The iPhone: This Generation’s Polaroid Camera

Mobile phone photography is instant and everywhere, easily shared, often quirky, and always of suspect quality. Sounds a lot like many of the Polaroid photographs I’ve seen. Even better is that I don’t have to buy film or pay for processing when taking pictures with my iPhone.

I frequently use my iPhone to capture discrete and fleeting moments that would, otherwise, be awkward to photograph with my DSLR or even a point-and-shoot. Often my hand shakes. The lighting is never perfect – usually too dark. Sometimes the iPhone camera quirks and produces a fractured or smudged photo. You would think these imperfections would detract from the photos, but when I view my mobile photos collectively with a macro-mindset their unparalleled character comes into focus.

Spontaneous. Fun. Unpredictable. Click here to see my iPhone photographs.

Photography Notes on Film and iPhone

Superior Film Guy

Owning a film camera makes me use the words “exposures” and “shooting” more than I did before. No longer do I “take pictures.” Instead, I “shoot pictures” and “have three of twelve exposures left.” Part of this is because a picture isn’t a picture until you take it. Until then, it’s a potential exposure (an unexposure?).

It’s funny that reverting to old technology would give me a sense of photography superiority.

iPhone for First Impressions

I’ve started to frame shots with my iPhone before shooting them with my Diana+. By taking a picture with my iPhone, I get a sense of whether the picture is worth wasting a film exposure on. Or, more often, I am able to focus in on the most interesting part of the iPhone picture and then take just that with the film.

Regarding My Email Habits

Me: i like having zero messages in my inbox… iphone doesn’t allow for that… always has 25, 50, or more. even if you delete it just loads more.
Russ: 0 in your inbox?
Russ: how can you have no mesages in your inbox?
Me: i always keep my inbox at zero
Russ: yeah i know you do
Russ: but it’s not healthy when these things don’t even physically exist
Russ: you’ve created some new form of anal retentive disorder

My Cameras

I own six cameras:

1. Canon PowerShot SD800 IS (link)
2. Casio Exilim
3. Sony MiniDV Handycam
4. iPhone (link)
5. Diana+ (link)
6. Macbook Pro iSight (link)

I just got the iPhone and Diana+ this Christmas and have limited experience with both.

The Diana+ uses medium format 120 film. I’ve only shot in color. You can see my first three rolls here. Having to wait for the local camera shop to develop my film highlights how convenient immediate feedback on digital cameras is. And how impatient I am.

The iPhone seems to take great pictures (for a “phone”). There is no flash, so it is a poor substitute for my Canon PowerShot during nighttime outings. Otherwise I’m thrilled with it.

The Canon PowerShot has given me what I expected – portability and above average pictures. The lack of shutter control is frustrating, but otherwise a good compact camera. I also love the video capabilities and recently upgraded to a 4GB SD memory card that allows 33 minutes of video.

The Casio Exilim was my main camera before the Canon PowerShot. It has 4.1 mega-pixels and takes good pictures, but is slow to shoot.

I rarely use the Sony Handycam. I will make a point of shooting more higher quality video with it this year, although it is not HD. That leaves me somewhere in between the Canon video quality and HD.

The MacBook Pro iSight is used almost exclusively for goofy shots and video chatting.

Preparing for My iPhone

I ordered an iPhone and it should arrive on Friday. I’ve been working feverishly (relatively speaking – it is holiday break) to prepare my sync-able data for the iPhone.

I beefed up my Address Book, which included downloading v-cards from LinkedIn and categorizing people in groups – high school, college, law school, Ruckus, K12, and family.

I also exported my bookmarks from FireFox, my preferred browser, trimmed them down to the most used, and imported them into Safari.

It’s not clear how the iPhone mail.app works, so I haven’t done much with my email.

What excites me most about the iPhone is the compactness of it. Not only is the device itself slim, but it will eliminate the need for me to carry a cell phone, camera, iPod, and laptop.

I’m very excited, and again, as with the Wii, horribly delinquent with my technology purchase.