This may sound a little crazy, but I sometimes forget that I can take photographs with my brand new iPhone 11. Let me explain. For most of my working years, I worked in buildings in which cellphones were not permitted, so I never got used to having one with me all of the time. I used (and use) a landline telephone as my primary means of communication, relying on an answering machine if I was not there.
Eventually I did get a cellphone, but it was a cheap Android phone and I used TracFone as my provider. It is a pay-as-you go system and I would buy minutes annually. Being somewhat frugal, I would turn on the phone when I wanted to use it and then turn it off. The phone was for my convenience. The only exceptions I made were when I was taking photos in really remote locations or when traveling in the USA.
Recently I decided to dive deeper into the Apple ecosystem (I am writing this on a MacBook Pro) and purchased my iPhone and a T-Mobile plan that gives me unlimited talk, text, and data. More importantly, it allows me to text and use data in many foreign countries without additional charges, which has proven to be quite handy here in Paris.
So why don’t I use it to take photos? Well, first of all, I have to remember to take it with me when I go out. Twice already this trip, I left the apartment without my phone and only realized it much later. Unlike many people, I felt absolutely no sense of panic when I realized that I was separated from my phone nor any obsessive compulsion to return to the apartment and reunite with my iPhone.
More importantly, I find the position for taking photos with a smart phone to be somewhat unnatural—there is something comfortable and secure about putting my eye to a viewfinder rather than holding my arms out in front of me. One of the consequences of my cataract surgery a few years ago is that I no longer need glasses most of the time. My distance vision is now 20/20. After a lifetime of being significantly near-sighted, I am now slightly far-sighted, and it just happens that the distance at which I hold my iPhone is one at which my vision is not quite sharp without reading glasses. (My DSLRs have diopter adjustments, which lets me see thought the viewfinder perfectly, although I sometimes have issues seeing sharp details on the LCD screen on the back of the camera.)
Here are a couple of shots that I took on Sunday with my iPhone. I took the first shot from the steps of Sacre Coeur Basilica in Montmartre and the second shot later in the evening from a bridge over the Seine River. I am impressed by the details, the color, and the quality of the images.
Change is hard, but maybe it is possible to teach an old dog new tricks.
© Michael Q. Powell. All rights reserved.
Mike Powell 
You did well, Mike. Especially as a “beginner.” I prefer my point & shoot camera to my phone, but I’m often without the camera, so the phone works for me.
I can see myself reaching a point of using the iPhone as a secondary camera, but it is hard for me to imagine relying on it by itself. I told a friend that what I would really need to do is go out with just my iPhone and really work with it and gain a better understanding of how it would do with the shots I want to take.
Being one that has hauled DSLR cameras and lens around for years, it took me a while to remember I also had a camera in my pocket. When I did use my iPhone, I would be relatively pleased with the images.
A month ago, I got a new iPhone 11 Pro, and I’m delighted with the quality of the images. The photos in my “Sabino Canyon Friday Hike” posting were all taken with the 11 Pro. Having the 11 Pro available with my Nikons gives me a lot more flexibility when I’m out shooting — now I have to remember to use it.
It sounds like you and I have the same problem, kenne, about remembering to use the iPhone. I have the more basic iPhone 11 that has “only” two lenses, not three. It is kind of a mindset shift. The younger generation looks at the use of memory cards as an antiquated practice. Why would you need to transfer a photo to a computer in order to process it or to post in on the internet. It is roughly equivalent to the way that some people think of film. Times change and adaptations are sometimes necessary. For the record, I happen to have a dozen rolls of a mixture of 120 and 35mm black and white film in my refrigeration that are only a couple of years old and I hope that I will soon have the opportunity to use them.
Nice Mike! Nice images! I also have the iPhone 11 Pro and the images are very good. If you use Adobe Bridge, you can set it to open jpeg images as Raw files and it gives you a whole lot of options to enhance your iPhone images before you even open them in Photoshop. It also allows you to uprez them quite large and apply Camera Raw settings so you can make significantly larger prints with good detail. Also the iPhone 11 has much better shadow detail plus Using Camera Raw lets you get even more out of the files. It is also handy if you are carrying a large camera with a large lens so you have options if you see a “wide” shot.
I’d say the old dog is doing pretty well. Here’s the thing: the best camera is the one you have with you and if you have your phone in your pocket you always have a camera. That said, for serious photography I prefer my Nikon DSLRs. However, there’s an ace in the hole. A Canon G5X Mark II. It’s small enough to fit in a good sized pocket and therefore can go almost anywhere. My next couple of blog posts will probably be shots from that camera.
I’m struggling with glaucoma so I can understand what you’re saying about eyesight issues.
Great phone photos though!
Thanks. Aging eyes can make things a little complicated, but I know that I try to make adaptations and keep shooting as I can. In the case of cellphone cameras and mirrorless cameras, I think my views were formed on the basis of early versions that were not very good. It’s pretty amazing how fast technology has advanced and continues to advance.
Yes, I agree!
It does take fantastic night shots
Yeah, it’s pretty amazing what the new iPhone does at night, though it does seem to require you to remain really steady for an extended period of time. In the case of the night shot on the Seine, I placed the camera on the railing of the bridge and braced it there (paranoically afraid I would drop it in the water).
Nice shots. I hope you keep treating your phone as you do and don’t end up like most people where not having their phone with them is some sort of problem. I love having my phone with me but if I don’t have it I don’t really care all that much. I worry more about not having the camera in the phone with me then the other components of the phone.