The Great Cellphone Camera Challenge!
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Cellphone cameras have gotten so good that they deserve a thread of their own!
Let's see what you've done with your cellphone camera!! I've decided this year to try to use only my cellphone for trail photos, learning to work around its limitations to discover what it can do and not worry about what it can't do.
The only "rules" I would suggest are 1) that the photo was made with a cellphone camera and 2) that you took the photo.
After that, all constraints are off. The use of phone camera apps is encouraged and post-processing with Photoshop (or other programs) is greatly welcomed, and composite ("stitched") photos and panoramas would be totally cool. Just tell us what you did and how you did it and what app you used so we can all learn new techniques for making awesome photos with cellphone cameras.
I'll make the first contribution. This is from a winter hike a few weeks ago and was made along the AT (Island Pond Mountain, Harriman State Park, NY) with a Samsung Galaxy S5. The photo looked great on the phone but dull on the computer screen, so I used PS 'levels' to restore the snap and a tiny increase of saturation for the colors. The ice crystals in the foreground were a little fuzzy so I used 'unsharp mask' to add a little sparkle to them. It is full-frame, not cropped.
Photo From Yocum Ridge on Mt Hood. Looking NW. From left to right: St. Helens, Rainier, Mt. Adams
Edit. Darken. It's brighter on computer duh
Great thread idea! Mind if I post a few? I'm no pro, but I have a few shots I really like. (click on them view in higher resolution)
On the JMT. I think that's Ritter and Banner in the background. It took me forever to get this shot without any people in it!
How about a panorama? Thousand Island Lake, shot with the iOS camera's built-in panorama tool.
Another from the JMT. This is Purple Lake. The sign says "no campfires above 10,000 feet."
And now for something completely different. My feet and my wife at Point Dume on Christmas. This was taken with Instagram, I don't remember what filter I used but obviously I used one. It's definitely the typical "instagrammy" style, but I like it.These were all taken with an iPhone 5S. I did some basic level adjustment in Aperture on the first three, but I can't remember exactly what I did.
Sorry… I'm not smart enough to use any apps to make my photos better (might not even be smart enough to post them here… we'll see!), but every once in a while I get one I like. For example…
(Franconia Ridge, NH, taken from North Kinsman last fall with an iPhone 4, I think)
(The ridge on Mount Moosilauke, NH, taken last fall with an iPhone6)
(the sign on the summit of Moosilauke… it seems like it's always covered with rime ice!)Those are awesome guys!
Here are some recent ones from San Jacinto:
And the Finger Lake region:
Good stuff!
I think most folks would have a hard time telling if many (or any) of these photos were made with a P&S, SLR or a phone cam.
Let's keep posting as the season progresses.
Here's one from a recent trip to the White Mts, NH, and our attempt to summit Mt Washington. This is just below Lion Head with wind about 40mph and much higher gusts. Temp was 17°F. It got much worse than this above Alpine Garden with visibility rapidly approaching zero, so we turned around about .3mi from the summit. It's hard to use any kind of camera in these conditions!
The photo was resized and I just used PS 'auto smart fix' which rendered a pretty good result.
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Edit to add comparison photo. I noticed the vignetting 'hot spot' in the center so I did a central selection with the lasso and a 150pixel feather and darkened the center a little.
These are from Kennebec pass area right near the end of the Colorado trail.
Didn't know the limit on uploads so I resized both. Top was a panorama done in camera. A little bit of color/levels correction in photoshop was done on each. Both were taken with my GS4.
Taken on my iPhone 5s. We were on the river bank at the Delaware Water Gap in NJ. New at the whole trying to do a good job taking pictures thing.
March 2012, Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, rock climbing and scrambling with my daughter.
Joshua Tree this past weekend:
For anyone looking to use their phones in low-light situations, I highly recommend downloading an app that lets you shoot in manual mode so you can drop the ISO way down.
Actually, I recommend an app like that to anyone looking to use their phone as a camera for something other than selfies.
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