Re: Smart Phones vs. Real Cameras

Original post by solderpunk

Response by idiomtrotting

idiomtrotting says:

I feel guilty for writing this since screens are bad for the environment and if we wanna go low-tech/sust-tech maybe we can’t have as many screens as we used to, but...

... it leads to better photos.

I grew up with photography. My father was a photographer, and in actuality was more of a photography instructor than a father, in retrospect, as I saw him mostly during our week-end trips to photograph ruins of old churches in Georgia and Armenia...

Anyway, I've spent a lot of time in the darkroom with some fairly nasty chemicals. After squeezing what we could from them, we would unceremouneously dump them down the toilet.

It was a different time.

More recently, I picked up silver-halide photography a few more times, switching to better equipment as it was dumped on Ebay. Dealing with spent chemicals in a responsible way is a nightmare! I've investigated some alternative chemistries that are far less toxic, but it is hard enough to get good photos without a handicap of shitty dynamic range and unpredictable densities.

Grudgingly, I got rid of my darkroom equipment, which was so dear to me. I went through several digital cameras, including some expensive SLRs from Canon, as the megapixel count increased. But I never felt the magic of photography again until last year. Much like driving a car with an automatic transmission - the feeling of being directly connected to the camera was just not there.

The phone takes ok pictures with its tiny pinhole lens, but it is just not the same at all. I mean it's nice to have a phone to take a picture of a weird dude in a costume or a particularly interesting dogshit. But watching all the idiots take the same selfies for their instagram just makes me vomit a little.

After a long break of hardly any photos, I came across Fujifilm mirrorless cameras. I could see that the feel of the camera was like a real camera - knobs for exposure _and_ aperture. Each has an auto setting. Engage both and you are full auto. Set the shutter speed and you are in shutter priority. Set the aperture and you are in aperture priority. Set both and you are full manual.

After much research I chose a less-expensive/older used X-E2. 16 megapixels is plenty (especially with a half-decent optical zoom). It keeps image size reasonable, too.

There is also a real viewfinder, with a diopter adjustment for my shitty old eyes.

I love it.

Fuck the cell phone.