Nikon, Sony, Canon, Olympus, Fuji, and all the big camera makers are going to copy cell phones –

April 15, 2018 rfcn2 Leave a comment

ability to use more than one camera and editing software. Here is what I mean. My Nikon and my Sony digital cameras are Nikon and Sony hardware and software. My iPhone X is an Apple camera hardware and Apple camera software, but also Adobe Lightroom camera software and Night Cap camera software. If I wanted to I could add a dozen more camera and editing softwares to my iPhone.

Taken with an iPhone X using the Apple camera app and Lightroom Classic to edit

This past fall when Apple introduced new iPhones much of the improvement in the camera was software related. Then in the last ten days Adobe launched a huge improvement to their Lightroom Classic software system that I used in line with my iPhone X camera. And all of the iPhone camera software works using an interactive touch screen. Three years ago when Nikon introduced a touch screen on the mid range DSLRs nearly all the camera reviewers commented that it made it much quicker and easier to change settings and to use in live view. I bought a Nikon D5500 because of the touch screen and have admired how easy this camera is to use since I bought it. I find it incredible that all new models of cameras do not have something like this. I recently rented a Sony A7R III and very much missed having a full featured touch screen on this high end device.

Taken with an iPhone X and Apple camera software. Edited on Adobe Lightroom CC Classic.

Even though my D5500 has a touch screen the software on this camera is limited to only using Nikon’s software. I would like to be able to add Adobe (or other software) to this camera. It is obvious to me that someone other than me is going to be able to see this soon and will shake the camera market by adding this ability. Or possibly a phone maker like Apple, Google, or Hauwei will offer a stand alone camera.

Taken with iPhone X using Apple camera software. Edited using Adobe Lightroom CC Classic.

Today’s camera systems are much more complicated than a few years ago. It is a struggle for the camera companies to make both hardware and software that works well at a price people are willing to pay. If the camera companies made their models to be more open sourced for software it would make things easier for them. The camera makers could concentrate on getting the lenses right and software makers like Adobe and others can work on things like efficient transfer of photos and video to the cloud, or backup, or a computer. All cell phones do a good job of this and I don’t think any camera makers do.

Taken with an iPhone X and Apple camera app. Edited in Adobe Lightroom CC Classic.

Will it be easy to adapt something like Lightroom to a regular camera. No. It will take a significant software change. Even large rich software companies cannot do something like this easily. But lets just say Nikon worked with Adobe and their soon to be announced mirrorless camera had the ability to use software like an iPhone and also had a touch screen that worked as well as an iPhone. It would shock the industry and they would make lots of money. If it worked I would buy one. But I may buy the soon to be announced Nikon mirrorless anyway even if it is only a little better than my D5500 software. So I would guess that Nikon will not go this giant change and only update a little.

This leaves open the possibility of a smaller company or Sony to make this kind of a move. Sony could add this type of system to their cameras by adapting some of the technology from their cell phones. But Sony has left off a full touch screen and menu improvements to their brand new high end cameras so I will not be holding my breath for them to do it.

Taken with an iPhone X and Apple camera app. Edited – very slightly – in Adobe Lightroom CC Classic. This photo needed almost no editing to look this way.

What I actually think the most likely outcome is that cell phone companies are going to keep improving and make larger cameras less and less relevant. I would guess that Apple and the other higher end makers will follow Hauwei and add a third camera to their phones. Adobe and others will keep improving their camera and editing software. And almost everyone will be satisfied with that outcome. I would guess that the best “photographers” edition phone would have a 28mm, 58mm, & 135mm equivalent lenses and be able to cover everything from wide angle to telephoto in the same system with high quality. Will it give the same detail as a Nikon D850 or Sony A7R III? No, but for almost everyone it will be good enough. And it will do 4K video too. My current iPhone X will do 4K video at 60fps. And the iPhone includes free editing software for stills and video. And it will send all the files to your other devices automatically.

