New Yorker: "With the iPhone 7, apple changed the camera industry forever"

[squirrel$$$bandit]

If any, some among the students I know use a refurbished iPhone 4.

That remains my favorite iPhone design...it's the one Jobs compared to a Leica onstage!

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

This article often reads like "For how long has this been going on?!"

 

[Godfrey]

The more interesting question is whether the women or men, and young or old, bought more units. It's definitely more likely that the old dude has the big iPad pro with cell data and the most storage vs the teenage girl that has a bottom of the line last-year's-model iPhone so the gross sales add up quick. However, I see 5 kids under 25 running around with iDevices for every one old dude with one.

That may be because you don't see as many old dudes "running around." :angel:

All of my 'old dude' friends have smartphones and tablets, most of them Apple, with them all the time. When they sit down and talk, about half the time they are discussing new features they just discovered on their phone or tablet that they can use. Most of them use the iPhone camera as their only camera nowadays too. (I'm not talking about my photographer friends such as the members of my workshop reunion group there ... *all* of them have Apple iPhones and iPads, most have Apple computers, and most are discussing how they render and present their photography with digital means, some with the built-in iDevice cameras, all with software and the output of their 'real' cameras in their various computing devices...)

G

 

[Pioneer]

Now that's interesting. What is your perception of "Apple's demographic"?

G

My demographic is Grumpy Old Man. 😀

Please read the following while understanding my previous statement.

Apple's demographic is anyone who feels they must stay in constant contact with anyone and everyone for fear they may miss something or worse, be overlooked themselves. They prefer to spend as much time looking at the screen of their phone so they are not forced to observe the condition of their fellow man.

They are typically upwardly mobile, or already "upwardly", or want people to think so anyway. They prefer to stay close to the fashion of the day so as not to appear out of place.

They are very fond of taking pictures of their breakfast or others of their herd and then posting them on social sites. They enjoy posting to social sites where photo size or text is limited to tiny soundbites to avoid meaningful social interaction with others.

They are looking forward to a day where virtual reality is the reality because they are mildly, or sometimes not so mildly, unsettled that they don't look like the photo shopped models that appear in Style, or whatever their preferred magazine is.

They seem to need the approval of others that they do not even know and spend much of their time pursuing "likes" to help bolster their own flagging self confidence.

They think nothing of continually upgrading to a new, more expensive, device every two or three years though their old device is still perfectly capable. They are part of the 1st World's model of continual consumerism.

That is my perspective of Apple's demographic.

Quite obviously I am not speaking of anyone on this forum, or even of myself at times.

🙄

 

[nikonhswebmaster]

Well there are all kinds of Grumpy old men.

Some of us grumps helped to program large chunks of the early internet, I for one was one of the live camera pioneers, now that I look at iPhone FaceTime-- those early efforts look so primitive. But in 95, I found myself in print and on TV, "live" was so rare.

 

[Godfrey]

LOL! Pioneer,

Your self-definition of Grumpy Old Man is pretty close to my own self-definition, although I ascribe to the additional 'curmudgeon' specialization as well.

Your perception of Apple's demographic mirrors that of most Grumpy Old Man folks. That said, Apple does sell an enormous number of smart phones, tablets, and computers to Grumpy Old Men like us, so there is some slip 'twixt the reality and the perception. ;-)

As Arthur C. Clarke was quoted as saying, "... The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”

G

"Hey, you kids! Get off the grass!"​

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

The best camera is the one with you.

For me, the iPhone is always with me, and therefore has been the camera of choice many times. For tourist photos, snapshots, scenics it's not bad. For some things it is terrific (e.g. for a closeup where the tiny lens give a significant DOF advantage).

I'm glad the iPhone camera is getting better and better. Won't replace my real camera for portraits or wildlife, but still very useful.

 

[Pioneer]

"... The truth, as always, will be far stranger.”

G

"Hey, you kids! Get off the grass!"​

Oh for certain.

For me, I always have a camera along with me so that need doesn't exist.

I use film so there are a number of steps required to actually post a photograph to the web, again the i-phone doesn't help much in that respect.

On the rare occasion when I do use digital, I am almost always looking for features that the i-phone cannot provide.

Finally, in my humble experience, the do-it-all device rarely does anything very well, so if you really need a phone, or a computer, or a camera, or...whatever, you are almost always better served with something dedicated to that purpose.

But for a large majority of people in our world, "good enough" is their byword.

For all those grumpy old men using these modern devices, there is usually two reasons. First, they are required by their jobs to use them. Second, they are trying to look younger than they are (for what purpose I will leave to your interpretation.)

🙂

 

[Ronald M]

It may make photos, but it aint`t a camera. Besides it is a zombie photometer.

 

[Godfrey]

...For all those grumpy old men using these modern devices, there is usually two reasons. First, they are required by their jobs to use them. Second, they are trying to look younger than they are (for what purpose I will leave to your interpretation.)

🙂

Um, I don't think your two reasons are correct.

First, nearly all of them are retired and don't have jobs to kowtow to anymore. This is an affluent area; they made their fortunes and can choose what they want to use easily.

Second, of the non-photographers, the ones getting the most mileage out of it have started new efforts to do something in their retirement that they've never done before. One of them is publishing books of poetry with photographs he took on forty years of traveling around the world, another is using the iPhone to learn how to read and play music, etc. Of the photographers, they use what they do because they're finding it the best way to prepare photos for exhibition and sales. None of them seem to be trying to look younger than they are.. they're just trying to enjoy their photography and their retirement.

