With some caveats, the iPhone was a capable — nay — pleasurable holiday companion. Before leaving for Japan this gone December I considered buying a new camera, but realised I also needed a new phone. I thought back to by 2015 trip on which I used a Lumix GX7, which was great, but remembered certain difficulties: uploading photos was time (and data) consuming and Geo-tagging was difficult and buggy.
None of the cameras I would consider this time around really solved these issues so I used the excuse to get the (second) best iPhone money could buy. Before embarking I was also looking at several apps. Let me skip the details of this and announce that I quickly settled on the native camera app (for ease of use), ProCamera (for low light or hero shots) and VSCO for edits.
The native Camera app
This was most useful in non-challenging situations. Raise the phone and swipe and you’re ready so snap. There were limitations in low light — and in certain low-detail situations the compression tended to make things like skies super blotchy, which was frankly at times unbelievable considering the touted effort that goes into the camera software. This was a compromise, and if I thought a shot might be a cosmetic keeper, I’d whip out ProCamera.
ProCamera
This app has a couple of neat features that are hard to ignore. Firstly, it uses both lenses, the 50 and 28 (equivalent), to create a higher definition photo than either could make, and it really works. Shooting in low light like this also yields better results than you’d expect.
The exposure compensation in this app is also very useful at night. I’m posting a couple of shots below taken with both these features, and edited with VSCO.
Both of those shots were edited with VSCO which I found invaluable. It’s effects feel authentic and less like “filters” as I know them — more like different films. Of course it’s not that at all, it’s just better than other things I have used to emphasize the atmosphere I want in a photo.
A few other shots I like:
Light bouncing around Tokyo in the late afternoon:
Compromises?
The iPhone was easy to use in all situations, didn’t feel like a burden and most of the time did a great job. However here are some shots that demonstrate some limitations:
In the shot below you can see some dynamic range limitation. Not sure if they HDR kicked in, I found it did so less often when using this iPhone than with my 6.
This was taken from a boat at night. We booked this cruise hoping to take some nice photos. I think we were a bit optimistic about our phones.
If you need a fine detail of control over your shots, beyond say setting exposure compensation, then you probably want physical dials.
If you want shots for professional use, most gradient shots such as skies with an iPhone will not cut it.
All cancelled out by one major reason win…
We used our 8 plus and 7 to take photos in wet -12c cecius conditions. They were covered in freezing snow and never skipped a beat.
So who’s it for?
If you’re like me and you really like photography but are more concerned with the subjective overall composition of the shot rather than quantifiable technical quality, you’ll likely really enjoy using it.
Stay tuned for my review of Blackie — an outstanding great black and white photography app.
