Camera gear – part 3 - Camera phones and more

You can shoot street photography with any camera ever made, which is one of the great things about street photography. I prefer to shoot with small black cameras that are stealthy because I want to be as invisible as possible. A black shirt also helps to make the camera even more hidden. The most important thing when it comes to gear when shooting street photography is to know your camera. Street photography is nothing different from anything else, you have to practice shooting with your camera and know how to use it. I have used my Fujifilm X100 for about a year now, and I still don’t fully master it.

As of today camera phones have become more popular and the cameras in the phones are now something we take for granted and something we always have with us. The quality of the camera phones are not much to write home about, the fact is they are quite useless. The only time you might pull it off is if the scene is very well lit.

But the fact is that there is only one camera phone worth talking about when it comes to a quality camera phone and that is Nokia’s pureview technology with the 41 mega pixel sensor. No other camera phone come close to this technology, Samsung, Apple, HTC, LG, Sony and others are years behind in this respect. Nokia's latest output with this technology is the Lumia 1020, that sports a 41 Mega pixel 1/1.5” (2/3”) sensor. The sensor size in modern ultra-compact cameras range from 1/2.3” to 1” and my Canon Power Shot S100 has a smaller sensor with its 1/1.7” sized sensor. Nokia’s sensor is the same size as the one found in the Fujifilm X20. The only one that is bigger is Sony’s RX100 cameras that have the 1” sensor. Nokia’s first pure view camera phone, the Nokia 808 had an even bigger sensor at 1/1.2”, not much smaller than the one found in Sony’s RX100 lineup.

Even if the Lumia 1020 is taking the camera phone technology to new levels it still has a long way to go to real compact cameras with larger sensors and better optics (such as the Sony RX100, Micro 4/3 systems and the Fujifilm X-series).  The biggest problem for me with camera phones and other ultra-compact cameras is the lack of a raw shooting mode. The cameras are simply processing and saving your images into the JPEG file format, and the most cameras are NOT doing this job very well. The fact is that the JPEG’s from many cameras are really bad, the lack of detail is obvious when you zoom into your pictures, the JPEG file is just a smear and your fine details are gone forever.

The solution to this problem is to always shoot in raw format. I always shoot in raw format, except when I am using my Samsung Galaxy Note, because it only saves images in JPEG format. So the next big step for camera phone makers must be to incorporate the ability to shoot in raw format. The JPEG image format is a destructive one, every time you save a JPEG it will throw away data from your image and you will lose image quality for each time you save your picture. So if you do any editing to your image you will end up losing quality. Some people may add some effect or filter to their image and then it is saved to a new JPEG file and your image is again degraded.  After you are done editing your JPEG you might want to upload it to a photo sharing site on the Internet.  When you upload your image to the image sharing site it will be saved as a JPEG using different algorithms at the specific site, and the result is an even more degraded image. Now there is different quality loss at different Internet sites. The worst of all is Facebook, your pictures are literary killed when you upload them to Facebook. There are artifacts all over the place and the image is almost completely destroyed, I rarely upload images to Facebook, I rather link to other photo sharing sites that let you display your images at higher quality.

The best photo sharing site in my opinion is flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/koxa74/), which allows you to show your images with acceptable image quality. I would like a photo sharing site where you can show your image as you saved it (only saved one time to JPEG straight from the raw file).  Google + is somewhat in between flickr and Facebook in image quality, so I prefer flickr as my main photo site on the net. 

This image was made with my Samsung Galaxy Note. Street photography with a camera phone is possible, but you will need a well lit scene to pull it off. 

Camera gear – part 2 – It’s not about the gear!

In photography it is allot of talk about the gear and how important it is. There are tons of Internet forums, blogs and You tube videos telling you to buy this or that gear, and what is good and what is bad. I will tell you my conclusion after using digital cameras for almost ten years now, and that is:

It’s not about the gear; it’s about how you use it.

So what do I mean with this statement? I mean that for most photographers the gear isn’t the limiting factor of how good your photos are. The limiting factor is the photographer holding the camera. Of course there are situations where good gear will help you capture something special, I am not telling you to sell all your gear and shoot with a $100 point and shoot, it’s just that gear is not that important in photography.

The transition to smaller cameras from DSLRs is already happening, more and more people are moving toward this new generation of cameras; smaller, smarter and more competent than the old DSLRs.  Today there are alternatives for APS-C mirror cameras (DSLRs).  Fujifilm, Sony, and Samsung have several cameras out on the market with interchangeable lens systems that can replace your old DSLR with an APS-C sized sensor. So far there are no full frame alternatives out without the old mirror technology but my guess is that it’s just a matter of time before they enter the market. The fact is that the sensors developed by Fujifilm perform very similar to a full frame sensor from Canon or Sony.

So in which situations are the DSLRs still the “go to camera”? My answer is simply; sports and nature photography. For using big long lenses (300mm and longer) the most convenient camera to use is still the DSLR. The benefit is better continuous autofocus and handling (balance) with longer and heavier lenses. I am using both DSLRs and the new generation cameras but I haven’t got into any APS-C system like the Fujifilm X-series or the NEX from Sony. I don’t see the need for my own photography to buy into any of these systems at the moment, but I love the freedom of traveling light and I am keeping an eye on what is happening with the micro four thirds and the Fujifilm X-series.

My messenger bag is right now inhabited by my Canon 600D, Pentax K-5 and the Fuji X-100. I have three great cameras and no room for any newcomer at the moment. A new camera would not help me making better photos, only training and getting to know my current cameras will let me make better photos.  To be continued…

This photo was made with my Canon Powershot S100. The S100 is so small that I can take it with me everywhere I go. The best camera for you is the one you actually use and not the one that collects dust on your shelf at home.

Phone company #20 (playground version) http://www.flickr.com/photos/koxa74/9539465349/lightbox/