Taken with iPhone X and Apple camera app. Edited in Lightroom CC Classic.

Uncategorized, Photography, Computer Software

Lightroom Upgrades To CC Classic

April 11, 2018 rfcn2 Leave a comment

This is a user report. Lightroom seems to be most serious photographers default post capture editing software. It is mine too.

When Adobe introduced Lightroom CC a few months back I installed it to see how it compared to the traditional version. Like a lot of people I liked some of the features of Lightroom CC but could not give up the older style software for a number of reasons.

Taken with Nikon D5500 and 18-55 lens using RAW & Lightroom CC Classic

In the last few days Adobe has sent out a major update to traditional Lightroom CC Classic. The changes have made it much easier for me to get photographs I like. The most significant changes are adding a large set of profiles on the right side of the develop screen, and many additional presets on the left side of the develop screen. Plus you can see a preview of what will happen to your image by mousing over the profile or preview. I have edited about 100 images since this update and I have to say that this is the most significant upgrade to make LR CC Classic easier and faster to use ever.

Taken with Nikon D5500 with 18-55 lens and LR CC Classic

The profiles and presets so far have not replaced the auto setting and sliders, but much of the time using a profile as a starting point you do not have to manually adjust settings nearly as much as before. I also have to say that Adobe did a very good job in making profiles and some of the presets that are useful. The profiles are mostly new and very good. The presets are all from the Lightroom CC on line and mobile system. They are also quite good, but not as much so as the profiles. At least to my taste and eyes.

Taken with Nikon D5500 and 18-55 lens using LR CC Classic

I have been shooting a mix of digital and film over the last few years. The biggest reason I still shoot film is I like the color and black and white profiles of some of the films that are available. Kodak Ektar and Fuji Velvia are two landscape films I love to use for their colors. I have many times taken film shots and then some digital shots of the same subject and picked the film ones in the end as better due to the way they handle the color or B&W rendition. I would guess that these changes making Lightroom much easier to use will lessen my film use. I do like some of the simplicity of my Olympus and Voightlander cameras. And the Minoltas are also a pleasure to use with their simple controls and both good manual focus plus auto focus when you want to use it. And some of the legacy glass is just super and gives beautiful results. But there is no doubt at all that my digital cameras are better at difficult exposures and give immediate results.

Shot with Nikon D5500 & 18-55 lens edited in LR CC Classic

If you use an older version of Lightroom it might be a good time to upgrade. If you don’t use Lightroom give it a try. This new version is much easier to learn than the older ones.

Film Phtography, iPhone Photography, Kodak, Photography, Uncategorized

Travel Photography – What To Take

September 30, 2017 rfcn2 Leave a comment

We usually travel by RV in the USA and deciding on what camera gear to take is easy, Take everything you want. But in 10 days we are going overseas by plane and if you take more than you need then you have to lug it around. So for the last few weeks I have been trying to decide what should go. At first I watched Rick Steve’s video and he is a minimalist and says, “1 compact camera”. I have a very good recent compact that is a Sony super zoom. It does a good job and critically, has a viewfinder. For sunny days viewfinders are a must. But here is the thing, I asked myself, “when you are taking pictures of the Parthenon in Greece is a small Sony enough plus an iPhone 7+”?

Parthenon in Athens, Greece-Parthenon ruins tourism destinations — These are likely conditions in mid day, difficult. Bright sun and blown highlights.

Travel pictures always seem to run into the “mid-day” problem. Even though for best photos you are always supposed to go out before dawn and an hour before sunset, the reality is that this is not always possible, or something you want to do. Last night I listened to a very popular and very good you tube couple talk about what they do when traveling and they said, “take pictures early morning and the golden hour before sunset, and spend the rest of the day in museums”. (Tony & Chelsea Northrup). Thing is if you are on a tour you go when your tour goes. Or maybe you want to have breakfast and a shower before going out. Faced with the fact that many of our best shooting opportunities in our upcoming trip will be between early morning and late afternoon I have been testing my cameras to see (once again) which handle bright sun in mid day best. The contestants were iPhone 7+, Sony HX80, Nikon D5500, Olympus OM2n (film), Minolta 600si (film).

