the Apple Cathedral ~ Brooklyn, NY (embiggenable) • iPhone
Brooklyn, NY (embiggenable) • iPhone
Brooklyn, NY (embiggenable) • iPhone
THIS WEEKEND, WE MADE A TRIP DOWNSTATE-about as far downstate as one can go in NYS-to: 1) see Hugo's hockey games (Fri.nite, Sun. afternoon) just north of NYC, and 2) see a play with our nephew in Brooklyn, where we stayed overnight on Fri./Sat.
On Saturday I got out and about in a light rain and fog and made a few pictures. While I have never pursued street photography in the classic sense, I do enjoy making urbanscape pictures. Over the years, in fact decades, I have made a significant number of urbanscape pictures both in the US of A and across the pond in Europe. However, I have yet to pull them out of my photo library and organize / edit them into a separate body of work - my bad.
That written, here's a iPhone picture making idiosyncracy of which to be aware. The AI picture making programers at Apple are working dilgently to make the iPhone camera module as suitable as possible for its intended audience ... the average snapshot maker. Despite the "PRO" moniker on the iPhone 11 MAX, the camera module is not intended to be used for "serious" picture making. That written, the iPhone can be used for "serious" work if the user understands how the device actually works....
....a very important case in point, re: how it works. The AI function wants to produce, and almost always does, a picture-perfect file. That is, a file which exhibits a dynamic range of 0-255, or maybe 5-250, on the Photoshop CURVES scale of things. A feature which, as in the case of the pictures in this entry, results in a much too snappy / contrasty look than the actual scene conveyed. Inasmuch as I wish to portray the scene as close as possible to the actual fact of the matter, this means I have to engage in post picture making processing that reduces the contrast, and at times the color saturation, to that of what I saw.
The same holds true for the behind the scenes AI employed when using the Night Mode. Most night / dark situations are, duh, dark as well as "murky" and I most definitely want to convey that feeling in my made in the darkness pictures. Therefore, post picture making processing the only way to get there.
So, here's my point .... I have always been a Photoshop power user. That is to write that I have never made a picture using a digital picture making device-camera or phone-which didn't receive some post picture making processing.
On average, my iPhone files require a bit less processing than those from my "real" cameras ... give full credit to the HDR AI for that. Most of the iPhone file processing is done on the iPhone or iPad using Snapseed and the latest much improved Apple editing tools. However, in many cases, I do a final polish / fine tuning on the files using Photoshop on my desktop setup.
Using the tools available and having an understanding of how the iPhone camera module AI works, the iPhone can be used, despite the developer's intent, as a very good picture making device for "serious" picture making work.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is full of uniformed crapola.
ADDENDUM; I forgot to write that the pictures in this entry were made with new very wide angle iPhone 11 PRO MAX lens. A lens for which I didn't think I would have much use. Kinda like it for making urbanscapes.