Emily's stay in Hospital. A photo essay.

I’ve written a bit recently about my reluctance to take ‘real’ photos on a smart phone. I know I’m swimming against the tide somewhat – just look at any event anywhere in the world and you will find more people capturing images and footage on their phones than with dedicated cameras. I’ve even heard of news agencies that have sacked their photographers and given reporters iPhones because that’s ‘good enough’ now for photojournalism. Sigh….

But even I can concede that sometimes your cellphone is the only image capturing device you will have on you. This was certainly the case for me recently, when my daughter was in hospital.

Grey Base Hospital Entrance. Samsung S3

Surprising as this may seem, my first thought when she was admitted to hospital wasn’t “great, a photo opportunity”. Far from it. I was more concerned for her as a parent, and photography was the furthest thing from my mind. But, as anyone who may have spent some time in hospital can attest to, there can be an awful lot of waiting around not doing much. And it’s then, as a photographer, that my mind begins to contemplate the photographic possibilities. It’s also then, however, that I realise I’ve only got my phone on me.

Admitted to Barclay Ward. Samsung S3

As a 17 year old, in pain, and in hospital not looking her radiant best, I know my daughter isn’t going to be thrilled when Dad whips out the camera to start taking photos. But I also know (I hope), that when she’s 30, with kids of her own, she might look back and be glad that there are some photos of her when she was 17 and having surgery for the first time. I know I would. So I tried to be as discreet as possible, take as few images as possible, but still try to tell a little story with the images as best I could.

Drip Fed. Samsung S3

I guess this is where shooting with a smartphone does actually come in handy, since people are now so used to everyone having them out at all times. You’re not ‘the photographer’ with a bag load of gear. You’re just Dad, with a cellphone. Non-threatening. Non-evasive. Or so I thought.

Most of the time I got away with snapping the occasional shot here or there. But in one instance, late at night, after her surgery when the nurse was recording Emily’s vitals, I took a couple of shots and the nurse heard the shutter sound that the S3 makes. She literally stopped what she was doing to look at me, and then drilled me about whether she was in the photo or not, and how patient and nurse privacy was important. My wife jumped to my defense to explain that I was a photographer and was just trying to record the moment for our daughter – but I don’t think the nurse was convinced?

Hospital Property. Samsung S3

So maybe this whole ‘everyone takes photos with their phone’ culture is a curse as much as it is a blessing? For a start, I wasn’t taking photos of other patients, I was taking a photo of my daughter. And yes, maybe the nurse did happen to be in the frame, since she was the one interacting with Emily at the time. But I also have photos of my son’s first haircut when he was five – and guess what, the hairdresser just happens to be in some of them. I have photos of Emily’s last day at kindy, with teachers and loads of other children in them. Are we really at the stage where we have to ask each and every person permission to take their photo if they happen to be in an image we are about to take of a family member?

Before Surgery. Samsung S3

I have heard of photographers (specifically men), taking photos of their own children, being confronted at parks and playgrounds by other parents demanding that they stop taking photos because their own children might be in them. This happens a lot in the U.K. for some reason. But it was really the first time I had ever experienced it myself. It certainly made me more wary of taking anymore photos, and fortunately it was towards the end of Emily’s stay in hospital. But it has also left the photo essay feeling a little incomplete, since I didn’t get any photos of her leaving the hospital to round-out the story.

Going for Walkies before Surgery. Samsung S3

After the nurse incident, I tried to find a setting on the S3 that could lower the shutter noise, or better still remove it completely (it’s just for ‘show’ after all). It was only later that I realised that if you turn the volume off on the phone, the shutter sound doesn’t happen either. Doh!

Going into Theatre. Samsung S3

In terms of the images themselves, I wanted to make them look a little less ‘digital’, so I converted them to black and white and added grain (noise) in Photoshop. It gives the images a more ‘filmic’ look to them, especially the slightly blurred ones shot in low-light that were noisy to begin with. In the end, despite them being phone images, I’m actually rather pleased with the way they turned out.

