Brighton Rocks! (with apologies to Queen) - Olympus Pen EP3 at New Brighton

In a very recent post here, I described how my wife and I have been traveling over to Christchurch a lot recently. The trips continue, although it may be slowing up soon? I'm enjoying the long weekends, and I'm also enjoying the chance to use a different camera kit each time I go. Last trip, I decided to travel light and bring my Olympus Pen EP3 along for the ride.

Beach Walk. Pen EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm II. f4 @1/500th - ISO 200

On the Monday morning, after my wife's appointment, we decided to head out to New Brighton. Neither of us had been there for many years, and while it was a bit chilly, we thought we'd go for a walk along the New Brighton Pier. When we arrived, I parked the car in a carpark along the beach and the shot above was the first thing I saw when I got out of the car. On some of the images, there was a man walking his dog up the path. But in the end I preferred the shot where I waited for him to crest the hill and move out of the frame. I think this works more on a visual level as the path now invites the viewer to walk along it, rather than already have a figure occupying the space?

New Brighton Pier. Olympus Pen EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/250th - ISO 200

The light wasn't anything special - it didn't even look this good (it's amazing what the Clarity and Dehaze sliders in Lightroom can do for a flat image). I really only took some 'record' shots as we wandered around mid-morning. But then again, that's what the little micro four thirds Pen EP3 excels at. It's a very compact, very lightweight, yet very capable travel camera - perfect to record those day trips wandering around a city being a tourist.

New Brighton Beach from the Pier. Pen EP3 with 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/250th - ISO 200

As we wandered along the pier there was some reasonably nice light looking out across the beach. I envisaged this photo in black & white as I was taking it. The scene was already very monochromatic, so converting to black and white (later in Photoshop) was always the intended result. Once again, I've made use of the clarity and dehaze sliders, as well as some slight burning and dodging to boost the contrast in the image. I don't think I've taken it too far - black and white images seem to be able to handle a little more vigorous processing - but it is easy to push things a bit too much. Especially with the smaller 12MP micro four thirds sensor. I prefer my b&w images to be slightly more contrasty than normal colour images. I was taught a long time ago, in my film days, to create a print with "black blacks and white whites", and that's what I always try to do with my monochrome images. Who said that paper-white and absolute black was a bad thing?

Brown speckled Seagull. Pen EP3 with Zuiko 40-150mm f4/5.6. f5 @ 1/400th - ISO 200

Not surprisingly, where there is a beach, and where there is a pier, and where there are people fishing, there will always be seagulls! And these were some of the biggest, noisiest and bolshiest seagulls I've ever come across. I think the seagull above is a juvenile - but it was the biggest damn seagull I've ever seen! The photo doesn't really do it justice since there's no comparison for scale, but it was 'big'. If it is a juvenile, then I hate to think what size it will get to as an adult!

The shot was taken with the small, lightweight, but exceptionally sharp 40-150mm f4/5.6 telezoom kit lens. It weighs practically nothing, but has an 80 to 300mm reach (in 35mm full frame terms). This is another reason why the small micro four thirds EP3 is an ideal travel companion.

New Brighton Grafitti. Pen EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/100th - ISO 200

It was getting a bit chilly on the pier (and we were both recovering from the flu), so we decided to head into the township and check out the New Brighton CBD. Unfortunately, it's not a pretty picture. New Brighton has struggled to attract visitors to its shopping area for a long time, despite having the beach and the pier right on their doorstep. I can remember going there over 20 years ago and thinking it was struggling to attract people. Twenty years, and several earthquakes later, and the prognosis is a lot worse. Lots of empty, dilapidated shop fronts and buildings are the norm, with only a sprinkling of outlets open for business. Very sad. There was, however, some very cool graffiti to photograph - so that's what I concentrated on.

The Best Things in Life... Olympus Pen EP3 with 14-42mm. f4.9 @ 1/60th - ISO 200

In terms of a micro four thirds camera, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with the EP3. I love its styling and retro looks, its compactness and light weight, and it's a fairly responsive wee camera. It's quick focusing (much better than the previous EP models), has 'enough' megapixels, and supports the vast range of super primes that both Olympus and Panasonic produce.