Sailing on San Diego Bay — iPhone 7+ with significant time spent editing.

The picture above was taken with my iPhone 7+. It was taken last weekend at mid day with mostly bright sun. I spend a lot! of time trying to get this picture into any kind of decent shape. The result is OK.

gaves overlooking coean — And this was a couple of days later with better color.

I then shot some photos a few days later with the iPhone and the colors were much better, but this required some work in Lightroom to get this shot to come out.

big yacht SD harbor — Sony HX80 in full sun.

The Sony HX80 to me is a slightly better camera than the iPhone. It still struggles with mid day photos. I spent some time trying to get anything out of the above shot that was passable.

This was taken on the same day but came out better.

The above shot was taken with the Sony while I was sitting in the shade and at a different angle to the sun than the yacht shot.

Yesterday I went down to the same general area and got this shot with my Nikon and just the kit lens with a polarizing filter.

fog with graves leading to trees — The difference here is the polarizing filter and mostly the fog.

I like the above shot. It is lightly edited and pretty much just came out of the camera this way. I was just shooting aperture priority and fine – jpeg. The key difference in this being a good shot is the fog. So no bright mid day sun.

Nikon same aperture priority and Polarizing filter. And this is after editing.

Shortly after the cemetery shot the sun came out and the Nikon failed to take memorable pictures. I got so frustrated with the color in this group I turned most of them into black and white.

bird on the cliff — Nikon shot with B&W filter.

The reason I was so frustrated is that I went to the same location the day before with one of my old film SLRs, a Minolta 600si, some inexpensive Kodak 400 negative film, and an Quantaray 50mm f2.8 lens. I had this film locally developed and they fouled up the scan and only gave me tiny files. But the fact is that this lower end film with poor scans gave a much better balanced color result, by a wide margin than any of the three digital cameras I have used this week. Imagine if I had shot Kodak Ektar 100 and had a fine scan done. The film would have won by a wider margin.

So after all this work, what is the best camera gear for me to take? Very likely I am going to duplicate last year and take the Nikon DSLR with the 18-55 P kit lens & 35mm f 1.8 for low light, iPhone, & Olympus OM2n with my 50mm f 1.4. I will likely add the Sony too as it is small and could fit in my pocket on the flight over. We have booked a number of tours in places we are going to and many of these will be during mid day and sunny. If I was to lighten this up just a little I would leave the Nikon home and add a couple of lenses to the Oly kit + a flash. I would likely take the 28 mm f 2.8 and the 135mm f 3.5. The flash is a T32.

I don’t know why I keep needing to re-affirm the fact that in natural light film usually gives a far superior result to digital. If it is dark digital works better. The iPhone 7 plus is a very good low light shooter.

6 Days later —– OK, I just could not let this issue rest. So I went down to the same beach cliff location today and shot my Nikon D5500 with raw and my iPhone 7 plus with Adobe camera raw in the iPhone. The results from the two digital cameras was the closest I came to the film. Of the two I have to say I preferred the results from the iPhone to the Nikon. I edited both as with Lightroom as best as I was able and the color was just a bit more pleasing from the Apple. But it does not change the fact that an 15 year old Minolta camera with and off-brand (but very good) lens and low cost Kodak print film gave superior results. I am so disgusted with the whole effort I don’t even feel like posting samples. If you want to see some write me a comment and I will do so.