Vital Signs after Surgery. Samsung S3

In the end, I suppose, it is what it is. A ‘record’ of some of Emily’s time spent in hospital when she was 17, and had her first surgery. They are hopefully something she will look back on later in her life and be glad that her Dad bothered to take some photos? We shall see…

Sunset on a Samsung S3

A week ago (as I write this) was my wedding anniversary (19 years). To celebrate, Joanna and I decided to order pizza and go somewhere to sit and watch the sun set. We've had a pretty terrible summer this year, but it just happened to be a nice evening, so we wanted to be outside enjoying the evening as much as possible.

Cheeky Seagull. Samsung S3 camera phone

We wanted to eat the pizza while it was still hot, so didn't want to travel far. I decided to drive to the Blaketown tiphead, a popular spot for spending an evening watching the sea roll in along the Grey River.

As we sat in the car and ate pizza, a seagull perched itself on the bonnet of the car and watched our every more. It seemed the most interested in my bread roll - which I was more than happy to share with him since it had been baked solid!

Because this was a social outing, and not a recreational one, I didn't have my camera with me :-(  But, of course, I did have my phone. So I was able to get a shot of the cheeky seagull, with the reflection of the brown paper bag that contained the bread roll clearly visible in the lower right of the photo.

Blaketown Sunset Reflection. Samsung S3 camera phone

While we watched the waves crashing around the rocks on the Cobden side of the tiphead, behind us, on the Blaketown side, things were starting to get colourful. The waves were taking on a golden yellow colour, and a quick glance behind us explained why. For the above image I literally opened the car door, stood up and took a shot of the golden sky behind us. The reflection is the sunset reflecting off the roof of the car.

Cobden Tiphead from Blaketown. Samsung S3 camera phone

This is the view we were concentrating on as the sunset was developing behind us. You can see the waves crashing against the Cobden tiphead (very mesmerising). It was high tide, so many of the crashing waves were so big they were spraying over the top of the rocks. The sky has a slight orange hue to it, but nothing like what was happening 180 degrees west.

Blaketown Sunset. Samsung S3 camera phone

Pivot 180 from the position that the Cobden Tiphead photo was taken, and this was the other side of the coin - a glorious sunset over Blaketown. We haven't had many of these this summer, but fortunately for my wife and I, we had decided to go out on the right night. Unfortunately, I didn't have a 'real' camera with me :-(

Blaketown Tiphead Sunset. Samsung S3 camera phone

I'm not one of these 'The best camera is the one you have with you" disciples. What a load of rubbish. I get the gist of the idea, but I don't believe it. The 'best' camera I have, unfortunately, was the one I'd left at home that night :-) And so I had to 'make do' with a smartphone camera. And that is really how I look at these images. I like them as photos, they captured something of the scene I saw in front of me, but they are second-rate images compared with what I could have captured with the OM-D EM-5 MkII. And that's just how it is.

Blaketown Tiphead Golden Sunset. Samsung S3 camera phone

The S3 camera is a decent performer at about 8MP, although it is obviously a very small chip, and doesn't have a huge dynamic range. The above image is ok, but has some blocked shadows and blown highlights. Without shooting in RAW, there's really not much else I could do. The phone itself has a very basic +/- exposure slider, which only seemed to 'approximate' some exposure compensation either way. Again it's ok, but a photo I would have much rather shot in RAW to pull out as much dynamic range as possible.

Under a Blood Orange Sky. Samsung S3 camera phone.

When you use the zoom function on the S3 (a digital zoom), things go from bad to worse. Most people are aware that a 'digital' zoom isn't really zooming anything - it's just enlarging the pixels to make the image appear bigger. Trouble is, when you enlarge already very small pixels, you just start to get digital mush. And that's really what I got with the above image. I'd be lucky if I could print a passable 6x4" print from it. The native (unzoomed) files are better, probably resulting in a passable 5x7" or maybe 8x10" print if you didn't look too close. But I could almost guarantee that they would 'look' digital.

