The Great Cellphone Camera Challenge!

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

Cool, Jeff — what a view!

What phone cam did you use and where was it taken?

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.

I can't help commenting that the 'quality' of the photos seems to be more dependent on the guy behind the viewfinder than anything else.

cheers

Sure. Composition is one thing. Resolution is another. My Olympus takes crappy photos compared to the Canon I had before it.

March 2012, Red Rock Canyon outside of Las Vegas, rock climbing and scrambling with my daughter.

Roger, I agree whole heartedly. Any tips for me?

> Any tips for me?
Strangely enough, yes.

Take LOTS of photos – LOT & LOTS.
Review them weeks later and judge them yourself: what you did right and what you did wrong. Be really harsh.
After a while, it starts to creep in.

Cheers

That is some really good advice.

And the tips really haven't changed much over the years; something such as the old "Kodak Pocket Guides" offer some great advice on lighting and composition, even if the info on films and light meters is antiquated.

It's also helpful to go through all the "settings" menus for the camera to see what options are available and to think about the situations in which you might choose one option over another.

@Ben… it took me a few seconds to figure out that was sideways!

@David… that is a timeless treasure… an instant family heirloom. Superb.

No love lost for our photo insertion system here. No idea why is sideways

Love this thread Bob.

Took this shot with my iPhone 5s enroute to the GGG this year

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My wife likes this one, from Moosilauke a few days ago.

Richard,

What in the world is all that white stuff on the ground and on the trees?

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.

"I highly recommend downloading an app that lets you shoot in manual mode so you can drop the ISO way down."

Didn't realize there was such an animal but I guess I should've known. Other than the fact that it uses the Windows OS, I though the camera controls on the Nokia 1020 were relatively easy to work with.

Which app are you using on your iPhone?

I use PureShot, which isn't necessarily perfect but it allows me to do two important things: shoot manually and save the "raw" files as .tiff

I don't have experience with any other phones (fairly new to the smartphone game overall) but I know most newer ones have pretty decent cameras.