{"id":149585,"date":"2019-06-18T14:56:21","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T21:56:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=149585"},"modified":"2019-06-18T14:58:14","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T21:58:14","slug":"in-praise-of-standalone-cameras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/18\/in-praise-of-standalone-cameras\/","title":{"rendered":"In Praise of Standalone Cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Aesthetics AND Composition are Essential for Photography<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

I playing with the new iPad Pro today, and looking at some of the stock photos on the Photos app, and this was my thought:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow, compositions are great\u00e2\u20ac\u201d yet the photos don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel beautiful to me, because the aesthetic of the default iPhone camera doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look that great.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Which made me realize:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No matter how good the composition is, if the aesthetics of the image isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t equally great, the photo won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be a great photo.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Which means:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If our goal is to make great and timeless images, we shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t shoot with solely a smartphone camera. We should still use a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153standalone\u00e2\u20ac\u009d camera (whether film, digital, etc).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Why do photos from the Great Depression (FSA) still look so great?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I was on Photogrammar<\/a> (NEH funded)\u00e2\u20ac\u201d and looking at all these old school monochrome black and white photos (lot of them shot large format or medium format) and I thought to myself:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wow, the image quality and the aesthetics of these photos from 50+ years ago still look so much more beautiful (aesthetics) than modern photos shot today on even the most high end digital cameras (maybe besides digital medium format).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Thus if your goal is to make great photos which will truly be timeless, and withstand the teeth of time, perhaps it is important to shoot with a camera with image quality\/aesthetics which you consider beautiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is the iPhone and smartphone camera for?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps we should treat our iPhone and smartphone cameras as a supplement<\/em> to our \u00e2\u20ac\u0153standalone\u00e2\u20ac\u009d cameras. The iPhone camera can be like a sketch book, made quickly with pencil (like the Renaissance masters). I know personally that shooting with phone cameras are great for practicing your composition, and keeping your eye sharp. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However truth be told, a very tiny percentage of my smartphone photos (maybe 2-3 phone photos in the last 6 years) have actually stood the test of time. It seems that my best work from the past still were shot with my Canon 5D (original), Leica M9, film Leica M6\/MP on Kodak Portra 400 or Trix 400 pushed to 1600, or my RICOH GR 1 and II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The camera you decide to shoot with is very important.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

So what camera should I shoot with?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It seems that currently the RICOH GR III is the best camera. Aesthetics and design-form wise, it looks good. Image quality is fantastic, and it actually is pocketable! (fits in your front pocket).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the moment, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not really interested in any other cameras in the market, maybe besides the Hasselblad X1D (compact digital medium format seems like an interesting new territory in photography).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d also say\u00e2\u20ac\u201d don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t upgrade your phones for better cameras (yet). I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d recommend practice shooting with HUJI CAM \u00e2\u20ac\u201d very beautiful aesthetics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

My friend Jun, Anthony, and many others got the RICOH GR III and really like it. And as my friend Jun told me,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a reason why there aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t any other mafias, besides the RICOH MAFIA.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

#ricohmafia for life! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

ERIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aesthetics AND Composition are Essential for Photography<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":149586,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/ADD89C53-C05D-4C13-9E69-E234F0B7B1AC.jpeg?fit=1863%2C1242&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149585"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149585\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149590,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149585\/revisions\/149590"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149586"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}