Breaking Wave - Blaketown Sunset. Samsung S3 camera phone

So I'm unhappy with all the images -right? Well no, not really. Sure, I wish I had taken them on a 'better' camera. And yes, I would rather they were taken in a raw format to pull more detail out in post. But I still think they are lovely images - and a wonderful souvenir of a great night out with my wife. In fact, I love the above image - Breaking Wave-Blaketown Sunset. It's one of the best images I've shot in a long while (IMHO).

There are some people who carry around a 5D Mk3 with them everywhere they go, so that the 'camera they have with them' just happens to be the best camera they own. That never has been, and never will be, me. I like to turn photography off occasionally. Sometimes I'm in photography mode, other times I'm not. Sure, there have been moments in my life when I've regretted not having a camera on me (less and less now we all have smart phones). But I'm also enough of a realist to understand that some moments will (and should) pass us by without being recorded for posterity. I HATE going to an event and seeing thousands of people glued to their phones instead of enjoying the moment. It just doesn't make sense to me. Put your phone in you damn pocket (or better still leave it at home) and just enjoy the damn concert for crying out loud!

The Blue Hour - Blaketown Sunset. Samsung S3 camera phone

 I suppose I could 'upgrade' to a better phone with a better camera - but that's not really the point. As capable as they are, I don't want to take photos with a cellphone - at least not as my primary means of taking a photo. Phones are still (for me at least) primarily for texting and making calls. And cameras are for taking photos. Sometimes, however, beggars can't be choosers. And the only camera you will have on you, just happens to be in a phone. So be it...

A Tale of Two Cameras

I'm a very happy Olympus OM-D E-M5 MkII owner - it's simply an amazing piece of kit, and I find it very hard not to sound like a massive Olympus fanboy (which I suppose I am).

But I also have this Jekyl and Hyde aspect to my photography. Having grown up (literally) with SLR cameras, I find the lure of the DSLR sometimes overwhelming. Muscle-memory (and actual memories) kicks-in whenever I pick up a traditional SLR styled camera, and despite myself, I have that feeling of 'coming back home' (even though I am now happily living in the 21st century). Fortunately, I usually have a couple of DSLR's floating around home that I can use to get my 'fix'.

Earlier this week I was hit by one of these 'must use a DLSR' moments, so I headed out with a Nikon D70 to a local walk that ends in a beautiful waterfall. I traveled light, with just the D70 and 18-55 'kit' lens, plus a spare battery. I also had my phone with me (don't we all), and decided to do a comparison between the two. The D70 is 6MP, while my Samsung galaxy has an 8MP sensor (and is a lot newer technology). Should be a good contest?

Samsung S3 8MP phone on left, Nikon D70 6MP DLSR on right

First up it looks pretty close. They are both resolving about the same detail, although there is more dynamic range coming from the D70. I was also able to manually set the White Balance to 'shade' on the D70 to give a truer colour representation. The file from the Samsung S3 is a little too blue/magenta, especially in the foreground.

Samsung S3 Smartphone

Things get a bit more complicated when the dynamic range of the scene exceeds the limits of the small chip on the Samsung. It's done an 'ok' job, but the highlights of the water are totally blown out and unrecoverable. The phone only shoots jpegs, and I had the exposure compensation value dialed as low as it could go to try and get some detail in the water - but to no avail. To be fair,it was a very contrasty scene, and not the ideal time of the day to be shooting - but sometimes we don't get to choose these things - especially if we're traveling. I also tried a HDR shot with an app on the camera, but it was HORRIBLE, so I deleted it :-(

Nikon D70 shooting RAW

In comparison, shooting in RAW with the D70 has allowed much more detail to be retained and extracted out of the file in post-processing (no surprises there). Again, I would reiterate that it was very harsh lighting, and not ideal conditions for a great shot of the waterfall - but the result is far more usable than what came out of my smartphone.

Coal Creek Falls. Nikon D70

Don't ask me why (no, really - don't), but I've decided to get 'real' and shoot in full manual for a while. Usually my default shooting mode is A (Aperture priority) so I can control depth of field - and let the camera worry about the rest. But I enjoyed shooting in manual on the D70 (with a few caveats) and having complete control over all the settings. It really does make you fully aware of the relationship of all the factors in the exposure triangle (Aperture, Shutter and ISO).