Bottom line. Digital daytime still shots suck compared to film. Sure digital is better for more difficult lighting and interior shots, but in typical vacation type family shots film still rules. I guess that is why more and more people are going back to film. The scary issue for the camera makers is that this means for most snapshot /family shot shooters they don’t need a fancy digital. Sure if you make your living with a camera you should get a high quality rig, but if you are a family shooter an iPhone (or better Android) smartphone camera is fine. If anything my recommendation is for family shooters to consider a film camera, maybe an instant. Polaroid is back with a new camera and Fuji Instax ones are all over the place. Analog rules. Digital is mostly for convenience not quality. I am writing this as I listen to a 45 year old LP record on my good quality Hi-Fi system. Analog music is easily superior to any digital I have heard. Analog music is just not nearly as easy to use. Same with photos. Digital is easier and analog is better.

Kodak, Photography, Uncategorized

Kodak Gold 200

September 22, 2017 rfcn2 Leave a comment

Over the last couple of years one of the films I have used with good results is Kodak Gold 200.

Ennis businesses vioght kodak gold — Taken with Kodak Gold 200 – Voightlander Prominent 35mm & 35mm 3.5

This shot was taken last summer with my Voightlander and a 35mm 3.5 lens. We just walked around Ennis MT and took in some of the local town sights about an hour before dusk. To my eye Kodak Gold provides with good color saturation and has a pleasing white balance for landscape and people.

Me next to robot mr clean voight K gold — That is me standing indoors in a brightly lit entry way to the museum of clean in Idaho. Same Voightlander camera but with a 50mm 1.5 Nokton

Gold has a fine grain if you don’t underexpose. I have run into a few difficulties in the shadows of some shots with Gold. You can get rid of most of the unpleasant grain with noise reduction in Lightroom, but better if you just expose for shadows and then turn the highlights down a bit. One thing to keep in mind is that this is an inexpensive film and it is 200 speed and not 100. Ektar has less grain but costs about 50% more and is 100 speed.

Zion voight mid day K gold 2 — This is also Kodak Gold using the Voightlander and 50mm lens.

Zion canyon minolta ektar_ — Here is a shot of the same location but with Kodak Ektar 100. This photo is pretty much right out of the camera with very minimal editing. The shot above it with Kodak Gold had more editing.

I find both of the above two shots to be quite attractive but the one shot with Ektar is just magic on a big high quality monitor. I took a series of about 15 of the west side of Zion National Park with Ektar and when I got them back from the developer I just went “wow”, the best shots I have even taken of Zion with regards to the red rock color.

Ennis sculpture trailer voight kodak gold — Shot at an RV park in MT. with Gold

Ennis door voight kodak gold — Shot in Ennis Mt with Gold and 35mm lens. This camera is an antique BTW. From 1953. The lenses are just beautiful. So is the camera body for that mater.

Pocatelo chief neon voight kodak gold — Shot at dusk with Gold. This is the shady side.

the chief neon from sunny side voigjt K gold — Here is the sunny side taken about a minute after the above picture. No settings were changed between the two shots on this old manual camera.

As I said, Gold can go grainy on you when underexposed as you can see in the sky on the above two shots. But then the shot above that of the door is very sharp with little grain and the only difference is lower contrast in the scene and correct exposure on the door.

Gold can still be bought at just over $4.00 US in 36 exposure rolls here in the US. It is a good general all around film that does very well on skin tones. Ektar is a finer grain and is beautiful for landscapes, but puts red into skin color.

58830006 — This is Ektar showing skin tone

And here is Fuji Superia 400 for comparison.

Liz & Pey 2 — Fuji Superia 400 shot on a Minolta 600si with 50mm 2.8 lens with flash.

To me Superia goes green and that is hard to control, and Ektar goes red and that can sometimes be a problem. Gold is more in the middle but you have to watch the grain.

jeff cathy jon betsy_ — Kodak Ultramax 400 shot with Minolta 600si 50mm 2.8 lens.

And finally Kodak Ultramax 400.

All four of these are very good films. They have to be to have survived the purge of the last 10 years. Here are some tips.

