Returning to a “Real” Camera
While sorting through photographs the other evening to upload to our Amazon Fire TV (which provides a wonderful photographic slide-show screen-saver on the television), it occurred to me how much better our early photographs of the children were – and there was a very simple reason why.
We used to use a real camera.
By saying “real” camera, of course I mean a device that was designed to be a camera, and only a camera. Not a phone, with a camera wedged into a 5mm x 5mm gap in it's case. The crazy thing is, I know why the camera takes better photos than the phone – the lens, and sensors are all many times bigger than the phone. The amount of light the camera sucks in, and the way it deals with it are entirely different than a mobile phone camera. The internal geometry of the lens and body allow for depth of field, rich saturated colours, and clarity of image that phones can only dream of.
We don't even own an expensive camera. It's a budget hybrid point and shoot – and yet the photos it takes shame smart-phones that cost six times as much money.
Maybe I'll clear down my Flickr account, and start using it. Stranger things have happened.