Tag Archives: Photography
Why the iPhone makes such a good camera
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On the face of it, the camera of the iPhone 3GS is pretty poor. For those that care about megapixels, it has significantly less than other phones. It doesn’t even have flash, unlike the K750i phone I had back in 2005. And despite the ability to select your point of focus and exposure, it’s still tricky to get a good quality image from the thing.
You know what? Doesn’t matter. It’s still a great, great camera for two reasons:
- apps (eg in-built editing)
- connectivity
Apps
There are loads of really great photo apps now available that make the general crappiness of the inbuilt camera work for you. My current favourites include:
Lo-mob (£1.19)
My newest find, but also my best. The app let you apply a couple of dozen effects like a through the viewfinder look, vintage Polaroid or, as below, 35mm shot in a medium format camera:
ShakeitPhoto (£0.59)
The best fake-Polaroid app out there, for my money. The piece de resistance is that when you shake the iPhone, the picture develops before your eyes, which never gets old.
Best Camera, CameraBag and PerfectPhoto are all worth a look too. They all offer a different look and it’s worth experimenting with them to see which you’d want to use in different situations.
Connectivity
Take the photo, drop it into an app to get the look you want and email it to your friends, or for wider impact, Posterous (which’ll autopost up to Flickr, Twitter, etc.). Perhaps I’m a little simple-minded, but this still seems amazing to me. I know MMS has been around for ages so we’ve been able to send photos to each other over the air for a while, but it wasn’t until devices like the iPhone came about that we reached a tipping point in ease of use.
Now I suppose other smartphones have similar levels of connectivity, but with them you’re stuck with the normal badly exposed, grainy shots you just took. Combine the iPhone’s connectivity with its ability to actually produce worthwhile material and you’re onto a real winner.
Nottingham Trent University’s MA art and design showcase 2009
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Last Saturday I went to this year’s MA art and design expo at Nottingham Trent University – this year called Work the Way the World Works. From the NTU website:
Projects, by postgraduate students from the University’s School of Art and Design, will represent a range of disciplines including fine and decorative arts, fashion design, knitwear and textiles, fashion marketing and communication, photography, graphics, multimedia and product design.
There were less exhibits (is that the right word?) than the undergraduate shows I wrote about previously, but the quality was really high. I think I must have missed some stuff too, because I took home a book that has around 120 graduates in it and I don’t think I saw all of them.
I couldn’t stay too long, but here are a few things that caught my eye.
Chia-Chia Hung
Extremely happy tea.
Isabelle Way
I thought these were great even before I read closely. Which I guess was the intention. They are nicely sly though, which appeals to me… ‘Ooh look! A nice picture of a tractor. Makes you think it’s local free range produce, doesn’t it? IT’S NOT’.
There’s more on Izzy’s website.
There was a paricularly strong showing from the Fashion, Knitwear and Textile Design graduates, as you can see below.
Jia Ye Cai whose designs are influenced by paper folding.
Yang Yang Huang who had probably the prettiest work, embellished with repeating patterns of cut material.
Nina Richardson who created a traditional look that is right at home on the allotment (there were wellies).
Last, but not least was Dimitra Grigoriou’s, well, fake self.
Strategically located next to the doors to the MA office to provide maximum double-take value, the dummy had previously been placed around Nottingham, with a hidden camera filming the reactions of passers-by. I caught a bit of it on my iPhone on the showreel that was hidden downstairs.
While I’m on the subject – what is it with the Bonnington Building? I think the architects may have been thinking too much about Escher when they designed it. I’ve been in it a bunch of times and still have no idea where I am at any given moment.
Anyway, a good show and well worth a visit if you’re able. It’s on until Saturday 18 July. Just leave a trail of crumbs behind you if you ever want to get out of the building again.
Nottingham Trent Art and Design degree shows
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This week is the annual show for undergrad art and design students at NTU. I went last year and enjoyed it so made a point of going again this year. It also gave me the opportunity to take my new Panasonic TZ6 camera for a spin (more on that at the bottom).