Kodak Gold is a very stable film that is very versatile. It is not fussy at all but I would recommend no underexposing it too much or grain could become an issue. I prefer the Kodak Gold color rendition to Fuji. Fuji Superia has less grain and 400 speed. But it is also 50% more expensive on 36ex rolls.

Right now Kodak has two very good lower cost films in the color negative category. Gold at 200 speed & Ultramax at 400.

Computer Software, Computers, Uncategorized

Windows OS vs MAC OS – July 2017

July 4, 2017 rfcn2 Leave a comment

I have been using Microsoft operating systems since DOS. I’ve used every one of Microsoft’s OS’s except Windows 8. This morning I read a tech news piece saying Windows is 90% of the current laptop market. After owning a MacBook Pro for a little over 4 years you have to just roll your eyes at this statistic. Yes there are some things about Windows that are better than MacOS, but the Mac is so much more reliable than any of our Windows computers. And this includes the fact that I am part of the Mac Beta software program. I am now running Mac OS 11 beta. Apple’s beta is far more reliable than regular non beta Windows.

As I’m writing this blog post I am also looking at our newest Windows laptop that was bought earlier this year for my wife. It is updating. It has been updating since yesterday morning. Maybe it will finish updating by the end of the week. I am very computer literate and do things like have the automatic-update setting on. I thought when I first installed Windows 10 a little over a year ago that Redmond had cleaned up their act. I put Windows 10 on two of my few-year-old high-end Windows 7 laptops and they were way improved. They booted up faster and everything on them ran better. Then I started thinking, “wow, MS is going to be as good as Mac”, wrong. Now a year later we are back to the old “update hell” that was the Microsoft of old. I take back all the good things said a year ago about Windows 10 OS being a great system. It is not if you use it like a Mac.

About that percentage of users that Microsoft has with PC’s. 90%. The misleading part of that statistic is it does not take into account the use of IOS and Android (including Chrome OS). Apple is doing an end run on MicroSoft with IOS. When IOS 11 is standard this fall it will turn an iPad into a laptop computer and then some. It will still not be as full featured as Mac OS, but from what I have seen of the previews it looks like it is going to work for most people as a laptop or regular computer. And then there is the Google system of putting everything on line in Google Docs and other on line services. If you compare the use of computer “systems” adding mobile phones and tablets the likely Microsoft percentage is much lower than 90%. I would speculate that it is more like under 50%. Most likely way under.

google

Google’s system online is very well sorted out. I have used Gmail for years and I am very happy with it. Google docs works just fine and I never spend any time updating it. I will say I am not happy with Google getting rid of Picasa and Motorola, both of which I used. But overall Google does a very good job just like Apple. Microsoft has been trying to use one system for computers, tablets, and smartphones. That only works if your one system is near perfect. In my opinion MS has a ways to go. So does Apple with Mac OS. But on the other hand with Apple you have more than one system and I can tell you that IOS is very easy to keep updated. And Mac OS is far more perfected than Windows.

Many of the applications that run on Windows work well. This includes Word, Excel, and the newest Photos app. In addition, one drive works for me without issues. But by sticking with the same basic cranky old general operating system MS has had for years it in turn makes me cranky. Microsoft needs to get better.

My laptop is still updating BTW.

Photography, Uncategorized

Film vs Digital Photos – May 2017

May 19, 2017 rfcn2 Leave a comment

About five years ago I started shooting film again after going with digital only for about 7-8 years. Now in May 2017 it seems like film is back in a big way. I have been writing this blog and one other with most of the posts being about photography. My most popular posts are when I write about film and film cameras. Recently I saw a post that was in Photoblographer on 5 great but unknown film cameras. The Minolta 600si was in the five. Within a few days I had a bunch of hits on most two 600si posts. Same with my post on Kodak Gold 200. Few have written about these items and all of a sudden my posts on them have been looked up and read.