But I hate (and I mean hate-with-a-passion in the strongest sense of the word) the fact that it has no evf (electronic view finder) built into the camera. Yes, I get it - adding an evf would have made it more bulky, and ruined the slimline form factor they've got going on. Don't care. I would have lived with a little extra weight - and form factor be damned - I want functionality! And yes, I know you can get add-on evf's for it - and if I end up keeping the EP3 long-term then I think that's exactly what I'll do. I really do hate the 'hold-the-camera-out-at-arms-length-and-use-the-rear-lcd-screen" method of composing - and taking - an image. It's just so wrong on so many levels. I'm prepared to live with it on a cellphone, because it just is what it is. But this is a camera for crying out loud. Please don't make us buy an accessory just to get an evf! Ooops - too late...

"I yam wot I yam". Olympus EP3 with 9mm fisheye lenscap. f8 @ 1/125th - ISO 200

Ok, despite my pet peeve, it's still a fun camera to travel around with. I just think it would be even 'funner' with an evf! 😁

Plonk the 9mm Olympus fisheye bodycap on the front and you have a truly pocketable camera (albiet with a fixed f8 fisheye lens). I love the fisheye look - used sparingly. With a subject like the graffiti wall above it works perfectly. And it's pretty sharp too - especially centrally.

The camera with three lenses (from 9mm fisheye up to 300mm telephoto), spare battery and spare SD card, fits into a camera bag not much larger than most women's make-up cases. Carrying it around all day is truly a breeze. Why wouldn't you?

New Brighton Graffiti 2. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm. f5.6 @ 1/100th - ISO 200

Being a slightly older generation 12MP micro four thirds camera (it was released in 2011) means that the sensor does have its limits - as we'll see in my next post (oh you tease!). It gets noisy fast at higher ISO's and in lower light, it's 'only' 12MP on a smaller than APS-C sensor, and it doesn't have the high dynamic range capabilities of later micro four thirds or DSLR cameras with larger sensors.

Yet as can also be seen in all the images in this post, if you use it in half-way decent light, at the lower ISO's, then the results are sharp, punchy, colourful and impressive. Would I continue to carry this in preference to my iPhone for travel pictures? Yes, I would. Why - you ask? And it's a very good question.

Pier Side. Olympus EP3 with Zuiko 14-42mm lens. f5.6 @ 1/125th - ISO 200

Why? Because it's a far more versatile system for taking photos with. As already mentioned, I can go from fisheye to 300mm with the change of a lens. It also gives me more control over the final image and how I want it to look - especially with apertures. The micro four thirds sensor might be small, but it's still bigger than an iPhone's, and background blur is more achievable (look at the seagull image). IQ (image quality) is probably quite similar, although I'd still give the edge to the larger micro four thirds sensor in the EP3. And of course, until I get an evf accessory for the Olympus, both still force you to use the 'compose-with-the-lcd-screen' method.

So I would say that, on average, the dedicated camera system is still the way to go - for me at least. Still, two or three years ago I wouldn't have even considered the comparison. It would have been a 'no contest' win to the EP3. But times they are a changing. I am using my cellphone to take more travel images. And I can carry around a few tiny additional lenses to increase the capabilities of the iPhone's native lens. Maybe an EP3 vs iPhone 6 image quality comparison is in order? I feel a new blogpost coming on...

Long exposure iPhone images with Spectre

When I wus lad (he said, using his best cockney accent) there was a hair cream advert on TV that used the catch-phrase "I never thought I'd see the day..."

Fast forward forty years, and this phrase is playing over in my head as I sit to write this post.

I've written previously, probably many times in this very blog, about my dismissal of the iPhone (and mobile phones in general) as a 'serious' image capturing device. Nevermind that the weight of popular opinion would suggest otherwise. Flickr's 2017 data has the iPhone as the most used camera with 54% (over half) of the top 100 cameras used by photographers. Canon is next with 23%, and Nikon is 3rd with 18%.

