The iPhone 4S – Part I

iPhone, Photographs

It works well.

Given the poor ergonomic design of any cell phone when it comes to taking pictures, the iPhone 4S is not half bad. Sure, you have to hold the wretched thing feet from your face while you ponce about and squint, trying to make sense of what little you can make out on the screen, but iOS5 software makes the ‘+ Volume’ button into a shutter release and there’s a small built in flash (which I have yet to master and which refuses to work when I want it to) to lighten the shadows, or something. Maybe it just enhances the specs?

Coming from an ancient iPhone 3G there is a lot to like here. Sort of like when the torturer moves from ripping out nails to mere thumbscrews.

Nor do I for one moment agree with the tired dictum that has it that “The best camera is the one you have with you”. Pure rot. If you meander around hoping for something to happen, well you might as well wait for the next Hindenburg to blow. Please. Good pictures are made when you have A Sense of Purpose. Sorry, swanning around is not going to cut it.

But after the massive migraine induced by getting iCloud working and OS Lion upgraded and the new iPhone 4S responding to commands, more or less, I was just happy to go out for the groceries.

And I took the 4S with me.

And I saw some things.

Pumpkins. 4S, 1/140, f/2.4, ISO 64

Pumpkins sporting the ‘300’ effect. 4S, 1/150, f/2.4, ISO 64

De Soto. 4S, 1/120, f/2.4. ISO 80

Search me how the iPhone 4S determines the ISO, or anything else for that matter, but I do know you just push the button, bang away (the shutter lag and inter-frame delay are very short) and the picture looks like it may print at a decent size. Or at least one in which this old fart can actually make out details.

The lens has a full frame equivalent focal length of 35mm which is ideal for street snaps.

From the iPhone’s ‘lock screen’ all it takes is two stabs at the Home button and a touch of the camera icon and you are off. Nice UI design given the appalling ergonomics.

So there’s some serious potential here, not least for the fact that no one takes you seriously if you are pirouetting about with a cell phone. That is worth a lot for this street snapper. I was not kidding when suggesting that the point-and-shoot camera makers were in big doo-doo.

More to come.

A few words on Lightroom 3 import settings.

Imported JPG snaps from the 4S are overexposed compared with the usual RAW imports from my G3/G1, so I adopted the following import setting for the best results:

The sharpening settings are identical to those for the Panny G3 and may be a tad too aggressive.

The files size is 3264 x 2448 (4:3 aspect ratio), for 8mB a snap. My iPhone 4S is the cheapest 16gB model, so that means if I leave 1gB free I can still store 125 snaps. If space runs out, get on wifi and upload your pictures to the iCloud, erase from the iPhone and bang away some more. With iTunes Share coming at the end of October, the need for local storage drops greatly so it’s hard to justify the premium asked for the 32gB and 64gB iPhones 4S models. Maybe if you like to carry a lot of games on your iPhone more memory makes sense.

More snaps and field feedback appear in Part III.

Once. Again.

Photographers

The second issue is out.

I wrote about the free ‘teaser’ issue of the iPad photography magazine Once here. The second issue is just out and it’s a bargain at $2.99.

There is a startling documentary photography piece by Matt Eich on alligator farming in Louisiana. I don’t know what these tough men get for doing this job, but you can bet it’s a lot less than Bottega Veneta gets for the handbags which result.

A bayou alligator is shot prior to becoming a handbag.

The other two pieces illustrate the Bay of Bengal’s increasing salt content, a result of global warming, and Chernobyl’s catastrophic aftermath, including an outstanding interactive map showing areas with stil dangerous radiation levels around the blast site.

‘Once’ is recommended to all iPad users who enjoy documentary photograhy with a powerful message. Mine is an iPad 1 running the latest iOS5 and I rout the pictures and videos to a big screen to which an AppleTV is connected. A great way of seeing photographs, though display on the iPad’s screen is almost as good.

At $3 an issue you are not adding to the world’s recycling problem while supporting great artists.

iCloud

Photography

It’s here and it works.

The last two days were not pretty. The resident Border Terrier wisely kept a low profile while curses flew hither and yonder from the office while his guide and master got the two Hackintoshes to make nice with OS X 10.7.2. You know, the iCloud version. Throw in an iPad, a MacMini, the Apple TV and, tommorow, the iPhone 4S and we can truly say that the old manse is set for the latest and greatest.

