Remez Ramblings

One of the advantages of having a camera with a small sensor is that it’s easy and cheap to make lenses that focus to very close distances. Combined with the increased depth of field that the very wide lenses have (and the slower shutter speeds you can handhold them), means that they’re really good for macro style shots.

It’s also easier with a small child to point a mobile phone or small camera at them, than a digital SLR with a great big lens on the front (although Jack is getting better when the camera comes out).

Anyway, this means that mobile phones, and small compact cameras are really good for close up macro style portraits (or still life, or whatever). This one was shot with my K800i with no flash (in fact, 1/20s, f/2.8 at ISO 200).

Admittedly they need more careful processing - here, I used the high pass sharpening method to sharpen the detail, but not sharpen the noise (yes, even at ISO 200 mobile phone cameras exhibit noise!), boosted the saturation a smidgeon, and cropped into 3:2 (I just couldn’t help myself!)

Go on, try some mobile macro magic! (Also featured on PhotoCritic )

As an inhabitant of various photography and camera gear communities, there is a lot of snobbishness about the cameras built into mobile phones. At the time I took this photo, I had my EOS 20D SLR with me, but I chose to shoot it on my phone (Sony Ericsson K800i).

Why?

Because I was busy, on my way, and just wanted to grab a quick shot to remember how blue the sky was, and how dramatic it looked. Sure it would have been nice with a decent lens, and a polarising filter to make the most of it, but I wasn’t interested in all the fine detail, it was the scene I wanted to remember.

The quality of the photos from the K800i are really quite astounding. Only 4 or 5 years ago they would have matched all but the most expensive digital compact cameras. I can see that in the next few years, the digital compact camera market will be massively eroded as people will not need to buy a separate camera.

The prosumer, and digital SLR market is flourishing, and I hope will continue to flourish, having phones which take such great photos will ultimately help, and drive the growth of the higher end kit, as it will encourage more and more people to take more photos, and spark their interest, and inspiration.

Every few years, there’s a new scourge on the streets of London out for your money.

I remember when there were gangs of beggers with babies which I found really quite disturbing - I’m sure there were some genuine ones amongst them all, but you couldn’t turn without seeing one.

Now, I’m a fan of the Big Issue, and buy it when I see vendors. (I became quite friendly with one at Euston Square for a year or so, and was really sad to hear from the next person on the pitch that he died leaving behind a young son). At one point there seemed to be vendors everywhere, and illegal ones as well (who didn’t have badges, or wandered round), and at one point, I wielded the latest issue as a beacon to show I didn’t want to buy another copy (didn’t actually work very well though).

Now we have chuggers (charity muggers) (as pictured here, shot on my Sony Ericsson K800i). Actually, we seem to have passed the peak of the chuggers, thankfully, as their numbers seem to be declining, although this could just be because they don’t like the cold weather, and will return in force in the summer.

If that’s the case, then everyone please stop creating greenhouse gasses, we can get rid of this hazard, by keeping the weather cold, and so we need to cut carbon emissions to stop global warming - otherwise, beware, we’ll have chuggers all year round!