The view from a hotel room from the iPhone 4Ok, you may be saying I've lost my mind. What, trade a Leica M8 for an iPhone 4? Well, not JUST an iPhone 4. I paid for camp, paid off a few things, and THEN spent some cash on an iPad. Oh, right, then I ran out of money and ordered the iPhone 4.
Typical for those of you who know me and just shake your heads...
Anyway, I am here to tell you that the iPhone 4 is a PHENOM. It's like a little photographer's notebook. No, it won't give you 12 megapixel RAW images that will knock your socks off. Instead, it will give you 5 megapixel images, at roughly 28mm or so in equivalent aperture, that will surprise you.
I took the camera, er, phone out in a few places and have a gallery started.
Enjoy, hopefully everyone attempts to build cameras of this high quality into their phones going forward. It's an exciting time to be a photographer.
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Recently, I gave up my Leica M8 and the lenses to mother eBay. While it was something I felt I had to do, it was quite the anguishing decision.
What did I learn from my Rangefinder experience? A TON. I think everyone who shoots 35mm SLRs should pick up a rangefinder and start shooting. It's a really great way to start slowing down and observing the world around you.
I'll miss the Leica. Maybe I'll get one of 'em when I retire from IT someday (yeah, 20 or 30 years from now, when I'm in my Lark enjoying the mall). However, for now I'll focus on trying to take great pictures while slimming down my camera gear to more reasonable levels!
I'd love to hear from other camera buffs who moved on from their favorite equipment. I used to shoot the Mamiya 6 - a really fantastic medium format square format rangefinder camera. I loved that camera even more than the Leica, but didn't love developing film. I took some of my best pictures with that rig.
Then there was the Epson RD-1. A really great little rangefinder camera that suffered from TERRIBLE battery life and a company that just decided "nah, we're not in the camera business." But I loved that thing. Even had a fake film winder that re-cocked the shutter. A little gem. Shame I sold that to get the M8.
Anyway, on to other things. As you can see in the image above, I'm now trapped inside of a consumer video camera. HELP!
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This was cool... We went to Longwood today and saw a huge bird flying back and forth between the tree and ground. After getting closer, it appeared that the bird was a Red Tailed Hawk.
Pretty nifty. I didn't have enough reach, so I had to crop pretty heavily.