One Week with the iPhone

Thanks to fellow blogger Dan James of 35hunter fame, I committed to spending a whole week with my iPhone as my only camera.

This resulted from a nice discussion we had about this post of mine.

So it’s one week without taking up any real camera, just with that slippery slab of aluminium and glass in hand. He thinks I will come to like using it. I swear that guy will make me switch to digital 😉

Restricting myself even more, I chose to only shoot in black and white, using my preferred format for the iPhone… square. Obviously I have selected the ‘Noir’ setting for my photos. Can’t teach an old dog too many new tricks.

I didn’t apply any adjustments to the iPhone’s output. Straight out of camera… ahem, Phone!

Now, one week later, I can report back about my experience…

So what can I say after a week without a proper camera? Well that iPhone does have a decent camera and the results are totally OK. The photos, with the right settings, set directly on the phone, are usable without any editing. We’re getting VERY close to the famed ‘Irreversible Photography‘ Dan talks about. Really!

The sharpness and detail I get out of this machine are great. And the temptation to continue editing is simply not there. So a lot of time-saving here.

Of course it’s not film, my media of choice, but for the occasional times when the XA2 is not with me or I don’t have any roll of film ready it works nicely.

One thing I noticed is that with the iPhone I was much more compelled to do close up shots. A to of more abstract stuff. Honestly, I took it for some walks in the city but I somehow seemed to be afraid (more than with a film camera) to take genuine street shots.

Can’t really explain that effect.

Though I came to like the results, there’s still that problem I got about handling the iPhone. It’s simply not a real camera and it does not feel like one at all to me.

It serves nicely in a pinch, it’s got it’s uses but I think I won’t be using it as regularly as any other camera. As I said in a former post, When walking about I often don^t even think of the iPhone as a camera. I simply don’t take it out of my pocket.

Any other camera I carry always in my hand, mostly on a wrist strap. Always ready! But not the iPhone. I feel awkward pointing it at arm’s length. I feel guilty of of stealing other people’s souls perhaps, Don’t really know. There’s something that just does not work between me and that thing.

Mind you, it’s not about the resulting photos which seem very much OK to me. It’s the whole process that does not appeal to me.

So I can thank Dan James very much for this challenge! It’ was an interesting week and I learned some stuff. I saw that the results are very easy to get and much less time consuming, directly out of the box. But then again…. not, it’s not an always-with-me- camera!

Thanks for reading and don’t hesitate to comment!