Now granted, Flickr probably isn't the powerhouse photography app it used to be, and probably only a tiny fraction (if any) of those statistics relate to professional photographers. But still, it's a very impressive win for the iPhone in the 'every-day' photography category - which we all know makes up the bulk of today's plethora of image taking.

Does that mean, therefore, that my opinion of using an iPhone/mobile phone for photography has changed? Well yeah, it kinda does. And actually, it changed a couple of years ago when my daughter got her new iPhone 7Plus. The dual 12MP rear cameras (one 28mm wide and one 56mm telephoto) are capable of taking stunning photos. So much so, that the iPhone 7 was the 'camera' Emily used to create her Yr13 Photography portfolio.

I have an iPhone 6, with a 8MP rear facing single camera (about 30mm wide), so it's not as good (not surprisingly). In good light it's not terrible, but it's also no Canon 5D Mk4 (although neither is the iPhone 7 to be fair). Yet if we look at mobile phone companies like Huawei, who are partnering with Leica to produce a 40MP camera on their phones, then it's quite obvious that it's only going to get better and better. Will the camera phone seriously challenge the DSLR eventually? Probably.

Spectre iPhone app - an AI powered 'long exposure' app

Where am I going with all this? (Yes, for heaven's sake, get to the point man)! All that is to say that 'yes', I am using my iPhone more for taking photos (and certainly for capturing video). And a perfect case-in-point was just the other night when I went to my local camera club's monthly meeting. I was there to push (err, I mean discuss) my 'advanced' photography workshop running this weekend (as I write this). But it just so happened that this coincided with a hands-on practical session photographing dancers.

I didn't have my camera with me (big shot advanced photography teacher who doesn't bring a camera to a photography club gathering), but I did have my iPhone (of course). The lighting in the hall where the meeting was being held was tricky (some spotlighting, some dark shadows, some bright colours), so I decided to shoot long exposures on my iPhone using a recently acquired app - Spectre. Yeah, I know, sounds very cool - right? Very James Bond. And it is very cool - for an iPhone camera app.

Dancers. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure.

The app is actually designed to help you create long exposure shots of waterfalls and such so you can achieve that silky smooth smokey water effect or long light trail images. You can choose between 3, 5 and 9 second exposures, and can even get away with the 3 second exposures hand-held if there's enough light around. Pretty impressive in theory, but I'd never actually used it in practice.

At the Bar. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure

Because there definitely wasn't enough light around, I knew I was going to get a lot of blurring in the final images. So I chose a 3 second long exposure time and tried to use the blurring of the dancer's movements in my favour. Using the app was as simple as choosing the 3 seconds on the dial, pushing the shutter button, and watching while the image blur built up on the screen. Very cool.

If there was too much subject and camera movement, the final result was almost unrecognisable. But if I timed it so that there was a short period of static pose before movement, then the resulting image seemed to make more sense.

Twirling Dervishes. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure

I'm a huge fan of ICM (Intentional Camera Movement) photography, so this was right up my alley. I wasn't worrying about taking sharp, clear images - in fact just the opposite. If there was a lot of movement happening in front of me, then I just held the camera reasonably steady and captured the movement of the dancers. If the scene was more static, then I moved the phone itself to create the motion blur.

Ethereal Dancers. iPhone 6 with Spectre app. 3 second long exposure

I love this last image, especially converted to black and white. It has a beautifully spooky yet graceful quality to it. Could I have taken the same shot with my DLSR? Yes, of course I could. You might even argue that it would have been even better, since I would have had even more control over shutter speeds (you're limited to just the 3, 5 and 9 with Spectre). And yet, looking around the room at the other images taken that evening - all on DSLR's - there weren't any that looked quite like the ones I'd managed to capture on my iPhone using Spectre. There were some great images, don't get me wrong. But mostly they had gone for telephoto, close-cropped, sharp results. Everything I couldn't do on the iPhone 6, even if I'd wanted to.

Using Spectre on the iPhone was also just a whole heap of fun! Far too often we, as 'serious' photographers, disregard the fun factor. I know I do. The simplicity of whipping out your phone, clicking on an app, and creating beautiful images in seconds - with the minimal of fuss and gear - is also quite liberating and can't be stressed enough. It was actually being limited by the gear that I was using that forced me to think differently, and thereby craft images that I might not otherwise have considered taking.

