Railfan Technology > Have You Thought About an iPhone?

The shot of the train to Boston was taken in Charlottesville, VA, earlier this week.  The "camera" was an iPhone 14 Pro.  Using an app from Adobe, I can very the shutter, iso and white balance.  This is a lot easier than hauling my Canon DSLR around.

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

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Perhaps it is just the dimpling thru the trees, but it looks crunchy and over processed on my monitor.

How good is the focus time with a moving train?
RB

I don’t worry about focus in a shot like this. The nose of the locomotive is about 30’ away. The Depth of Field for this lens is 7’ to infinity. What is DOF? The depth of field (DOF) is the distance between the nearest and the furthest objects that are in acceptably sharp focus in an image captured with a camera. Wikipedia Of course you can check the focus with a look at the photo.

Posted from iPhone

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

No.
Hate Apple anything!

Posted from Android

90mac Wrote:
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> No.
> Hate Apple anything!
>
> Posted from Android

Your Android is just as bad. Fundamental principles of optics (physics) says smaller lens --> lower quality. No amount of sensors can make up for this. Smarter photo editing software (algorithms) can make things look good for images posted here on TO (1000 pixels wide) and the rest of the Internet, but looking at an image at its original size clearly shows the inferior details of cameras with smaller lens compared to larger lens, even if the camera with the smaller lens has higher resolution sensors.

Spy satellites that can read your license plate requires a minimum lens size (huge) in order to work properly. There's a math formula for that which I forgot, but I learned that years ago. So you won't be seeing iPhones (or Androids) in orbit anytime soon. :-)

Speaking of spying, you should also hate Androids, because they do the same thing - keeping adding addicting features (games, 5G, music, video, camera, so on) so you'll be carrying it with you (turned on) all the time. 

Not a very challenging shot, so yes, an iPhone can do a great job here. I use mine quite a bit, despite having a well equipped camera store in the back of the truck. ( There's a great quote from Ann Liebowitz that says basically that the best camera to use is the one you have with you. I agree totally. 

Amazing low light performance from iPhones as well, sometimes even better than my regular DSLR. 

But the conventional machines swamp the iPhone when things get tough:  long telephotos, zooms following the train into the frame, super high speed action, lots of others. I won't be ditching my DSLR anytime soon. 

I have to agree that cell phones usually don't make the best quality camera.  It goes back to the old photography adage that lens quality is far more important than camera quality--or, put another way, better to put superior glass on a mediocre camera body than to put mediocre glass on superior quality camera.  The big advantage of having a decent quality cell phone camera is that the user likely has it with him/her most of the time, whereas a high quality DSLR or similar camera  may be home in the camera bag when the once-in-a-lifetime photographic  moment occurs.  In cases like that, having a camera with you is better than having no camera with you.

Seems like a good photo and a good alternative to carrying a large camera.

The lenses easily shoot through a chain link fence.

gonx Wrote:
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> Seems like a good photo and a good alternative to
> carrying a large camera.

Bob Wilcox
Charlottesville, VA
My Flickr Shots

bobwilcox Wrote:
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> The lenses easily shoot through a chain link
> fence.
>
> gonx Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Seems like a good photo and a good alternative
> to
> > carrying a large camera.
From what I see not that good but gee wow about that great item you own, HO HUM shot for years with my old clunky camera. But up graded to a digital one years back still shoots great pictures isn't that bad to carry and all are full framed unlike many cell phone pictures here with a narrow picture. 

Apple iPhone 14 MAX Pro does it again - captured a surprise opportunity.  Everyone has good points.  However,the DSLR cameras and lens are getting way out of my budget's range these days.

Image size and amoiunt of usage the Apple iPhone gets more than justified the purchase.  Too many of my friednds without a cellphone always seem to have their DSLR's safely tucked away at home.  Too many lost opportunities-!

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bobwilcox Wrote:
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> The shot of the train to Boston was taken in
> Charlottesville, VA, earlier this week.  The
> "camera" was an iPhone 14 Pro.  Using an app from
> Adobe, I can very the shutter, iso and white
> balance.  This is a lot easier than hauling my
> Canon DSLR around.

All of these were shot with my Google Pixel 6 (not even the pro model.)

...John Reay
Springhill NS

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I have shot only with an iPhone for about 5 or so years now. Perfect for my needs and I don't have to lug around a camera. I'm taking pictures for the memory, the moment, not for my photo or video to appear in some highly regarded media. I'd say more than 95% of the time I am 100% happy with my photos. 

SantaFeCF7 Wrote:
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> I have shot only with an iPhone for about 5 or so
> years now. Perfect for my needs and I don't have
> to lug around a camera. I'm taking pictures for
> the memory, the moment, not for my photo or video
> to appear in some highly regarded media. I'd say
> more than 95% of the time I am 100% happy with my
> photos. 

Me too, but i'm a railfan, not a camera nerd that rattles off statistics at the drop of a hat.

I shoot video in 1080p and it looks great to me on my big screen TV. I don't care about submitting anything to
magazines or those snobby railroad picture sites.
The one thing I wish was better was the sound quality. Wind noise is a problem as is the automatic gain control 
which clamps down the audio during extremely loud events such as the locomotive horn blowing right on top
of you. It takes too long for it to release and regain the audio level.

Small price to pay for having a good quality HD recording device at my fingertips 24/7/365.

 

I have a friend that would disagree with most of you. Doug's well known in the hobby going back to the late 60s and is a great photographer, who has published a number of magazine articles and a few books over the years. Doug worked in a camera shop in high school and knew all about cameras. He uses an Apple I phone 14 pro exclusively now.

He tried to talk me into an I phone 14 pro with my first smart phone purchase, but I don't want to spend that kind of money for a phone.

Can you all guess who Doug is? He's not all that involved in the railfan/model railroad hobby anymore.

Victor Baird

Posted from Android



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/23 15:08 by wabash2800.

I have had an iPhone 14 Pro Max for just over two weeks.  I have not had the opportunity to take RR pictures, but from pictures I have taken around the neighborhood it will be better than carrying a camera.  Big problem is not being able to send images to friends who don't have recent iPhones.  Have to send via email.  According to one website, Verizon has to set up my account so that I can send images to other phones.  Something about MMS and SMS. 

John

I'm new at this, but I believe mms and sms would be mostly text messaging, but you can easily send your camera images to an email address (SMS?)too with this process from images stored on your phone. I'm not sure why Verizon would have to set it up, as it came with my Android through T-Mobile, for example.

Victor Baird

> I can send images to other phones.  Something
> about MMS and SMS. 
>
> John

Posted from Android

This is reaching over a fence standing on tiptoes with my Android Samsung Note 20.  Comments?

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