If I wanted to shoot at a specific aperture, then I had to decide what the shutter and ISO were going to be to assure that the shot was well exposed. Shooting in the forest, this usually meant trying to keep the shutter speed high enough to hand-hold the camera and still get sharp shots - so the ISO was the control that got changed the most. Of course the higher you go with ISO the more noise you introduce, especially in the shadows, and this is certainly true of 6MP sensor on the D70. Even at ISO 200, when the shadows are lightened in post-processing some noise is evident. But then again, I'd rather have noise than a blurry image :-)

Life lines. Nikon D70

This is one of the things I missed by not using the OM-D E-M5 MkII - better high ISO performance combined with amazing image stabilisation. On several occasions I tried to shoot at 1/30th second with the D70 (at 55mm) and got blurry shots. Wouldn't have been an issue with the OM-D EM5 MkII (or any of the other Oly mirrorless cameras).

Were there other things I missed? Absolutely. How about the electronic viewfinder for one! I can't say it often enough - using an evf like the ones on the O-MD's is a life-changing experience as a photographer! I'm not joking. I used to be an evf snob - spurning this t.v style viewpoint for the more 'pure' optical viewfinder experience. Trouble was, I'd never actually used an electronic viewfinder. Certainly not one as good as the one on the OM-D E-M5 MkII. Once you have, I swear to you, there won't be any going back!

Annoyingly, the D70 doesn't show the ISO in the viewfinder or top lcd display - you only get to see what you've set when you hit the ISO button to change/modify it :-( Bummer. With the OM-D's you get all of that, and more (as much, or as little, info as you want) right in the viewfinder before you take the shot. And if you are shooting in manual and change a setting, then the exposure changes as you watch it  - real time, along with the histogram reading and any other info you have overlaid in the evf. Brilliant. Seriously, seriously brilliant.

Backlit Ferns, Nikon D70 with Nikkor 18-55mm

Did I enjoy shooting with the Nikon D70? Well, yes I did; and no, I didn't (there's that Jekyl and Hyde thing again). I really do enjoy the feel of a DLSR in my hands, and the Nikon D70 with 18-55mm kit lens isn't a heavy camera to carry around. Many people make a big thing about the weight savings when changing to mirrorless, but in terms of size and weight, the D70 with kit lens is about the same as my OM-D E-M5 MkII with battery grip attached. Things change of course if you start lugging around four or five additional lenses with a DLSR and battery grip attached - but with just a body and plastic kit lens, weight doesn't really come into the equation.

Ergonomics aside, that's about where the positives end (for me) :-)  The lack of evf, no IS (on my lens), fixed lcd screen and constant need to take my eye away from the optical viewfinder to 'chimp' the exposure or change ISO, meant that the user experience was less than smooth. I suppose the positive is that it only confirms my enjoyment of using the Olympus OM-D system.

As far as replicating the ergonomics of a DLSR on mirrorless goes, perhaps I should look at getting a Panasonic G series as a second body? It's tempting, but so is an Olympus Pen for an even smaller, carry-around-all-day style camera. It's great to have these kinds of options in the micro four thirds  ecosystem. Kudos to Olympus and Panasonic for building such a great system in such a short time.

Samsung Galaxy S3 Camera (at U21 FIFA WC)

There is a definite soccer theme emerging from my recent posts (largely unintended). So this time I thought I would write about the camera on my Samsung Galaxy S3 smart phone in relation to a recent trip to Christchurch to attend the U21 FIFA Soccer World Cup.

It is my son Joshua's 14th birthday soon, so as part of his birthday celebration, I decided to take him to watch a couple of Under 21 FIFA World Cup soccer matches. Germany was playing Honduras and Brazil vs Korea. It was amazing to be able to watch both Germany and Brazil play on the same day, and of course, I wanted to take some photos to document the event for Josh.

Josh at U21 FIFA World Cup. Samsung Galaxy S3 phone.

I got the Samsung S3 for Christmas (2014) and although I know that it is relatively 'old' technology (Samsung are up to the S6 now), I am very happy and impressed with it as a smartphone, and it is a HUGE step up from the Apple iPhone 3G that I replaced it with.