So maybe it isn't the iPhone that's going to revolutionise photography or our images going forward? Maybe it's using the tools we have at our disposal and then thinking creatively, outside the box, to craft images that stand out from the crowd, no matter what we're using to create them with? Just a thought...

Iboolo 8-in-1 Mobile Phone lens kit review

Since deciding to vlog more often with my iPhone 6, I've been considering the limitation of using just the wide(ish) lens. I don't want to use the digital zoom function on the camera - it just turns the footage to mush - so telephoto shooting is out. And the only way to get a 'wider' angle, especially when using the front-facing selfie camera, is to physically move the phone further away. This creates problems, not only in terms of using something like a selfie stick (perish the thought), but also for audio quality. The further away the camera is from the subject talking (i.e me), the harder it has to work, and the more the gain needs to be ramped up. Not ideal.

There are two solutions to this problem. First - get a new phone 😁 Something like the iPhone X with its dual camera setup - one wide angle and one telephoto - both image stabilised. Nice. Unfortunately, a new iPhone X isn't in my future (present or distant). I'd like to stay married. And at currently $1,500.00NZ it's more than I'm ever going to be able to justify spending on a phone. I am thinking of upgrading my iPhone 6 to a 6s Plus (hi honey) for better video quality (noteably 1080p for the front-facing camera). But that's also in the future. And it still won't fix the wide angle or telephoto shooting issues.

Enter solution number two; lens accessories for the iPhone. This is by far the cheaper, and probably easier solution to the problem of getting different focal lengths on any mobile phone - and it might just mean I stay married for a bit longer 😜 But are they any good? Great question... read on to find out how 'good' the cheaper lens accessory kits are.

First, we need a 'control' image for our little experiment - a shot taken with just the iPhone 6 main rear-facing 8MP camera - 'naked' (ooh-err) as it were - sans lens adapters. And here it is...

iPhone 6 8MP rear-facing main camera

Not bad - and gives a field of view (fov) roughly equivalent to 35mm on a full frame digital camera. Wide, but not excessively so. What if we want to go wider?

iPhone 6 with the Iboolo wide angle (0.63x) lens attachment

That's much better. We're now looking at a fov of roughly 28mm, which is certainly better wide-angle coverage, and should make vlogging much easier by including a little more 'breathing space' around the frame. What about image quality though? When you attach any extra glass over a lens you run the risk of softening the image and adding unwanted fringing.

Well, actually, it's not too bad. Centrally, it's about the same as the unadorned lens, and would certainly hold-up for video footage. It's the edges of the frame where things start to look a little soft and distorted, but not alarmingly so. I would happily use the lens for vlogging. Might keep my DSLR setup for my important landscape images though 😉 Can we go even wider still?

iPhone 6 with the Iboolo super wide angle (0.36x) lens attachment

Sure can, and it is certainly much wider. I'd say about 18 to 20mm in standard DSLR terms. However, going 'super' wide is pushing the limits of the lenses capability somewhat, especially at the edges.

Top right corner with the 'super' wide. Nothing but mush!

As can be seen opposite, the corners and edge of the frame basically turn to mush, and for print images are pretty much unuseable. Still, for video work it probably isn't a deal-breaker, as long as the main subject is kept fairly central in the frame. In fact the blurry and smudgy edges could be seen as 'artsy' and something that was done in post-production to produce a vintage lens type effect. Or am I making a silk purse out of a sows ear?