G

 

[Cameron]

It may make photos, but it aint`t a camera. Besides it is a zombie photometer.

Actually, it is a camera. And it takes great photos.

 

[williaty]

Well, Apple might not have been the final nail in the coffin. Adobe just added a massive one of their own. You can now use iOS 10 plus Lightroom Mobile to capture RAW images from the iPhone's internal cameras. You can then do all the normal RAW editing workflow, export for direct upload to things like Flickr, and then send the DNGs themselves up to your Adobe Cloud account to be synchronized back to your computer. I'm downloading iOS 10 right now to give it a try and I'll report back once I've actually played with the DNGs some.

The example pictures making the rounds on the photo blogging sites show some pretty significant improvements, especially in treatment of the highlights.

That makes the iPhone a standalone-camera replacement for a big additional group of people. For me, I still want my DSLR and film cameras but this means I don't think I'll be buying a fixed-lens digital camera ever again (I had been eyeing the X100T).

 

[Jockos]

Let's put things in perspective:

1 - 5x7"
2 - 4x5"
3 - 120
4 - 135
5 - iPhone-like device.

It's not a camera, it's a toy. Besides, didn't Huawei already release this phone a few months ago?

 

[robbeiflex]

...and people like me who emit a malfunction field that breaks phones.

Dante

I am one of those. I am on my third iPhone 6 in 1.5 years, on a two year contract to pay for the phone. Thankfully I signed with my provider for an insurance plan at a reasonable couple of euros per month, and while my phone is with them for repair or replacement I get a loaner in its place. I have concluded that this insurance is the best feature of my phone. Great device when it works, but total lemon of a design. If Apple has spent some time improving reliability then the 7 may be as interesting for photography as it is for communications, otherwise nobody will care.

 

[duflul]

The raw files add quite a bit of dynamic range.
These were shot using a iphone se, with matrix metering. (not ment to be great photographs just something with a lot of contrast)

first up the unedited jpeg

the unedited raw file

then I set the highlights to -100 and the shadows to +100

edited jpeg

edited raw file

I shot this with an app I develop myself.

 

[Cameron]

Let's put things in perspective:

1 - 5x7"
2 - 4x5"
3 - 120
4 - 135
5 - iPhone-like device.

It's not a camera, it's a toy. Besides, didn't Huawei already release this phone a few months ago?

Got all of the components of a camera. If it looks, walks, and talks like a camera there's a good chance it's probably a camera.

 

[Cameron]

The raw files add quite a bit of dynamic range.
These were shot using a iphone se, with matrix metering. (not ment to be great photographs just something with a lot of contrast)

first up the unedited jpeg

the unedited raw file

then I set the highlights to -100 and the shadows to +100

edited jpeg

edited raw file

I shot this with an app I develop myself.

Hands down the most exciting part of this new update! So excited. Your edits look great. I shot a couple this morning and was really surprised.

 

[giganova]

The article only argues that the point and shoot camera market will be affected.

 

[giganova]

My demographic is Grumpy Old Man. 😀

Please read the following while understanding my previous statement.

Apple's demographic is anyone who feels they must stay in constant contact with anyone and everyone for fear they may miss something or worse, be overlooked themselves. They prefer to spend as much time looking at the screen of their phone so they are not forced to observe the condition of their fellow man.

They are typically upwardly mobile, or already "upwardly", or want people to think so anyway. They prefer to stay close to the fashion of the day so as not to appear out of place.
...
That is my perspective of Apple's demographic.

Grumpy, I wish you would consider your view. My parents, my wife's mother, all my friends parents (all in their 70s!) have iPhones. And they don't live in Manhattan, they live in little towns on the country side. They can see their kids or grandkids on FaceTime anytime they want, regardless where they live, across oceans, they make tons of funny pictures they share with their families (through a Wattsup group), they call and text them -- and it doesn't even cost them a dime through wifi in their homes or their favorite coffee shop (only the monthly plan). My father even ditched his M and makes pictures of flowers and nature with his iPhone camera, which he says is phenomenal. They would be first ones to tell you how technology and in particular iPhones have been a game changer and bettered their lives.

I think you are wrong in assuming that iPhones and iPhone cameras are only for young kids and hipsters. Take my father as an example: he can no longer drop his film off the local store because that doesn't exist anymore. With his age advancing, he couldn't use a point and shoot camera anymore, fiddle around with a tiny memory card, put it into an adapter and plug it into a computer, copy files to folders ... that has all become too complicated for him. Instead, he uses his iPhone as his only camera because it's dead simple: he clicks on the camera icon, frames his shots, the clicks on Wattsup, clicks on the "family" group that I remotely created, and he can share his wonderful photos with the entire family (or his friends) seconds after he took the pictures.

Also, people keep complaining here that they cannot afford an iPhone. But let me point out that the last point & shoot camera that I had cost almost the same as an iPhone and the pictures were not nearly as good ... and that was a device that could only do one single thing!

 

[aizan]

That remains my favorite iPhone design...it's the one Jobs compared to a Leica onstage!

mine too. it was the perfect size! my thumbs aren't long enough for the 5.