Practicality Or Performance

Though the purpose of my pictures remain solely documentary, their quality often leaves me with quite a sour taste in my mouth. Now, a majority of that can be attributed to the effort and skill I put into their production, but, after talking to a friend whom I consider somewhat of a photography enthusiast, I thought it couldn't hurt to explore my options. So, while I was out, I snapped a few pictures, trying to create a duplicate image using both my Apple iPhone 3GS and my Canon SD780is. The iPhone is the source of the majority of my pictures, but I find myself in possession of the Canon digital camera. Though the Canon may prove to be a simple point-and-shoot model, its size and cost align themselves almost perfectly with that of the iPhone, and, as such, I found them quite logical to compare. I would, however, like to throw out a quick disclaimer and mention that I do not consider myself the least bit photographically savvy and that I simply wanted to create a few equivalent pictures to compare, as a layperson. I would also like to apologize in advance for any misuse of terminology as I am, once again, a layperson with regards to this realm. So, without further ado, let me share some of the data I was able to quickly collect.

In each of the following situations, I will post the iPhone image first and follow it with the image supplied by the Canon (and you can click on the image itself to enlarge it to a truer size). Their contents, of course, might give you an idea of my whereabouts on this beautiful December day. With the sun shining and the outside temperature finding itself north of 75 degrees, it definitely felt like hot dog weather. So, I stopped at Portillo's, and that's where this experiment began.

The first concept I chose to capture was a broad landscape, and I use that term quite loosely. The idea was that I wanted to allow a wide variance of colors, a noticeable variance in distance, and opportunities for fine detail to materialize. Though the first picture, supplied by the iPhone, captures the scene and summarizes the events, the depth and contrast of colors falls far short of stellar. If you look enlarge it, you will notice that the details of the grass, the leaves and the lettering on the building is somewhat fuzzy and muted. There are only so many pixels available, and the quickness of the capture attempts to approximate it as best it can. Though they look similar at first glance, if you focus on the second image, the one supplied by the Canon, you might notice that both the depth and contrast of the colors prove themselves a lot more vivid. If you enlarge it, you might notice a few more things, details to be specific. You might start to notice clouds more clearly, you might start to notice more distinction between leaves and sections of foliage, you might begin to be able to read the "drive-thru" sign on the wall, and you might notice that the edges of the lettering on the namesake of the building are a lot sharper. Sure, there are probably a few more things to contrast between the two images, but what I began to notice was that the Canon was starting to stand out as producing nicer images, stronger in the fields of both crispness and color depth.

As I was starting to think I may have been asking my iPhone to capture too much area, expecting it to catch too many small details over a large area, I found it logical to try to cut some of that out. I figure that, if I forced both devices to focus on a smaller area, the playing field would almost level itself. Let me just say that it didn't help. Though, in this smaller size, they appear quite similar, enlarging the image provided by the iPhone shows its rendering of the scene to be almost atrocious. The lack of detail is almost absurd, and it almost feels like a watercolor in how vaguely it distinguishes its sections. The leaves almost merge into one solid mass with only subtle variations presenting themselves. I'm not even going to talk about how tragically it portrays the neon letters on the wall. Now, if you enlarge the second image, that uploaded from the Canon, you will notice individuals leaves and even crisp edges between different areas of color. The leaves, and their fall color, finds itself much more vividly portrayed. If you inspect, once more, the neon lettering, you might be able to read them more clearly. They might even draw your attention to the letters on the water tower in the upper left. If you compared the two images on this simple item, you might notice that what looks like a "9" in the iPhone image is revealed by the Canon image as being an "O" above a "V". The differences are both noticeable and measurable, but, in an effort to go about this somewhat scientifically, I felt I needed a third, distinct, set of images to compare.

Drawing inspiration from the Everyday-Carry blog (link below) which I often find myself frequenting, I decided I could compare how the two devices capture the classic "pocket dump". The concept here is to empty your pockets and create an image containing all of the items you carry with you every day. These images are somewhat of a self-portrait. The items you attach to your life, whether thrown in your pockets, worn on your head or worn on your arms, say a lot about both you and your life. This image would usually contain my iPhone, but, as leaving it in would create a different image between devices (I would have to remove it to take the iPhone image), I chose to omit it. I thought the iPhone might make up for its previous failures if it were allowed to capture items of a more visually simple nature, mass-produced, smooth-sided items. Sadly, I was wrong, and you almost don't need to enlarge the images to notice the differences. The Canon does a much better job managing to reproduce the warmth of the setting sun, and the crisp reflection of the lenses of those sunglasses. It even does a better job capturing the fine details of the edges of each item, the stitching of the bracelet and wallet, and even the fine details of the rock. There is no comparison, but what shall I do?

As this is not the purpose of this post, I won't go into the importance of each item, but that last set of images still paints a picture of who I am more strongly than any post to date. If you look in the lens of my sunglasses, you might even notice my reflection (and that literally paints an image of who I am). Why is that relevant? Well, what we carry with us says a lot about who we are. I choose to carry only these items because I have grown accustomed to it, and it feels like a logical and responsible loadout. You would think that, if I had intent to take pictures while I was out and about, I might consider adding such a small camera, especially considering the difference in quality of the images it produces. While I have considered it, I have chosen not to. I might be sacrificing some performance, losing noticeable quality in the finished product, but I have made this choice as a preference towards practicality. It's just too much bulk. I can easily justify carrying my iPhone due to the multitude of its functions (from phone to email to internet to texting to simple photography). I cannot justify carrying an equally-sized item for the short moments I find myself in need of it. Even if I did, I would still be stuck with the problems of image and of quickness of application. Basically, I'm trying to say that its a lot more subtle to snap a quick image with your phone than it is to pull out a camera. Even if you aren't including their likeness in your image, people react negatively to the presence of a camera. They see it as an intrusion of privacy. It's a lot easier to hide snapping a picture with a cell phone. I've actually almost become a ninja with regards to this process. I am quick on the draw, and I find myself taking a majority of my images from random extensions of my arm, rarely looking at the screen. I do this in the hopes of staying under the radar. Sure, I could do that with a camera, but there is a perceived perversion with that concept, and that's not somewhere I would choose to go. Even then, I'd have to become familiar with a completely new set of controls, that of the camera, in order to utilize it both quickly and stealthily. Hence, I had to make a choice on whether I would like a solid production and greater results or if I could settle on lower quality out of respect for practicality.

Reading through the results, it might have seemed like I was leaning towards starting to apply my Canon's powers to my efforts and put its lens into action, but that just isn't going to happen. Even though I attempted to go into this decision without bias, my decision proved to be almost made for me. I have chosen to continue to use my iPhone 3GS, and I will just have to suffer through the lack of image quality. I guess anyone who reads my blog will have to suffer through that as well, and, for that, I do apologize. I aspire to own an iPhone 4 in the near future, and, hopefully, that will prove itself as a solid substitute. Until then, though partially through choice, this is what I am left with. I guess we can attribute it to one of the many decisions I, as most others, have had to make with regards to choosing practicality or performance.

Link:

Everyday-Carry: Blog