The Best Camera Is the One That's With You

[Martin_Doudoroff]

We can go out “on assignment” (whatever that means to you) with our DSLRs, shoot, go back home, offload our CF cards and produce terabytes of pictures that could be printed the size of billboards (but, for the most part, won't be). That's only one mode of operation, though. There are other modes that work out differently and yield different results, but are equally valid (for different purposes).

What this guy Chase Jarvis is saying and doing may seem of limited relevance to professional photographers, but I've been using my phone camera a lot to push spontaneous imagery to places like Facebook, and I think he's chipping away at one end of an increasingly big topic.

For me, Lightroom has been an enormous leap in terms of workflow. In retrospect, I think enabled me to focus on pictures, not picture files. Meanwhile, my DSLR is a cul de sac: I can shoot all I want, but I cannot do anything with the images until I go home and import the imagery through Lightroom. By contrast, with the crappy camera in my iPhone, I can snap a picture and post a version of it to the Internet (for whatever purpose) in a matter of seconds. That capability may mean something slightly different to me than you, but that's precisely why it's a big deal.

[Noel_Carboni]

Seems like it's high time to integrate the dSLRs with the cell phones then, eh?

That remote control stuff OnOne software did is in the right direction. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that being able to shoot photos and upload them to somewhere important via an iPhone or whatever in your pocket would be a Good Thing. The integration should be wireless and require not a second thought.

Though it's possible now, give it a few more years to be ubiquitous.

-Noel

[Martin_Doudoroff]

The funny thing is that on the one hand, I want to see wireless integration built into digital cameras, but I also the want the return of dedicated dials for shutter speed, aperture and exposure comp (and maybe ISO, now, too). I was recently hefting a Mamiya 7II and a Rolleiflex 6008 and reveled in their solidity, simplicity, and immediacy.