Sure, there were issues. The usual hacking ones, which I have only Apple to blame for (because their desktop hardware sucks, and I refuse to use it, preferring Hackintoshes), and the whacked Apple servers delivering all this software goodness – mostly not delivering it, that is – for which someone at Apple should be shot. Twice. I mean, you have $100 billion at the local usurer’s (a.k.a. your neighborhood bank, which you and I just bailed out) and you can’t ramp up for this? Please. How expensive is land in North Carolina anyway?

But there is Magic in the air.

Imagine this.

You fire up the Big Machine in the office. The one with terabytes of storage. You clue it into the iCloud and pick up the iPad, the Border T. at your side on the sofa. And, my Oh! my, the ‘tunes’ are all there seconds later …. You touch one and direct it to play on the Apple TV attached to the LCD screen and its ancient tube amplifier and thirty year old Bowers & Wilkins speakers (a touch Steve would appreciate – ‘British and Best’ as my mum used to say), you pour the evening libation, tickle the pup’s ear and the music plays, the album art displays and you are thinking that maybe the world is not such a bad place.

Especially when the pianists playing four handed on the two big Steinway Ds are the Labèque sisters. And if you have no concept of the benefits of Italian and French parentage, just look:

The Labèque sisters.

Next, pictures.

The iCloud is here and it’s Magic.

Thanks, Steve

Disclosure: Long AAPL 2012 call options..

30 Rock

Photographs

The world center of Art Deco.

Some capitalists – very few – try late in life to redeem themselves. Most prefer to soak the poor as is abundantly clear from data. The disparity of wealth and income, their concentration in a few hands, has never been greater in the Western Hemisphere since 1929 and its looming Great Depression. The pitchforks are being sharpened as I write. One excellent modern example of a capitalist who wreaked great havoc with awful products and monopoly power is Bill Gates. He is mightily redeeming himself through the great work he is doing in the third world with his brains and capital, bringing medicine and health care to the abandoned continent of Africa.

But the shining example of twentieth century American wealth, well used, must be the Rockefeller family. The vision of building the masterpiece that is Rockefeller Center in mid-town Manhattan is as breathtaking today as it must have been in 1930. At the height of the Depression, the family committed vast sums to making the most perfect collection of modern buildings, even if they were to remain largely unrented for the best part of a decade.

In working with our 9 year old son over the weekend on his puzzle of choice – Manhattan and its buildings – I recall the vicarious thrill and flood of memories as we inserted the RCA building, the centerpiece of Rockefeller Center, in its appointed place. More correctly known as 30 Rockefeller Plaza, I recall so many weekend visits back in the early ’80s when New York City was my home. You could still get on 30 Rock’s Observation Deck back then and were pretty much allowed to roam about at will. The art is everywhere, the quality beyond compare.

The rink at 30 Rock, Christmas 1982. Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, Kodachrome 64.

There is but a modest selection of Art Deco, or Moderne, on the west coast where I live. If you are serious, you go to Rockefeller Center, the mother lode. If you cannot make a trip, get this book instead:

It’s beautifully illustrated and has copious details on the many artists J D Rockefeller Jr. retained to decorate the vast complex of buildings. It also relates, in fascinating detail, the drama over Marxist Diego Rivera’s stucco mural in the lobby of 30 Rock, where he insisted on including Lenin proudly marching with the oppressed masses, seemingly in defiance of their capitalist overlords. A strange concept given the number of steelworkers and artisans to which Rockefeller Center gave employment. Suffice it to say that the family couldn’t live with the idea, paid Rivera his full $21,000 fee for the half finished work, covered then destroyed it nine months later, replacing it with a supremacist creation from the right wing muralist Josep Maria Sert. Strangely, Sert’s work is maybe even more powerful than Rivera’s, the latter well illustrated in contemporary photographs. Perhaps the best aspect of the book is that it illustrates many pieces you might not normally find – for example the lovely furniture and finishes in …. the women’s toilets in Radio City Music Hall. Not something I might otherwise see! My remaindered copy ran all of $15 but there really is no excuse for missing Rockefeller Center on a trip to New York City. When I take our son a couple of years hence, it will be our first stop. The boy needs to understand what it takes to be a man.