'The best camera is the one that you have with you' Nothing wrong with using it as a phone camera is what most people will have on them at all times.
Curiously, I'm more likely to have a camera on me than a 'phone!.. and even if I did, until last year, 'phone didn't have a camera in it!
Belive it or not,i tend to use my phone for phone calls
I tend to use OTHER-PEOPLE'S phones.... Usually to call MY phone and find where I left it!
No.. actually, thinking about it, I tend to get other people to use other people's 'phones to call my phone, to find where I left it!
I was actually convinced to 'get into the twenty first century, DAD!' last year, and buy a more up-to-date 'phone... and completely bamboozled my critics who expected me to get 'their' idea of an 'up-to-date' 'phone.... "THAT'S worse than what you HAD!" they exclaimed, "It twice the size and, and, and... it has BUTTONS!"...yeah, I like buttons! Preferably BIG, well spaced, buttons so I can actually press one, rather than three at a time!! "WHY did you buy '
THAT!" they asked.... "Well... I explained... apparently the battery will last three months without being charged.. mean that when I ask you to call it, so I can try and find where I left it, it MIGHT still be switched on!" LoL!
But, not adding much to the thread, really, other than to suggest that there are still 'some' folk who have remained aloof of the 'wired' world! So....
Daughter is the master of the camera-phone in this house.. mine is apparently a 'potato' though.. she was trying to do 'something' with water-drops on the lens for her O-Level photo a while back, and getting in a quandary about getting her 'new' fancy-fone wet, so I suggested she use mine, 'cos a) some-one aught to! b) its water-proof c) Although its supposed to be nie on indestructible... I wouldn't miss it much if it's circuits DID get fried!... "NO Dad... its a 'potato'..."
However.. was quite remarkable, that for O-Level 'photo course, not just my daughter, but her whole class, did more with mobile-telephones than they did 'proper' cameras, and more remarkable just how 'creative' they got with them!
Actually 'lacking' the sophistication of a dedicated photo-maker, the 'limitations' of a camera 'phone, not having the 'options' of changing lenses or selecting aperture and shutter settings, or ramping to high ISO's in low-light, were actually 'exploited' by her teacher to get them away from looking 'at' the camera, and looking at what they wanted a picture of! (He went to the head of the class, in my book for that comment!)
He got them considering the composition, considering more carefully their 'subject' and other 'elements' in the scene; the back-ground and the all important 'lighting'.. their 'work-books' were quite fascinating to look at, and very heartening to see how much they did do 'outside' the camera messing with back-drops and props and 'lights'... daughter actually got a bit carried away with that one and 6m of Electro-Luminouse cabling! ad a set of battery operated Christmas tree fairly lights! But still! An awful lot of 'craft' was still learned and utilised... and an awful lot of imagination shown.
One more depressing 'bit' though was when they used 'phone-ap 'post-process' filters. One touch 'effects'... to make very carefully conceived pictures look like any other bit of face-book rubbish! But the they had to look at that to consider 'style' and why those filters were 'popular' and how to get that 'style' without resorting to post-process 'tricks'... hence putting things like toffee wrappers in front of the lens... apparently a Worthers original paper, with the foil peeled off, creates a very similar effect to an instagram 'Antique Sepia'.... bits of card with holes cut in them were also used, so was tissue paper, and the afore mentioned beads of water.... some-times coloured with cake dye!
Which is a little illuminating to an old Luddite like me, to reconsider preconceptions about the things, and ponder that perhaps they don't really DENY so many creative opportunities as beg you to try DIFFERENT ones... Provided your 'phone's not a potato like mine, apparently!
Although!!!!! I have discovered my potato-phone has a very useful 'Flash' that has bee an invaluable aid to 'night-time' photography! - If I press and hold the 5-button.. it comes 'on' as a 'torch'! GREAT for hunting out stuff from my camera bag or avoiding cow-pats walking across a pitch-black field! ;-) - Bludy expensive 'torch' though, but 'easy to find.. so long as I have some-one on hand with another telephone ;-)
