The iPhone; An Alternate Take

Curmudgeonly thoughts with an optimistic twist

The Leica screw mount Summitar from the ‘40’s compares favorably with a modern ASPH Summilux but is even tinier. The feel of them is fantastic. I love them both.

The lively discussions over the past month about traveling light, capability of the iPhone, software add-ons, hardware accessories, etc., have made me think a lot. Out of all of the thoughts generated by these discussions, one particular thing rose to the top. We all must admit we are far beyond the point of sufficiency in terms of image quality. I’d argue that we were already there before digital image capture, auto-focus, and auto-exposure but with less convenience and fewer choices based on output quality and output size targets.

Can an iPhone make pictures you like? Yes. Can it produce sufficient quality to make reasonably sized prints? Yes. Can some combination of software/iPhone computer hardware provide image aesthetics you want (DOF characteristics, film looks, etc)? Maybe, certainly arguable, but for the sake of conversation let’s fast-forward to yes, you can simulate any aesthetic you desire.

Here’s a few questions to consider:

• Do you like using your iPhone as a camera?

• Are all the haptics, and controls something you enjoy manipulating?

• Are you comfortable with more complexity that comes with more software, more accessories, more choices, before and after the picture-making outing?

• What kind of gear helps you when you are actually making pictures? I don’t mean technically, I mean seeing the world more creatively.

I’ve answered these kinds of questions many times and I have triangulated on a similar set of answers over and over again. I don’t like complexity and mental clutter, especially when making pictures. The more automatic the camera the less I pay attention to the world. I make more lousy pictures the more I let the camera think for me. Making choices before I make a picture always turns out better than after. No amount of camera automation and speed is better than paying attention and making choices before “the moment”.

What cameras do I absolutely love holding, carrying, and most of all using? There are a few but they have the same basic characteristics…

• A viewfinder I love looking through

• Simple direct controls that are well placed and feel good to use. I only care about aperture, shutter speed, and focus.

• Less buttons and dials rather than more.

• The body and lens combination together is in the range of a Nikon F3 w/50mm at the absolute largest to an Olympus OM-1 w/50mm at the smallest.

• Good, small, fast, small lenses that are a pleasure to use in every way.

The same two lenses wide open. Which one do you choose, the “better one” or the one that makes highlights “glow”? Would you even think of doing that in post? I love that property on a lot of images.

I don’t like using my phone as a camera, there’s no joy in it for me. I find it the most cumbersome camera I’ve ever used with the worst controls ever. They are tedious to use, either in the way, or buried somewhere, they are slow and error-prone to change. In a nutshell, phones are dreadful to use as I want to use a camera. Add in a few notifications and it’s an insufferable experience. Did I mention the battery life? Terrible.

Of course, you can overcome this with an external battery brick for your phone. You can even make it somewhat of a reasonable device to operate with a FJORDEN ULTIMATE grip bundle but does the control grip make you love the iPhone as a camera? The iPhone as a camera can be very simple, just use it as it comes and let it do its thing like the old Instamatic cameras. Add one more thing, a preset look and be done.

I don’t care much about sharing photographs immediately on the internet. I do care a lot about enjoying the photographic process in the simplest, least complex way possible that provides an aesthetic I gravitate to with the least number of moving parts. I make better pictures with cameras I enjoy using. I like manual focus. I like examining the light and deciding how to render it. I like slowing down even in the midst of chaotic environments and choosing a moment rather than trying to capture all of it.

I don’t like my iPhone. I don’t really want a new one and dread that I’ll have to buy one sooner or later. Will I have an iPhone with me? Yes, I probably will. The one thing I do like about my phone is the ability to make small prints with Fuji Instax Printers or the Canon Selphy printer and give them away when I am shooting digital. I especially like that the Instax film gives me a look, no software, no options, no messing around. I pull the JPEG off my camera and shoot it to the Instax. I’m absolutely sure 90% of those Instax prints are enjoyed and displayed for a very long time by the people I give them to as opposed to those images posted to social media which are gone in a moment never to be seen again.

The Summitar vs the Fuji 35mm 1.4XF both at f/4. Hard to tell the difference. I could probably use the iPhone and the same could be said. Which do I love using in order? The Leica on an M camera, then the X Pro w/ 35mm, and a distant last… the iPhone. All of them are nonintrusive when traveling light.

I’m glad we can all have a computer in our pocket and I’m glad I can produce instant prints with that computer. I’m glad it can make pictures but the last thing I want to do is buy more apps, learn more software, complicate my workflow, and spend more time messing with my phone looking at a digital screen.

What is the camera you enjoy using the most? If the iPhone all of a sudden produced the same “image quality” as your main/favorite camera of all time but had the same touch screen haptics, controls, etc would you really want and desire to use it as a camera? Garage Band is amazing, would you want to use its keyboard instead of a real stringed instrument? Would you produce the same music? I’d venture you probably wouldn’t, you wouldn’t even approach it in the same way. I feel the same way about cameras.