Zit Seng's Superwall » photography

Camera Phone Photography Skills

Zit Seng — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:33:33 +0000

Good photography skills are not so easy to come by. That’s why you have professional photographers. To get a good photo, you probably need both good photographic equipment and good photography skills. Professional photographers have their professional camera rig. But how about camera phone photographers? I think camera phone photography requires even more skills!

You probably want to ask why that is so. Camera photos have limited capabilities, so it makes it so much more difficult for a photographer to capture something just right. There are limited options for framing, zooming, control lighting, depth of field, etc. It is unlike your usual DSLR that has so many features to help compose the perfect photo.

The most difficult thing isn’t even about any of the above. You’ve probably heard many times that some of the best photos are captured on the spur of the moment. In just that split second, a professional photographer snaps that winning photo. That’s great, and that’s why they need DSLR that react lightning fast. Photographer must be fast, camera must be fast too.

But if you think about camera phones, their reaction time is so obscenely slow! If you press the shutter at that right time, the actual photo taken is one that is like two or three seconds later! Or even worse than that! To that right photo, a camera phone photographer does not snap a photo at that split second; He actually has to predict when that split second is going to come up, and press the shutter seconds in advance!

I find it so difficult to capture beautiful photos of Vanessa, because she doesn’t keep still for a photo. In fact, with little children, they are always moving. It is so difficult to capture just the right expression to make a good photo.

So what happens with the slow reaction speed of a camera phone, I’d have to predict when that “right moment” will come, and then press the shutter in advance, in anticipation of that right moment happening at the right time.

Once in a while, I do get that great photo with my camera phone. It’s not easy, but I’m beginning to predict when the right moment will come.

Compared with DSLRs, compact cameras tend to be slow to respond too. But at least they are much faster than camera phones. I think a good first step for phone manufacturers to go for is to match the speed of compact cameras. It will make camera phone photography so much easier.

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Memories In The Internet Age

Zit Seng — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:46:58 +0000

A little just over a decade ago, we were still flipping photos through a physical album. How things have changed so much in the last 10 odd years. First of all, there were digital cameras. Then there was Web 2.0 and online photo galleries. Add to it digital videos. Before you know it, all your memories are captured electronically. For some people, their memories are uploaded to the “Cloud”. Some of whom, their memories are only in the “Cloud”. Do you worry that these electronic memories could suddenly vanish?

I’m rather skeptical about uploading my photos. Sure, I would upload them to share with others. But depending on the Internet or the “Cloud” to preserve my memories… no way. It seems so scary that so much of our memories are nowadays preserved virtually. Some say they are timeless, because bits are not supposed to deteriorate over time like photo paper or magnetic tapes. But I say they are virtual.

Sometimes, I feel like a physical album that you can hold has its purpose. But at the rate we generate digital content these days, this is not going to work. In fact, because photos are so easy to take, I find myself snapping so many pictures, so many that I can’t find them.

I have several thousand photos just on my MacBook right now, which is not even one year old. I have so many more digital collections which are, sad to say, largely disorganized across different computers, different disks, and non-systematically backed up on CDROMs. (Oh touch wood.) I’m a bit paranoid, I worry that I can’t find my photos that are, well, “somewhere”. Somewhere that I just can’t find.

We really need a way to enhance our media finding capabilities. The Mac’s Spotlight is simply indispensable. I never bother to use the Search feature in Windows. But the Mac’s Spotlight is simply amazing. But alas it only finds text. Not media. Automatic geo-tagging is useful. Apple’s automatic face matching is useful too. But I think we need more.

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Free Photo Printing At Island Creamery

Zit Seng — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 01:41:13 +0000

Yes, you can get free photo prints from a Canon Selphy photo printer at Island Creamery. It’s a novel idea. While you’re there with family or friends enjoying your ice cream, you can snap a photo of your party, then get it printed on the spot. The walls of Island Creamery are also plastered with photos of people having their ice cream at Island Creamery. To prevent abuse, Island Creamery limits one free print per party. Additional prints costs 50 cents each. I guess that’s fair enough.

Island Creamery’s ice cream is nice. They’ve lots of exotic local flavours like chendol and pulut hitam. I’m not terribly fascinated with having my ice cream spun off from local desserts. But I like the “normal” stuffs like oreo cookies ice cream.

The printer is supposed to have Bluetooth support. But for some unknown reason, my N95 8GB couldn’t find it.

Address: 10 Jalan Serene, #01-03 Serene Centre
Tel: 6468 8859

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