Being Digital
Smartphone Photography
BY MICHEL GILBERT & DANIELLE ALARY
Ornate ghost pipefish, taken with an iPhone 6
the quality of the pictures produced by a guest at Atlantis Diver Resort in Dumaguete Philippines. We happened to be on the boat coming back from Apo Island, a popular day trip. As we were relaxing after a long day of diving, Chris Richardson, a resident of California, was looking at his images.
T 52
May I see your pictures? Instead of peeking at the back of a large camera housing, Chris was looking at his iPhone 6. Intrigued, we asked if we could see the images. We were impressed by what we saw and were able to convince Chris to send us samples with the idea of writing this column. Each day, as we cross the Jacques-Cartier bridge leading to
Montreal we are reminded by a billboard-size picture that the iPhone produces incredible photographs. It’s one thing to set up an iPhone in the best topside lighting
Magazine
imes are changing. Today, most pictures are taken with smartphones and this has contributed to the sluggish sales of compact cameras. Do you already have an underwater camera with you all the time? Let’s find out. During a recent assignment we were amazed at
conditions and make a great photograph, but replicating this underwater is another thing entirely. Chris works in a non-related field and has no ambition of
turning pro. His approach to photography is fairly simple: find the fish, push the trigger, look for another fish… and so on. He wants memories, not billboards.
Performance A photograph viewed on a phone will look infinitely superior to the same image displayed on a 27-inch Apple computer screen as we saw when we reviewed Chris’ images. Our friend uses a Watershot enclosure and sometimes he
adds a red filter to restore colours. His images are typical of most people. He loves the memories and would not spend a dime on a dedicated camera. As expected, using the iPhone without additional lighting
under tropical conditions in the 30-70 feet (9-21m) range produces pictures that tend to be grainy. This is no surprise, considering that the image sensor surface is 25 times smaller than on a Full Frame DSLR. Cropping an image to isolate a tiny subject inevitably reduces quality. It also exacerbates noise and motion blur.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68