Just looking at the two wide-angle options, I think I would be more inclined to use the standard wide adapter on a daily basis, and keep the 'super' wide for those time when I simply have to go wider and damn the consequences. Also, it's worth noting that placing the lens attachment as centrally as possible over the phones lens is absolutely critical if you want to avoid edge distortion. I placed the clip onto the phone without any lenses attached first, so I could align the hole centrally. Then I screwed the attachment lens in place when I was happy that the holder was positioned perfectly.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo x2 Telephoto lens attachment

Ok, so that's the wide angle side of things. What about telephoto? The 8in1 kit I purchased has one telephoto lens in it - a x2 - which I guess means an equivalent 60 to 70mm reach in traditional film terms? As with the standard wide attachment, the telephoto holds up well centrally, but has a little edge distortion. Once again, probably a pass for video footage, but not stellar for actual photography. I compared this image with simply cropping tighter on the original file sans lens attachment, and the original file was actually crisper. Especially around the edges of the frame.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Polariser lens

One of the lenses that I might end up using most often is the polariser. It made quite a difference to the colours when I attached the polariser and twirled it around, without compromising on the quality of the phones in-built lens. Everything is nice and sharp, but the image exhibits a bit more 'pop' than without the polariser. Not surprising really, since that's exactly what a polariser does! Unfortunately, you can't stack the lenses, so it's the polairser or the wide angle - it can't be both.

Attached to the standard wide angle (screwed in below it) is the Macro lens. The image opposite is the standard close-focusing you can get from the iPhone 6, which isn't bad, but it isn't great either.

Using the macro lens attachment (by unscrewing the standard wide angle lens that's on top of it) means you can get closer - a lot closer - for some rather impressive macro images. In fact, you can get so close, that I thought the front element of the lens was in danger of touching the plant I was photographing! When I first put the macro lens on the phone I thought it was broken - the image was all blurry, fuzzy, and out of focus.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Macro attachment

Then I realised that I wasn't placing the lens close enough to the subject! Once I figured this out, and started placing the lens directly on top of the subject, the macro image jumped into focus. I love the image of the flower stamen above - an impressive, and clear result with some lovely background blur.

So that's five lenses down - three to go. The final three are what I would categorise as 'novelty' lenses. To be used sparingly (if at all). The first of these is the Fisheye lens.

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Fisheye lens

Fisheye lenses are fun, no doubt. But lets face it, they are also limited fun. Too much fisheye is like too much Wasabi paste. A little goes a long way. So although kinda fun, the fisheye accessory lens has limited use. But uses it does have. Unlike the next novelty lens which, having used once, I don't think I'll ever use again...

iPhone 6 with Iboolo Kaleidoscope lens attachment

That's just strange. Seriously. It's not even so bad as to be kinda good. It's just bad. So scratch the Kaleidoscope attachment off the list of useable attachment lenses.

And the last one is also really only a novelty attachment. It's a Starburst filter effect - again not something I think Ill ever use. Haven't even bothered trying it out yet to be honest.

So of the set of eight, I'm probably going to use two of them quite a bit (the wide and polariser), two occasionally (the super wide and macro), one every so often (the x2 telephoto), and three probably never (guess which three 😉).

Quality-wise, the wide and polariser are the best of the bunch, producing the cleanest and sharpest images. The super-wide is pushing it for quality, although it will still probably be ok for video footage, and the x2 telephoto is ok, but probably no better than digital cropping of the original file.

Was it worth the $30.00NZ I paid for the kit? Absolutely it was. They may not be the best quality attachment lenses ever made, but it's given me a taste of phone attachments, so I know what I'm looking for if I want to spend a little more for a better product later on. You can get some more impressive (read more expensive) wide angle attachments made specifically for the iPhone, and that might be where I'm headed in the future. But for the time being, the 8in1 lens kit from Iboolo will do the job nicely.

iPhone Vlogging Setup

Recently here in New Zealand we had 'TechWeek' - a week-long series of events held up and down the country to promote the use of technology (as if that really needs promoting?).

I actually taught a couple of events this year (an Introduction to Adobe Photoshop and an Introduction to Adobe InDesign CC), but was also lucky enough, through work, to actually attend one. 'iPhone Video Making Made Easy' was run by John McKenzie of Enthuse Media and Events (Hi John), and work thought it would be good to send a few of us along to see if this could be incorporated into the marketing team.

I've been vlogging for a little while now - trying out a few vlogging setups and editing solutions - with varying degrees of success. I've written about my trials and tribulations here, but needless to say, the 'perfect' solution has eluded me up to this point. I'm also willing to admit that I never really considered vlogging with my iPhone. I didn't really think it would be good enough quality, and just assumed that a DLSR or mirrorless camera would be a better solution?

