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Taking "Pro Photos" With a Phone


Ricochetrider

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Haven't we all seen amazing phone camera adverts with massive photos on sides of buildings or billboards? Like one way to justify the extreme cost of a new super-phone is to tout its camera's capabilities, yes? But how amazing is the camera (as a stand-alone functional unit)- after all is said & done?

 

Some folks might be (almost certainly are) using their phone's cameras in some professional capacity, but having anything closer to total control* requires an app. Internet searches turn up plenty of these and no doubt. One of the "best" is Halide which maybe a year ago moved to their upgraded, .20 version. Reading some of the reviews (most recent), it seems the majority of users aren't really "professionals".

 

A look around the actual phone- in my case a new iPhone 13 Pro Max, reveals preset filters and the things, perhaps implemented to save storage space or to create smaller files for sharing on social media sites that compress pix anyway??

 

So I've switched off the preset filter in my phone and have looked around a bit. The best informational tidbit I've gotten on Halide II comes from reading developer responses to reviews- it appears that total control* seems to be something that Apple isn't giving up to app developers. Hence, no aperture settings even on an expensive paid app, b/c it seems the app developers don't have full access to all aspects of the camera and lenses- according to developer responses to complaints or reviews?

 

There are loads of complaints about the cost of this app- near as I can tell, 50.00 USD for a one-time purchase? VS I dont even know what for a subscription. What most complainers dont seem to understand is that these guys aren't cramming adverts up the buyers'... nose. Nor do they make further money off their customers by selling their contact info down the line. In my mind that's worth quite a bit in today's world of all this tracking BS. Let's face it: privacy costs money in the 21st century!

 

BTW the single pro reviewer I read was talking about his inability to tether the app to his iPad or other devices. If you've been on a pro shoot lately, you know they always have the camera tethered by cable or wirelessly, to a laptop kept close at hand- and tweak the exposures constantly as they go. SO this seemingly small detail is actually massive.

 

Somebody else mentioned something about long exposures being limited if the phone is hand-held vs being on a tripod? Can anyone speak to that too?

 

SO IF anyone reading this is actually a professional photographer who has tossed all they pro gear in favor of using a phone for your pro (fashion, advertising, marketing, real estate, whatever) shoots, I would dearly love to see some discussion on the latest and greatest ways you are making your phone's camera work for you at work. OH and -are you using Halide? If not, what app are you working with?

 

 

Halide Mark II: Pro. Camera. Action.

 

Meanwhile, back at the proverbial ranch... do about 99.999% of us just use the phone-cam to "document" our daily lives? I personally often use it to see how a shot might look were I to use an actual camera! Turns out most of the stuff I aim at isn't worth a lot in terms of anything other than fun.

 

Discuss, please.

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Cellphones are handy for street photography. They're quiet, basically unnoticeable, and you always have them with you.

 

Also, look at the number of videos shown on commercial news reports? Accidents, crime, fires, and other similar recordings were never possible before. You had to wait for the news photographer or videographer to get there. By then, everything was over. All you got were interviews of the witnesses explaining what they saw. So those shots are considered pro shots or clips. Think of all the pro photographers that cell phones put out of business.

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Does the iPhone, or any phone for that matter, even have an adjustable aperture?

 

Depth of field on these tiny sensors is so great that the lens is typically fixed wide open.

 

iPhone might be different though...

 

looking at the pix I’ve taken with my iPhone 13 Pro Max over the past week or so, the aperture varies a bit- mostly f1.5 but some f1.8 and a couple shots at f2.8.

 

So variable to a very slight degree- but not that one can access the function to change it manually

Edited by Ricochetrider
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As far as I know, smartphone cameras always use its maximum aperture and does not have an iris. An Iphone Pro Max has 3 cameras with an aperture of f1.8, f1.5, and f2.8 (super wide / wide / telephoto) so the differences in aperture is based on what camera was used. To get blurred backgrounds the phone has computational photography tech to adjust apparent DOF (my ancient Iphone 12 needs to use portrait mode for this feature to work).
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We like to have a glamorous idea of what a professional photographer is, but an awful lot of important images don't have great requirements that a good phone cam can't fill. I'm thinking of all the assembly manuals and internal engineering reports we do at work. They're essential documents and quite important, but as long as things are shown clearly, the need is met. In fact, phone DOF is often better suited to the purpose. Sometimes I use my Z6 & 105 MC, but nobody really cares or notices the quality improvement, if there is one. The only time I really have an edge is doing a focus stack on something near 1:1 and then processing to bring out color or finish differences. A lot of our advertising images are even taken with phone cams because they're mostly used on our website. Then, every couple years, we go to the opposite extreme, making 92" high show booth panels where 24 MP isn't enough unless stitched!
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  • 2 months later...

“Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns- the ones we don't know we don't know.”

― Donald Rumsfeld

(sorry I just had too)

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