I also want to make it clear that I don't think 'camera' when I think of a smartphone. I use a phone mainly for texting, the occasional call, and then largely to run some apps - so I'm a relatively light user. The 2MP camera on my previous iPhone G3 was such rubbish that I NEVER bothered to use it, so again, the 8MP camera on the Samsung S3 is miles better in that respect. But I still don't think to take it out and use it as a camera very often, so the World Cup trip was something of an experiment for me, to force myself to actually use the camera and see what it was like.

Our seats - Stand 24, Row S, seats 198 and 199. Samsung Galaxy S3 phone

I haven't bothered to look up the specs, but I do know that it is an 8MP sensor, and it looks to be about a 35mm angle of view fixed focus lens. It does have a digital zoom (more about that later), and under good light is reasonably quick to lock on focus and has minimal lag when actually taking the photo. Of course you have to use the hold-it-out-at-arms-length style of shooting to compose the shot on the lcd screen (which I absolutely loathe) because there is no viewfinder as such.

A 5x7" print should be relatively crisp and 'clean' in terms of noise, although it's a tiny sensor housing those 8 million pixels. In nice light an 8x10" print should be 'ok'. Then good luck with anything after that. Even at those sizes, the images have a definite 'digital' look to them. But as you can see above, for the web they are perfectly acceptable.

Germany v Honduras. Samsung Galaxy S3 with digital zoom.

I mentioned earlier that the S3 has a digital zoom function. Although we weren't too far away from the field of play, I used the zoom function to get in a bit closer to the players on a few of the shots - just to see what the quality would be like. It's crap. Just terrible. Avoid at all costs. As can be seen above, it just enlarges the pixels (as all digital zoom functions do) until they are just digital mush. My sister-in-law took her Canon Powershot digital camera (itself an older 8mp model) to the game as well and got some very clean and impressive close ups thanks to her cameras 10x 'Optical' zoom. In fact, her images were better all round and really showed to me the importance of using an actual digital camera over the one that comes with your cellphone - even with the latest technology. And let's face it, todays digital cameras aren't that much bigger so that you can't carry both with you to an event and take photos with an actual camera.

Getting warm for the Brazil v Korea game. Samsung Galaxy S3 phone

Close focusing distance on the S3 is fairly impressive - presumably for all those 'selfies' we are supposed to take now? And flare is also reasonably well handled, probably because the lens on the camera is so small.

In the area that we were sitting every second person had their cellphone out, snapping away, taking 'photos' during the whole event. I only saw one person who actually had a DSLR, so he was definitely outnumbered. But I know who got the better photos :-)

Brazil v Korea under lights. Samsung Galaxy S3 phone

I do, however, realise that the tide has turned and cellphone photography is where it is at now for a major percentage of the population. Which is why I wanted to try this experiment and be like everyone else for a day. To find out exactly what kind of images are being taken on these devices, and if they actually are good enough to replace your DLSR (or micro four thirds) camera.

And I suppose the answer is - it depends. It depends on what you want to do with the final captured image? Is it just going up on Facebook (which I imagine is probably 90% of the usage)? Is it just to show your friends from the device itself? Is it to illustrate your latest blog post? Or is it to email to friends and family overseas so they can see them on their computer? If the answer is 'yes' to all of the above, then even my 'old' Samsung Galaxy S3 8MP camera phone does the job.

But does photography, and the capturing of certain events, mean a little more to you? Do you plan on actually printing any of the images you take? Do you need some flexibility in the framing, zooming or creativity with which you take pictures? If your answer is 'yes' to any of the above, then I think it still calls for a more capable image capturing device, even if that simply happens to be a digital point and shoot with a good 10x optical zoom.

So will I bring my cellphone out more often now to take photos? Probably. Especially if it's the only picture-taking device I have on me at the time. Would I use it again if I'm going to another World Cup match and want to document it for posterity? No. Next time I'll bring a point-and-shoot with a decent optical zoom on it with me.

Trouble is, I don't really own one :-)