Tag: iPhone photography

Photographs from a camera phone (more specifically, an iPhone 17 Pro Max)

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More work required

Yesterday we spent the morning in the city of Worcester and I made a considered effort to take some photographs with my phone camera, on the basis that my mission for the New Year is to (a) use it more often, and (b) learn how to use its various functions.

There is clearly much to be done. Apart from the fact that I was clumsily touching the screen and randomly turning the camera off whilst I was trying to use it, I was also struggling to come to grips with the new ‘camera control’ button, that I didn’t have on my previous iPhone, which, apart from activating the shutter, also has various functions that I didn’t know about and (again) my stubby fingers were changing settings without me realising.

Back at home, I also found that the default HEIC image format isn’t fully compatible with Photoshop and so that has now been changed so that I can easily choose between JPEG and RAW. I have also downloaded a book onto Kindle called “iPhone 17 User Guide” which I will now actually read so that I don’t get so frustrated the next time.

Anyway, here is a shot of St Georges Square, Worcester, with St Georges Church in the background – which was built in an Arts and Crafts style in 1895. I may convert this into a day-to-night image later on.

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From the rooftop

Yesterday I was viewing the factory roof at TCL Packaging from a rather large scissor-lift, some 15 metres in the air, whilst contractors explained some work they are going to be doing next week. I took some record shots with my iPhone 17 Pro Max and, when viewing them later, couldn’t help noticing the superb image quality, particularly of the distant Shropshire countryside.

It makes me think that I really should use my phone camera more often (since it is nearly always with me) now that the results are arguably as good as from a dedicated camera.

Of course, you have to deal with camera snobbery; “a phone camera isn’t as good as a dedicated camera”, “a micro four-thirds isn’t as good as an APS-C”, “an APS-C isn’t as good as a full-frame”, “a full-frame isn’t as good as a medium format”, etc, etc. I have been lucky enough to have had most of these types of camera (albeit I leap-frogged from APS-C to medium format and never owned a full-frame) and can honestly say that it never made any appreciable difference to the quality of my images (or course, I haven’t printed out any billboard-sized ones recently!).

So, my intention is to take more photographs with ‘the camera in my pocket’ – although I seem to remember saying the same thing the last time I upgraded my phone!