The Phone Camera

When I was at college and uni, my tutors would always talk about how we were so lucky to have technology at our fingertips. Our mobiles being smartphones meant that we could be creative no matter what. For me, I had never viewed my phone in that way. I will admit that I have had snobbery in favor to photos being taken by the DSLR as being proper photography.

When creating my Photography page, I spent a lot of time going through my Lightroom catalogs. Those collections only contain photographs I have taken with my DSLR, a Nikon D5100 – primarily on its kit 18-55mm lens (the slightly geeky bit, it’s a cropped sensor “DX” camera base, 16.2 megapixels and is still capable of shooting HD at 1080p). My parents bought me this DSLR camera when I first went to college around 2012, after tiring my Fujifilm bridge camera. Being very keen and constantly learning new techniques, I did out grow that trusty camera that ended up being taped together!

In writing this I have realised that my DSLR is around 8 years old. In technology terms its kind of old now, *Goes to search 2020 entry level DSLR cameras*, so today’s entry level Nikon equivalent to my D5100 would be the D5600 and I am surprised that the video quality is still the same, the main changes would be that the images size is now up to 24.2 MP and that it comes with a touch screen. So I don’t feel left out in the entry level DSLR realm, a prime lens is still on my wish list.

But this blog post isn’t really to discuss my DSLR, it is just setting a bit of background. I have completely overlooked the piece of technology I use everyday, my phone camera. I mean admittedly the cameras on the old phones that I’ve had, haven’t really been that great. But for Christmas, Ben bought me a new phone, his handed down old iPhone started giving up. Also with a bit of a nudge to try and encourage me to go towards becoming a creative freelancer. The sensible side of me did not pursue this, must have had some kind of sixth sense, as little did we know what 2020 would bring.

The rear cameras on the new phone are 16 and 20 Megapixels, that’s the same and grater than my DSLR. It also has a Pro mode where you can manually adjust; exposure, aperture, white balance, ISO and the focus. Took me a few days to learn this! From day one of having that phone, I installed Adobe Creative Cloud and Photoshop Express, the intention was really to make use of my Adobe plan that I pay for every month. I think that’s enough preamble, so here is a small number of phone only pictures.