76890003 — Shot with Minolta 600si with 50mm f2.8 macro Quantaray lens and Kodak Portra 160

For me personally I have settled into using both digital and film. I have a number of both types of cameras and just pick what I think will give the best images. The exception to this rule is that I carry an iPhone 7+ with me constantly and take a lot of images with it. My most recent camera purchase is a Sony pocket camera. It is a DSC HX80. This is a very new model of super zoom. I have had several Sony pocket cameras over the last 15 years and this one takes the best pictures of any I have had. This is not the highly rated $1,000 one, but looks very similar. I got it as I was trying to find something a bit better than the iPhone 7+ that had a long lens on it. I like shooting wildlife and volunteer at the San Diego Zoo so there are times when a long optical lens is helpful. I have to say the little Sony is a very good camera when you consider what it cost. It even has an electronic viewfinder (the same one as the $1,000 Sony) that is absolutely essential in bright sun. I recently took it with me to Arizona and the camera is a very good bridge between a large SLR or DSLR and a cell phone camera.

AZ trip with Cathy & Jeff-53 — Sony DSC HX80 at about 500mm a little tweaking in Lrightroom

On this trip I took my iPhone, the DSC HX80, and my Nikon D5500. So no film cameras. Why, I knew I would be bouncing around between outdoor and indoor, plus back and forth between landscape and people. We did not plan to go to any epic landscape places like the Grand Canyon or Bryce. So I spent several days trying to decide on what gear to take and just left the film at home. I really wanted to take my old Voightlander, but it is just more limited than some of the newer cameras. I got some very good shots with the gear I took.

The cactus is with the Sony, Casa Grande Nikon, and Route 66 with the iPhone. All three were easy to edit and organize with Lightroom and Apple Photos. I pretty much edited the pictures when sitting in the hotel and they organized easily as dates and times were already embedded in them.

Would the images have been better with film? Maybe. I would have needed two bodies for both 100 speed and 400 speed. The 100 would have been Ektar or Velvia, and the 400 Kodak Ultramax or Fuji Superia. I picked these films as I just have not been happy with my landscape shots using Portra 160 or 400. I just don’t like the desert look I get from this film. My two Minolta 600si bodies are just as easy to use as the digitals so I would have taken them. I would have used my two primes a 50mm and 24mm both with macro. The long shots could have been with the 70-205 Minolta zoom I have. Absolutely the 50mm macro is better at close ups than any of the digital cameras I have. The new Sony super zoom really has a long reach. So a couple of the animal shots might not have been as close up.

The added reason I picked the digitals is that I am trying to get certain looks with them in camera and post with Lightroom. I wanted to experiment some more to get the results I was looking for.

These shots of Casa Grande in Arizona I was trying to get the “Kodachrome” look. To me this photo (from the iPhone no less) pretty much nails that. And I could have made the same result with Velvia or Ektar in one of my film cameras. In this case though it is a bit of a pano that is easy with the iPhone 7.

The above is with my D5500 and I get the same “Kodachrome” look. I just used the P setting and landscape mode. I had saturation turned up +2 on the landscape mode. Then in Lightroom I just added a small amount of additional color in the sky with the dehaze slider. And I turned up the shadows a bit.

In summation I would have to say that I have settled into working with both film and digital for stills. There are some things I like about each process. As far as gear goes, I like some of my vintage film gear. Looking at and holding cameras mostly made out of metal and not plastic is a pleasure. And having full frame film cameras that are not heavy and relatively small is also a pleasure. I would like to move up to a digital full frame sometime in the near future, but nobody has made the camera I want yet. The closest is the Nikon 750, but I don’t like the fact that the camera and lens is so large. And the Sony stuff is just too pricy for what you get. Plus the lens cost and short battery life are additional problems. I would really like to get up to the 30 meg area of file size too. At this point the 750 is the same detail as my existing D5500.