Thanks to John, however, my eyes have been open to the incredible potential we have for video creation built directly into our iPhones. Shooting in hi-definition 1080p (4k video on iPhone 7 and later) and editing directly on my iPhone 6 with iMovie, I was blown away with the quality of video I could produce straight from the phone! No external editing on the computer required (although you could if you wanted to).

Sevenoak iPhone Smart Grip SK-PSC1

I've been so inspired by the training session we had with John, and the quality of the results we achieved in just a morning, that I've decided to jump all-in and set up my iPhone as my vlogging camera. First step - some sort of grip or video mount so you can hold the iPhone in a more comfortable/stable grip for filming.

I did a bit of on-line research before coming across almost the perfect solution: the Sevenoak phone grip SK-PSC1. Other vloggers had used the product and filmed glowing reviews, and it seemed to tick all the right boxes (stable, solid, versatile and well priced). Most important of all was the inclusion of a cold shoe on the top of the grip to attach an external microphone.

I have a Rhode videomicro - external microphone, that I bought when I was doing some video with my Olympus OM-D EM-5 II. I had also used it on my first vlog with the Canon 650D, but havn't used it since. The Olympus EP-3 I've been using for video more recently doesn't have an external microphone port (!), and neither do the video camcorder options I have. Good audio quality is make or break in video production, and although I've played with some work-arounds, I'd much rather have the ability to just plug in an external microphone and go. Guess what. The iPhone 6 lets you do just that... with a slight modification.

The Rhode videomicro, as purchased off the shelf, comes with a cable that connects the microphone to a DSLR and draws power from the camera itself. This is a TRS to TRS cable and works with all digital cameras that have an external mic port. An iPhone, however, has a TRRS port and requires the purchase of the correct jack to transmit the sound from the microphone to the phone. It's the Rhode SC7 TRS to TRRS Patch Cable and is also, fortunately, relatively inexpensive. 

So with the Sevenoak grip, Rhode videomicro, and proper adapter cable, I'm pretty much good-to go. Total cost (not counting the iPhone) only $175.00NZ.

The Sevenoak grip is super versatile; it can be used as-is hand-held, or the bottom can screw off and a monopod/tripod/selfie stick can be screwed on instead for more stability or extra reach. The cold shoe can hold an external microphone or video light, or you can do what I intend to do and add another cold shoe bracket for even extra versatility!

My 'ultimate' iPhone vlogging rig.

Another cold shoe bracket, and LED video light, will set me back another $60 - giving me the 'ultimate' rig opposite - for a grand total of $235.00NZ. Not bad (in fact pretty damn amazing) for a very light-weight, portable, and yet very powerful, video production outfit.

Are there any downsides to all of this? Really, I can only think of two - lens selection and image stabilisation.

The iPhone 6 only has a wide angle (22mm?) fixed-lens camera - the digital zoom is absolutely unusable. So it's either zoom with the feet, or don't zoom at all! And the stabilisation is digital - not optical (this came in for the iPhone 7), so more care needs to be taken to capture steady footage.

But I think I can work within these limitations (we'll see won't we) and still capture video that will tell the story that I need it to tell.

Also, initial impressions of iMovie are favourable, but I havn't really given it a good work-out processing a video with a lot of footage, photos, sound, music and transitions. Storage may end up being an issue as well (my iPhone is a 32GB, with about 20GB free), and I may have to transfer all the files to my computer once the video has been edited and saved.

I'm hoping that these are only minor annoyances (or maybe good reasons to upgrade?) in what will be an exciting and fun vlogging experience. The weather here has been terrible all week, but the weekend is looking promising. I might just have to try out the new iPhone vlogging rig this weekend? I'll let you know how I get on...

Castle Hill, a Concert, and the iPhone 5s

For Father's Day this year the family got together and brought me a new (slightly used) iPhone 5s. My Samsung S3 was becoming increasingly unreliable (turning itself off on a regular basis), so I'd been making noises about a 'new' phone for quite a while.

It also happened that a friend recently upgraded to the iPhone 6s, and was no longer using his 1 year old iPhone 5s (in mint condition). So a deal was done, and we both came away very happy.

