When you wish you had a REAL camera with you
If you're not a paid, professional photographer, you don't usually have a DSLR camera with you at all times. Today, I saw a couple things and only had my phone. It's like wanting a great red wine but all you have are grapes.
The mist rising from a lake in the morning cold is always an amazing sight. I couldn't let the opportunity go even if the quality of my camera didn't live up to the scene. For being a phone camera though, this image turned out pretty decent.
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One of the biggest challenges with phone cameras is low light. A little while before I took that picture I was on a back road I drive often, where a particularly impressive bull moose is frequently found. Sure enough, I spotted him this morning, with two photographers following his trail. They had their Nikons with 500mm lenses, and there was me with my phone. I was disappointed to not have my Nikon as well when an amazing scene unfolded before me.
The bull moose was walking along the road, grunting, on the path towards a female (cow) moose. He thrust his nose in the air and held it firm for a long while. One of the photographers tells me there's a gland in the roof of the bull's mouth and he can smell if the cow is ready to conceive. The bull moose considered... then turned and continued walking, grunting and licking his lips on the prowl for another cow. While they snapped away when the bull made his display, I just took it in with my eyes. I snapped a couple with my phone as the bull walked. As poor as they are, I do like how the photo sensor gave a kind of pastel style to compensate for the low light in this one.
After today, I've decided to have my Nikon with me more often. If you enjoy photography like I do, I suggest you do the same. When you're a photographer without a camera you feel you're missing out on a certain satisfaction. You can't capture the composition and exposure that's just right for the moment. It's not about capturing the moment itself, that's impossible. A photograph is something extra you pull from the moment, something discovered and created by you. Once you've enjoyed the moment, it'll be gone forever, taking that photograph with it.
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The biggest thing I miss when not having my DSLR with me is my zoom capability. I carry my GoPro with me most days and I love the resolution, but with out zoom, I miss out on framing a lot of great shots.
I bet the GoPro does a lot better than any phone camera. I've seen great results from a GoPro, but the fixed wide angle would be pretty limiting. I don't have one myself, but I imagine it does pretty decent stills even in low light?
Actually, the GoPro Hero 5 has 4 different field of views - Superview, Wide, Medium, and narrow (normal). I use them all as needed.
This is the advantage of a quality point and shot - I use a Fujifilm X70 - nominally small enough to carry with you all the time - of course the reality is more often than not I end up with only my phone camera.
I bet point and shoots are getting nice these days, but I can't imagine they give you the manual control or a decent enough lens apperature to provide much more than a phone camera. I'm thinking the big benifit over a phone could be low light performance though, but you're right: the fact is we always have our phones with us nowadays, so that's the camera of convenience.
Wow what a cool experience that would be to see such a large animal come out of the woods. Even though you Only had a phone, you still got some cool shots.
Thank you! Actually, it's a pretty regular occurrence to see these guys. They regularly walk down my neighborhood street, eat the trees in my yard, block traffic, etc. They're not all as big as this bull though, and as common as it is seeing moose, it's still cool every time.
Definitely! Very cool! :)