Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with my­­­­­­­ love affair with my IPhone 6 as a camera.  It’s gotten to the point that I have to struggle mightily to remember, when I post an IPhone photograph, to say that it was taken with that camera.  Really, why does it matter, and recently I’ve started putting some of my IPhone images up on my YouPic page.

The IPhone 6 camera has gotten rave reviews and in essence you can only fault it for a couple of reasons. First, and foremost, it lacks optical zoom.  So as you zoom in you’re rapidly reducing the number of pixels and ultimately the resolution or sharpness.  Second, it is shooting jpg images; so you don’t have all the advantages of raw.  This means that you don’t have good control over dynamic range and that it is doing all sorts of fancy stuff and not telling you.  But hey, it takes great pictures and it if you’re like me it’s always with you. As for the exciting news, rumor has it that the next IPhone variant will have optical zoom.  I’m starting to wish I had waited!

It should therefore come as no surprise to anyone then, that in the Sony World Photography Awards 2015 there was a category for Mobile Phone Photographs and the winners have recently been announced.  These images have that wonderful spontaneity associated with street photography.  You’re there in the moment and capture the image.  Indeed, you can make believe that you’re checking your phone rather than taking a picture. I was very pleased to see some excellent black and white images among the Sony Awards. The real challenge is to be able to say, yes this was taken with a cell phone. It is really difficult.