You see it all the time: “Here’s a picture of the UFO/mystery object I want you to identify/hot chick. Sorry for the crappy photo, I had to use my phone.”
You click the link, and it’s a horribly blurry, out of focus blob. Often you can see that the camera is focused on the background, not the object in question.
Do these people not realise that cellphones actually take perfectly decent photos, these days? Almost all of them have autofocus that can focus within a few centimetres of the lens. Assuming you’re using a smartphone, you know you can tap on the screen to focus on a given object, right? It’s really not hard. It would take less time to take a decent photo than it would to type out the apology about the photo being shite.
A lot of cellphones still don’t take decent pictures these days; not everyone has a smart phone. My LG flip phone is worthless unless I have a “there’s a UFO, this is all I’ve got” moment.
Because most people are incapable of taking any sort of decent picture with any sort of equipment. (I also do not have a smart phone, but know enough to not pass around my blurry snapshots.)
There are probably still a lot of people out there who don’t have a very new phone, so it may be that they’re still stuck with something that’s about as good as a fixed-focus <1mPixel webcam.
Of those that do have a new phone, many probably don’t know how to get their phone’s camera to focus on something specific (which just happens to work properly for normal subjects such as a group of people at the pub - but not when the thing in question is a bug that won’t stay in one place - and is being photographed at unfamiliarly close distance).
Then there are environmental factors - are you going to wait for the UFO or sasquatch to come into proper focus, and risk missing the shot altogether? or maybe the bug you’re trying to photograph is intent on escaping, and you’re operating the camera with one hand while you use the other to restrain the bug with a stick - or maybe the unusual bit of street furniture you can’t identify can only be photographed from a moving car, or from a position in the middle of a busy road - so there’s no time to compose it properly.
And then there’s ignorance. Some people don’t know or care how to take pictures at all.
Some people do have really crappy cameras. They require the light of a thousand suns to get anything that isn’t as grainy as breakfast cereal, and have no ability to zoom, or adjust the depth of focus.
But then, a lot of people don’t care to try to get good shots in the first place. They will point whatever camera they may own vaguely in the direction of somebody who knows what the subject of the picture is supposed to be, push a button, and then blame the camera for their lack of both compositional skill and knowledge about how their device actually works.
I think that’s the problem. Under certain conditions, sure, some can take decent photos, but they certainly don’t hold up to a dedicated camera.
In general, I’d say it’s very easy to take a bad photo, while taking a good one requires something more stationary with good lighting (and at least with Android, we’re constantly seeing camera software tweaks from the OEMs, so there’s that).
The sensors in phones are (with a few exceptions) very small and poor at low light. Most people are trying to take pictures of moving objects in low light, typically without a flash or too far away for the weak flash to be of use.
And most people don’t know any of the above so they shoot away. And things look better on a small camera screen versus a larger computer screen.
Taking a decent picture is a learned skill whether you’re using an Instamatic, a Hasselblad, a Canon 1D or an iPhone. The problem is that taking a good pic is relatively easy with the first three but requires the dexterity of a card sharp and the balance of an acrobat to achieve with the third.
As Lucius Fox put it, “Good luck…”
Although… I have been supposed to take a local architectural shot for weeks, to add to the portfolio of the group that manages the building. On Sunday, after the Memorial Day parade, I found myself in the parking lot, magically empty of other cars, with beautiful cloud-dappled sky over perfect soft lighting on the face of the building and all the shadows just so… and ripped off three or four shots with the only cam at hand, my Note II.
They are now the standard promotional building shots, infinitely superior to all prior shots with some fancy gear. In the end, it’s all in the timing.
(And having the phonecam be a little “soft” added to the shot, even.)
Judging from the sheer number of vertically-oriented videos I’ve seen posted on my Facebook feed in the last few months, I’d say it’s primarily because people are morons.
Maybe many people have higher priorities in life than mastering photography in general, or the use of their cellphone camera in particular. Count me as one of those people.
I don’t get the hate for vertical videos. 90% of the time I’m looking at Facebook on my phone, and guess what - the screen is vertical. They fit the screen much better and display larger than a horizontal video would.
If I take a video, then chances are it’s going to be vertical because that’s the way I hold my phone when shooting and when viewing. Unless, of course, it’s a definite landscape-format subject.
Vertical video is a crime against humanity. 99.9% of the computer screens in this world are oriented horizontally, as well as every TV in existence. When I encounter a horizontal video on my phone I…*turn it 90 degrees *and watch it like God intended me too.
People are vertical. If I’m taking a video of a person, I’m going to shoot it vertically. They call it “portrait format” for a reason. What’s the point in having the person 9/16ths as tall, and acres of space on either side, just because someone might want to watch the video on a horizontal screen?
Do you shoot all your still photos in landscape format, too?
Add me to the folk who never spent the time/effort to get good at photography - film or digital. Just was never interested. Have a pretty nice 35 mm digital. At one point I learned all the settings to take good photos of my aquarium. But then if I didn’t do it again for a while, I forgot the specific settings, and got tired of relearning it each time.
Sure, there are only a couple of variables. But if they are not terribly important to someone, they might not stick.
With my smartphone, I think I generally take decent photos. But I often forget exactly where the lens is, so I have more than my share of shots of my fingers. Another problem is taking shots in bright light while wearing polarized shades - it can be very hard to see the display of what you are shooting.
But for me, it basically boils down to not remembering how to best do something I do not do all that often. If I am shooting a stationary object while I am stationary, in non-extreme light/dark - the camera/phone is generally smart enough to make up for my shortcomings. But if a UFO or Bigfoot catches me unaware, all bets are off!
I don’t have the hate on vertical-format video, but as the person who is often asked to integrate such footage into video productions or presentations, I get a little hate-y on people who shoot it that way and then complain because I can’t make it fit the screen. A snapshot’s a snapshot, be it color, B+W, low-res video or HD. If a snapshot’s good’nuff, power to you.
In addition to the light and focus problems of cell cameras, hands are shaky. You can try steadying the camera with both hands and resting your arms on something to help a little.
For some reason there are no good photos of UFOs by any camera. Except for the totally fake ones. Well, let me be more specific, I mean the staged ones.
Good photography can be hard.
I’ve been trying to get a good photograph of my eyeball for a while now, and it ain’t easy. I started with the cell phone, moved to a digital camera with a tripod with extra lights, and I still haven’t gotten a great one yet.
The auto mode of most cameras is better than 90% of the photographers using them. It’s not about the hardware any more (hasn’t been, since autofocus reached maturity). It’s about the very basic esthetics of framing a decent picture and giving the hardware a little bit of slack to adjust to the shot before hitting fire. All else is irrelevant to non-pros. Unfortunately, getting the camera level, framing the shot and waiting just a tick for focus are irrelevant to most of them, too.
What blows my mind is the important things people use cell phone cameras for.
We were house hunting about a year ago. You would NOT believe how many people were trying to sell a $300-$400K house and the only pictures they or their realtor could come up with are 1-2 shots taken by a cell phone camera (approximately 640x480).
Really? That is the best that you can do? Obviously you are incompetent. I generally decided that I don’t want houses being sold by morons. Morons make poor homeowner decisions.
It blew my mind so much, I have thought about mentioning it as its own thread.