The main event is held at the Bonnington Building, with the following courses represented:
- BA (Hons) Decorative Arts
- BA (Hons) Fashion Design
- BA (Hons) Fashion Knitwear Design and Knitted Textiles
- BA (Hons) Fine Art
- BA (Hons) Graphic Design
- BA (Hons) Photography
- BA (Hons) Textile Design
Decorative arts
Below is the main decorative arts section, in the centre of the maze-like building.
I guess there are likely to be themes in each graduating year. Last year there seemed to be a lot of ceramic work in decorative arts, this year there was far more work with textiles. All the work was of a very high standard, but a couple of pieces caught my eye particularly.
Katie Smith’s ceramics:
And this piece from Anna Byers:
Fine arts
I’ll admit to being disappointed by last year’s fine art exhibit. Amongst a couple of stand-out pieces, a lot of the material felt derivative and, frankly, a bit amateur. This year’s work felt far more complex and skillfully put together, with work from Nicola Jennings, Kyran Gregson and Adam Berriman particularly ringing out to me.
Nicola Jennings’ (who has a blog, Inside the Cabinet of Wonder) found-object birds and rats inside a cage showed vision, skill and humour.
Adam Berriman’s destruction by basketball (‘Epicentre’) also brought a smile to my face – it reminds you that you’re not alone in the secret desire to smash things that have taken hours of effort to produce. At least it did with me…
Incidently, the camera performed superbly. It really is a great piece of kit and well worthy of the great reviews it’s been getting (look at the detail on the photo of the bird above – that’s at 1/40, handheld). Aside from a bit more noise and a bit less detail, I doubt the results using my D200+35mm f/2 combination would have been all the much better.
One last piece, from David Bance:
Camera bags from Lowepro and Crumpler
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First things first – an admission:
I own a lot of camera bags.
There is a good reason for this. None of them are right. They are all too large, too small, too obviously a camera bag, whatever. What I’m looking for at the moment is a shooting bag that can hold
- D200 + 17-50mm lens attached
- Sigma 50-150mm
- Sigma 10-20mm / SB-600 flash
- Bits and pieces (wallet, phone, CF cards etc)
…while being as small and as unobtrusive as possible. It really shouldn’t be too hard, right? Well, there are options, two of which I managed to find at my local branch of Jacobs.
Jacobs is always my first choice of the camera shops in the area. They have a lot of stuff in stock, including loads of odd accessories and the staff know what they’re talking about. This, of course, is rare in retail.
They had a couple of possible choices – the Lowepro Stealth Reporter D200 and the Crumpler Messenger Boy. Both just under £70.
Crumpler Messenger Boy
I liked the Messenger Boy, but it had one main drawback – too much padding. It’s a good size for my requirements and had the usual quality feel, but because of the excessive padding the bag was too stiff and stuck out from my hip, making it feel and look a lot bigger than it actually is.
A shame really as it’s roomy for its size and the access excellent. Opening the top flap give full access to everything inside. It is a little shallow though and, when wide open, it felt as though the taller lenses could fall out. I don’t think this is necessarily true, but it felt that way.
Also, aside from a full length pocket on the front there aren’t any other pockets, which can be a bit of a pain when you’re trying to seperate accessories.
A nice bag, but it didn’t feel like I was getting good value for money really (of course that’s never stopped me buying Crumpler in the past).
Lowepro Stealth Reporter D200
A very different bag to the Crumpler. But probably a better one.
The guy in Jacobs referred to it as ‘technical’ which is a pretty good description. Tough, lots of pockets, lots of clever little things like a waterproof cover and a reinforced card wallet.
Admittedly, it’s not as pretty – it looks a lot more like a camera bag. But it’s also smaller and molds better to your hip making it less obtrusive. It also holds more, with the drawback that, despite the access in the top, it’s harder to get stuff out quickly. The number of pockets is bordering on silly. I’m not even sure I could find them all.
Neither bag is perfect but the Lowepro seemed to fit my requirements more closely, despite its appearance and slightly odd shape. Despite this, I walked away from the shop empty-handed as I couldn’t quite pull the trigger on the purchase at £70. However, a quick check on Amazon showed that it was available on there for only £55
I’ll post an unboxing when it arrives and a more comprehensive review.