Photo Quality
August 23, 2023 - Some of you may have noticed that the quality of photos in our blog posts varies, even within one post. These from the Silver Creek post are clearly not of the same quality. The one on the left was taken during our hike with my phone. On some screens you might not be able to tell the difference. I have other examples.
Like most people, I keep my phone nearby. When I see something I might want to blog about, out comes the phone. It’s often accompanied by a loud whispering along the line of, “Quick get your camera!” If the subject has feet, it usually scampers off into the bushes before the other camera arrives. Occasionally, I have my “good” camera out looking for interesting subjects. In those cases, I might still pull out the iPhone for a quick snapshot.
My Nikon is heavy and bulky while an iPhone is compact and easy to carry, but they take very different photos. Let’s look at some other photos for comparison.
A Western Paper Wasp (Mischocyttarus flavitarsis) found its way into the house this morning. They aren’t very aggressive and this one seemed to be more interested in cleaning itself. Out came the phone with those whispered words to fetch my camera. Luckily, the wasp was in no hurry so the good camera arrived so I could take these. Many thanks to my assistant!
As Shot, Nikon
Here my subject is sitting on the edge of the kitchen sink trying to figure out if I intend to smash him. I can enlarge the above photo to see some detail of his head.
Zoomed in 100%
Even at 100% magnification, the part of the photo that was in focus is still very clear. The lens I use is designed for detailed photos of small things. The down side is, the range of focus is very narrow, in this case about half an inch. You can see in the “As Shot” photo, the concrete counter top, just to the right of the wasp, is only in focus in a narrow strip. I was trying to focus on its eye. Everything outside of that half inch is out of focus. There are techniques to get the entire insect in focus but that’s too technical for this post.
The photos I took with my phone were just bad so I tried again later in the day when her sister was checking out the hummingbird feeder.
As Shot (Phone)
In the second photo, I have enlarged the photo, you can see there is no detail. If I ever wanted to print this it would look bad.
I have been meaning to explain our photo quality philosophy for the website. When we say our website is photography and travel, it doesn’t necessarily mean both at the same time.
My objective for the blog posts is to capture our adventures. Sometimes that means having to use iPhone photos because that’s what’s available. When possible, I use a better camera and some photo techniques to get as much detail as possible with everything in focus. The objective for most of our posts is to tell the story. Photos help with that.
Our Photos of the Week (POTW) are usually from our best camera with editing for the highest quality photos. But occasionally all we have is an iPhone photo that we think you will still enjoy for the photography. For those, we do tell you it’s an iPhone photo. Meaning it won’t look good as a print. The first POTW from a phone that comes to mind was from Nature’s Brocade. We were away from the house and I noticed a delicate pattern in the frost on the side of the truck. Dirt can be beautiful but the photo melted before we got home. Many photo opportunities are Ephemeral.
If you want to know a bit about Western Paper Wasps click here. If you just want a fun fact about them, they really only defend their nest and even then they preferring to headbutt intruders rather than sting them. After the photo shoot, the one on the kitchen counter was shown the door.
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