liberal helping of all four factors.
Women over 50 in the crowd seemed equally likely to be sporting either a phone or a traditional camera, and sometimes both. One with which to shoot for posterity and the other for immediate visual communication with family, via Facebook, et al.
I've got to say though that there were a few times when I tried to get a perfect shot with my traditional DSLR camera, got frustrated because of things like a contrast range wider than the Grand Canyon, and ended up pulling out my iPhone XR to see if it could do a better job. In cases like dark interiors with vaulted ceilings the phone won; hands down. Why? Its processor is making calculations so quickly that it seems to be pulling some exposure components for the shadows and some to control for highlight burnout. It's creating images that are almost like HDR without even being set to HDR. That, and the fact that the image stabilization in the phone is phenomenal. There is some computational magic going on in the newest phones that allows them to punch far beyond their weight and into "Wow!" territory.
With a big exterior shot with lots of detail, the full frame, 36 megapixel camera was a clear winner. And the look of the files was......visually sexier.
It's true that the iPhones and decent Android phones have more or less taken the place of point and shoot cameras (with the exception of Belinda and her G15) and they've done so for the same reason that mirrorless cameras are becoming more and more popular = the user can see exactly what they will be getting when they make the exposure by looking at the rear screen. It's an image that has all the settings baked in and set. All the user needs to do is like the image and actuate the "shutter." Chances are the final result will match their pre-chimped image very closely. And that's a comforting thing. Pre-shot-previewing is faster and more sure than the old way of praying you'd get a shot right, reviewing it after the fact and then hoping you'd get another chance to do better. Added to this is the fact that the screens on the newer phones are bigger, brighter and much more detailed than the cameras most user are transitioning from.
We'll keep shooting traditional gear for most stuff but...the writing on the wall is becoming clearer all the time. When sensors in phones get bigger it's armageddon for traditional camera makers.... At least for the use case of travel and tourism. I know, I know, you're the one guy out of a million who shoots sports and can't work without a 1200mm lens on a full frame body that shoots at least 10 (mechanical) frames per second. You'll have to wait for the next generation of phones....
The man in the center was both tour guide and the person who would quickly take each person's cell phone, line up a shot with the phone's owner in front of a cathedral and snap a few shots.
He is doing it factory style, grabbing for a new "camera" with his right hand while handing back the "camera" just used. It's efficient; I'll give him that...
one of each.
And we complain that cameras are too big?
7 comments:
Last year in a local park I saw a woman photographing her daughter doing acrobatic or dance moves — she was using an iPad on a TRIPOd! I felt she should have had a black cloth too to complete the outfit ;-)
I'm not sure of my shot mix between phone, mirrorless, DSLT (yes, Sony shooter here) and film. Maybe 40:40:10:10
One use case I find tough on a smartphone is one-handed shooting (with the exception of selfies). There are times when I just grab my mirrorless camera one-handed, point it in the direction I am interested in and focus/click. On a phone, you grab it, select the camera app to enable it, and then then shoot, probably with two hands.
Oh, another key use case that's tough on a smartphone -- sports/action. My sons somehow ended up playing ice hockey (I'm in LA!) and rinks generally have crappy light. Plus you need quick AF and you're shooting through scratched up plexiglas most of the time. Some rinks have nice vantage points though, nothing between the lens and the players. Just be aware of flying pucks though. A Sony A6400 does a good job, but I should get faster glass.
I just love cameras. As I wrote in an article in "Rangefinder" Magazine years ago, "I love cameras. I can easily count more than a hundred of the critters I've owned in my lifetime (that was a long time ago. I'm probably over 200 by now!), and I'm not even a collector. (Well, maybe a little bit.) I like using cameras, handling them, playing with them, even just thinking about them. But c'mon, tell the truth. Wasn't it plain old love of gadgets and tinkering that first got a lot of us hooked on photography? I mean, who could resist those miniature mechanical marvels with all their enticing whirs and clicks? A real grown-up toy for sure."
Of course, those were film cameras. I don't find digital cameras as much fun, with their sometimes incomprehensible menus, but still much more fun than taking pictures with a phone.
We got back from a trip to Alaska about a month ago. Knowing that we would be walking a lot, I went light, bringing a Sony a6300 with the Sony 18-105 plus an ancient Nikon 180mm f2.8 for pix of grizzly bears. I also shot with my iPhone 6s with the Blackie app set for an orange filter. Got some great landscapes with that combo, but there's no doubt that the Sony raw files look better once I've finished screwing around with them in P'shop.
I did run across one young hipster packing a Mamiya 645 or something similar with a carbon fiber tripod and a bunch of film. I felt a pang of regret that I had not packed my RB67 with the 50mm, 90mm, and 180mm, along with a couple of backs, so I could show him how it's done. Of course, had I done that, I'd be in traction right now. So it goes.
There's a good chance my next major "photography" purchase will be a really good phone. I'm pretty amazed at what my $99 Walmart special can do and find myself using it more and more.
I like the idea of carrying just one device -- with one battery and minimal accessories. While I'd prefer a camera with a phone function built in I can live with a phone that has a good camera.
Aside from the amazing phone technology, my audience and my own expectations have changed. In the olden days of film I might print 20 or 25 portfolio quality photos in a year for a local audience of a couple of hundred people -- if I could manage a gallery show that year. Now I can reach a world-wide audience with a few button clicks, but they expect to see quality photos almost every day. That bothered me for a while, but more and more I'm OK with it.
That audience is almost all on small screens -- perhaps 90% or more on phones, almost no one on anything larger than a laptop. Traditional photo quality is almost irrelevant for most of my photos. What matters is being able to do something that reaches people, something a person out there will want to look at.
And I'm totally OK with that.
Bill Bresler's comment about the young hipster is very valid. There's a trend to document with a phone + film camera. Not sure how long it will last but, it's there. Around my hipster infested East London home (on a trendy market street) it's impossible to go through a Saturday or Sunday without seeing kids toting film cameras.
Post a Comment