Vacation with an iPhone

I’ve said it before, and I feel it’s worth repeating. The best camera is the one you have with you. In a previous blog post I referenced a wedding shot entirely on on an iPhone that blew me away. I actually see there are a few examples of this on the worldwide web, as far back as 2012 using an iPhone 4, with some couples actually preferring the iPhone photos to their professional DSLR photos. I will say, I was getting some decent shots on my iPhone 7 until it bit the dust recently, leaving me with a decision to make about which phone to get as a replacement.

I ended up purchasing the iPhone 11 Pro. I purchased it primarily to have a better camera option on hand when I am out and about or don’t want to lug my gear around, but I didn’t have time to really put the camera to use until we took a quick trip to Delray Beach, Florida over this past weekend. We traveled light, and I opted to leave my camera behind, forcing me to play around some with my new phone camera. I’m glad I did this, and I’m pretty happy with the results. Below you will find a sampling from our trip, all shot and very simply tweaked with the phone’s native camera app.

My next plan is to put the Lightroom and Snapseed apps to work for editing more thoroughly. I also played around a little bit with the Camera+ app for full manual control of settings, and I think that could be quite useful in difficult lighting situations or in scenarios where you want to creatively control shutter speed to blur water or get a sense of movement. That’s what I love about photography. You can’t possibly get bored if you work to learn more and try new things.

One thing I don’t love about the iPhone 11 Pro camera is that the Portrait mode feature, while definitely useful, often misses the mark in attempting to create realistic looking bokeh, or background blur. The color was also quite off in some scenarios. I found myself wanting more control of the color in the native app, but I didn’t stress it too much on this go around. I also need to test printing the iPhone 11 Pro images. That is another area where I am positive the images from my Canon full-frame will handily beat out the iPhone. But, for smaller printing and daily use, a phone is a fun, easy way to make sure you document your days. Let’s be honest, if I shot these on my camera, I probably wouldn’t even have them uploaded to my computer, let alone edited and exported for use.

As phone cameras get more and more technologically advanced, the fact that they could displace professional-grade cameras is an unfortunate reality. However, at this time, there are enough differences between the iPhone and my Canon gear for me to say that’s a ways off. For now, I enjoy having multiple options for different uses and am excited to practice further perfecting my phone photography.

If you are in the Columbus, Ohio area and you think it would be fun to book a session shot entirely on iPhone, I’m up for the challenge! :)