Film Video vs Digital Video

While it seems I can get very good results with digital cameras I have to say I am glad that using film in movies is popular again. I hate digital video on TV that has not been processed to look like film. Netflix does that on their in house movies and they look terrible. I can usually spot movies made with film or TV shows. For instance HBO’s Westworld. The cinematography was so gorgeous I figured it was film. And it is.

Thats it for now. I am going to try to get out this weekend and shoot some film. I have some partially used rolls and I want to finish them and send them off to get them developed.

Photography, Uncategorized

iPhone 7 Plus Camera Plagued By Poor Connectivity Choices

March 9, 2017 rfcn2 Leave a comment

As I wrote two posts ago, I think the iPhone 7 plus has a brilliant camera for a cell phone. I have taken many very good still and videos with it. But even though you can capture very good shots and video it is a general pain in the ass to put them in an organized file system. When you turn on the Apple auto upload (which you really have to do to get the camera to work well) it sends photos to your other IOS devices and your iCloud photos automatically if you are connected to wifi. If you are traveling and only have access to mobile data, too bad. Apple waits till you connect to wifi.

But lets say you do connect your phone to wifi and the pictures auto go to the Apple pictures app in iCloud. If you only want to use the Apple photo app to adjust pictures than you are set. That is unless you want to have a regular file system like almost every good photographer does. Then you have to export from the Apple app to your file system. Or you can use the hard to find “Apple image capture app” and download by wire to your computer. Apple’s photo app stores copies of your photos in places it is almost impossible to find. And all of this works best if you have a Mac. If you have a Windows computer, well then you have to wait for your photos to go to iCloud and then you can download them to your computer. If you are not on wifi then you won’t be doing this until you are. Supposedly there is a way to download photos from your iPhone to a Windows computer. There used to be as I did it. But sometime in the recent past that ability was deleted.

Or lets say you want to take a raw photo. Well you have to use Lightroom or some other app that has raw ability. To do this though you need Lightroom mobile. And to get the Lightroom mobile camera pictures to your computer or say an iPad you have to use a wireless connection. I have found no way to take Lightroom photos off an iPhone with a wire. It is true you can move the Lightroom photo to the camera roll and then use Apple image capture to remove photos by wire. But your raw pictures are converted to jpeg when you do that. And lets say you want to move your camera roll photos to Lightroom mobile on your phone to edit or download pictures wirelessly when you don’t have wifi, well then you will end up with a giant Lightroom mobile file on your computer. Mine got to 16 gigs before I shut it down.

Confused yet? So while the iPhone 7 plus has a brilliant camera it is hard to live with in practice if you want to carefully file your pictures and videos, or edit them with Lightroom. This problem could easily be solved by Apple if they made their phones like most Android phones where you just plugged them into your computer and moved the pictures off. Easy peasy. But I think Apple is too busy designing the next iPhone to make these kinds of changes that people like me want. So once more, I do love the Apple iPhone 7 plus camera, but do not like (hate) the complex “Kafka-like” crap you have to go through to get the files off.

A few days ago I bought a Sony compact camera DSC-HX80, for the sole purpose of not having to putz with this issue. So far my $400 Sony takes pictures that are a bit better than what you can get from the iPhone. It has a zoom lens that goes from 24mm – 720mm. It is astonishing how good the pictures come out using 720mm. It has a lot of the same adjustments my Nikon DSLR has, meaning, it is much more adjustable than the standard Apple camera app. And it even has a viewfinder. Taking photos off the Sony is exactly like what you do on my Nikon DSLR, meaning very easy, and it fits with my file system. I do not intend to not use the camera in the iPhone, but I do intend to use it a lot less.

Below are a few test shots from the Sony. BTW the Sony has really good color rendition.

The shot below is my first telephoto test shot. This is amazingly good for how far away these kids were. It froze the action and this was hand held! You could never ever get a shot this good out of the iPhone 7 plus.

bobnuttmann