Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
If you like photographing plants and flowers, you might also want to learn what they’re called. I sure know I can never get enough of shooting them, and I’m always curious to discover their names so I can learn something more about them.
But did you know your iPhone’s native camera can help you identify them? It’s as quick as taking a photo, and it doesn’t require any additional, third-party apps.
“Does anyone have an iPhone charger?” a person asks in a panic. Others shrug their shoulders because they have a house full of chargers – but they’re all USB-C. This is no longer going to happen. Well, at least not in Europe.
The European Union has reached a landmark agreement that wants to unify various consumer electronics and make them feature a USB-C charging port. Yes, this includes the iPhone and AirPods, and it should happen by 2024.
When the pandemic began, everyone started offering software that turns your DLSR, mirrorless, or phone into a webcam. Apple has joined the 2-year-old trend and it will soon finally enable you to use your iPhone as a webcam. What do you mean, “improve the native Mac camera?” Nah, you can attach your phone to it for your Zoom meetings.
It doesn’t seem that long ago that we tried to revive wet smartphones by sticking them in a bag of rice and hoping for the best.
Now, most modern smartphones are “water-resistant.” If water gets into them, they won’t be destroyed, like in years past. Still, we’re not supposed to dunk them in the water. But try telling that to kids.
Earlier this year, Apple announced that it would scan your iPhone and iCloud photos for child sexual abuse. A fierce backlash ensued, and now it looks like that the company has ditched the project completely without telling anyone.
Common sense says you pick up the iPhone, open the camera app and just start shooting. That’ll work, but there happens to be so many settings and features hidden within these phones that stump way too many people, even some of us pros sometimes.
Thus, I was inspired to jot them all down and explain them one by one, with tips on what I think are the best settings for each one of my top 13. And I’m singling out the iPhone here because A., I’m an iPhone user, B. I think the 13 Pro is far and away the best smartphone camera on the market and C. if you’d like me to do a follow-up on Android, just say the word!
To begin, let’s assume you’ve updated to iOS 15, the latest operating system. Next, open the camera app. Here’s what you’ll see, and what I recommend.
For years, Apple’s iPhone Live Photos has been my favorite smartphone camera trick. But now the tricks are seemingly gone!
There’s always a lot of fuss made about the cameras whenever a new iPhone is released or… pretty much any smartphone these days, really. But are they as good as many people think they are? Well, probably not as this video from the folks at Corridor Crew demonstrate in this video.
In it, they put the iPhone 12 Pro Max (they didn’t have the iPhone 13 Pro Max in time to make this) up against the original iPhone. Yes, the one from 2007. They put the images through some AI algorithms to see if the quality of the original can come even close to a modern iPhone and yeah, it kinda does.
The reaction I’ve gotten from people watching my latest #shotonaniPhone Photowalks video episode has been across the board.
“What camera did you use to shoot this? It looks amazing.” That was the first comment. My sentiment too.
This is related to the one key new feature of the latest iPhone, which is “Cinematic Mode.” It allows the photographer to blur the background as we do in Portrait Mode for iPhone stills, or by shooting with a small F stop on our cameras.
The new iPhone 13 Pro has some pretty cool new specs, including a macro lens. Sure, it can be of great help for us photographers, but have you ever thought that it could help a doctor in his job? An ophthalmologist Dr. Tommy Korn has recently demonstrated how the iPhone 13 Pro’s macro eye photography helps him and his patients, and it’s really fun to see (no pun intended) how phone photography can be repurposed.
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