I've written on this blog before about not being interested in the cutting edge of cellphone technology. For a start I don't have the budget for it. And secondly, I'm a pretty conservative phone user. I basically use them for texting, the occasional call, and for listening to music on :-) So I don't want the latest or greatest mobile phone. My first cellphone was an iPhone 3, which I absolutely loved. My next phone was the Samsung S3 which I purchased new, since it was about 3 generations old at the time. Another great phone - but it was Android, and I did miss the iOS experience. So I've moved back to Apple again with the 5s and, once again, I'm loving it.

Castle Hill. iPhone 5s. Shot from a moving vehicle.

Exactly one week ago (as I post this) I was lucky enough to be offered a ticket to the Midnight Oil concert in Christchurch. My brother-in-law (thanks Hamish) had a friend pull out at the last minute, so he asked me if I'd like to go instead. I didn't need asking twice!

Because the concert was on a week night, the family decided I would catch the shuttle service to Christchurch from Greymouth and go on my own. Bit of a blokes night out. I traveled very light, basically just a change of clothes and a toothbrush. I certainly didn't consider taking my OM-D E-M1 with me, although I did suspect that there might be a few photo opportunities. Enter the iPhone 5s.

Midnight Oil video screens at Horncastle Arena, Christchurch

I'm not going to bang on again in this post about how a camera phone is no substitute for a 'real' camera - I've made myself very clear on the subject on numerous occasions quite recently. But hey, I had a new iPhone 5s in my pocket, so wasn't I just a little curious about the quality of its camera? Of course I was.

In terms of its camera, the iPhone 5s uses a 1/3" 8MP sensor - which just so happens to be exactly the same specs as the Samsung S3. Is the camera's performance the same then? Short answer - yes. Practically identical. Which is to say, not that great (imho). I know for a fact that the 'newer' generation of iPhones like the 7 (and now 8) have excellent cameras on them - my daughter has the iPhone 7Plus and the photos she gets using her phone are quite impressive indeed. Unfortunately (although not surprisingly), the camera on the iPhone 5s is not in the same league.

Peter Garrett and Midnight Oil. iPhone 5s

Is it unusable as a camera? Well no, of course not. And maybe given the circumstances (a very dark, in-door concert, at night), it actually did a fairly impressive job. At least I thought it did when I reviewed the images after taking them on the little 4 inch screen. The reality is a little different when you look at them on a 21" monitor however.

Midnight Oil, Horncastle Arena, Christchurch. iPhone 5s

There was a good crowd for the concert, although it wasn't packed (not surprisingly on a Monday night). There was plenty of space, and no one was banging into you from the sides or behind - so holding the phone steady was relatively easy. It was also fairly easy to get a good view. We were about 15 meters from the front of the stage without having to push and shove to get there, and probably could have gotten even closer had we wanted to. The touch-to-focus function worked very accurately in low light, although I suspect the high contrast offered by the stage lights helped in this regard.

The 'Oils' in full voice! iPhone 5s

Pinch to zoom (digitally) did help to get even closer to the action, although at a cost. The images taken zoomed in are even softer and more overtly 'digital' looking than those shot at 'normal' focal length (of around 30mm in full-frame camera terms). I won't be printing them out and hanging them on the wall anytime soon (or ever), but as low-res images for the blog (or as wallpaper for my phone) they work just fine.

Dump Trump! Midnight Oil's Peter Garrett as political as ever...  iPhone 5s

Am I disappointed in the images I got from the concert then? Actually no - not at all. I'm really quite happy with them, all things considered. As I said earlier, this wasn't about photography, this was about enjoying a concert. And enjoy the concert I most certainly did!

You can see in some of the photos above that many other concert-goers had their phones out, capturing and recording the event for posterity. And while I can kind of understand why they do it, it also drives me crazy! Yeah, I know - I did it too (although not in video). But over the course of a two hour concert, I took maybe 20 photos on my phone - mostly at the start, and then a few at the end. Many others had their phones out over 50% of the time, experiencing this larger than life event through a 5" screen. Seriously people?