I got an iPhone at the beginning of this year. (And had a new iPod touch for the end of last year, before returning it for an iPhone) (Which, by the way, the 5th generation iPod touch is AMAZING. Super lightweight, nice camera, huge screen. Love it. If my phone hadn’t broken, I would’ve just keep that.)
Part of the reason I wanted a smartphone (or the iPod touch) was to have an everyday camera that was lighter than my DSLR and that took decent photos. Soemthing that would be with me at all times.
And it’s been great. I love my phone to capture moments of our everyday life together – I don’t need to bring my giant camera on every walk or to the library. But after a month-and-a-half of almost exclusively using my phone to take pictures, I realized I had hardly any good photos of Gabe. The gap in picture quality between my phone’s camera and my DSLR camera was noticeable. I had plenty of cute, sweet photos, but none that I could blow up and hang on my wall someday.
Gabe: The star of my Instagram feed.
And when we got back from Puerto Rico, we wanted to get a print for our wall and were dismayed to find that none of them were crisp enough at a high resolution. Because I took exactly five pictures with my DSLR. (Mostly because I didn’t want to carry around the heavy, expensive camera and also because it wasn’t focusing well in the humidity. I suppose we’ll need to go back just to get some good photos.).
Combine the new lightweight camera with the fact that I recently experienced a bout of photography-as-a-business burnout (frantically emailing Rachel about quitting), and I hadn’t touched my DSLR cameras in two months.
You know, it’s realize it’s sort of silly to care about picture quality of my child. But I want to remember exactly what Gabe looked like at alm0st-two-and-a-half. I really value high quality photos. And I really love when I can capture Gabe’s personality through the lens of my camera. So, I’ve been trying to make an effort to pick up my hefty 5D again and capture this incredible, sweet, kind, bright little boy.
Because in many years from now, if just one of these photos helps me to remember even a sliver of how wonderful he is and how much joy he brings us, it’s worth it.
I can tell a HUGE difference between phone photos and DSLR photos. Huge. I rarely take pics with my phone because I can’t stand to look at them. I’m always thinking “Ugh, that light is too blue/green/yellow, and the edges are fuzzy, and this is all wrong.” #snob
xox
Yes! This. Everything you just said! I get OK photos with my iPhone, but I’d never consider them print-quality. And while we have yet to print any of the photos I take, I like to think we will. Someday. After we’re finished with the never-ending laundry battle. Or something like that. Oh, and I must say I’m jealous of all the wonderful natural light you get in your home. Save setting up a home studio, I’ll never have wonderful lighting in my at-home photos. Enough about me – I love love love your photos of Gabe – such a cute kid who is most definitely print-worthy!
I definitely notice a difference in quality between the iphone and my DSLR… particularly when taking pictures of kids (my students). They never stay still long enough to get really good photos with the iphone, so they just come out WAY better with my real camera. This doesn’t mean I always carry it around… because I definitely don’t, but I try!
Oh, now I am sad that I sold my DSLR. I hardly used it (and barely knew how) but when it worked? Those photos were amazing. SIGH.
i’ve just stopped taking pictures in general lately and it’s so sad. luckily matt got me a new point & shoot for christmas and i just got an iphone 5 so i’m hoping i pick it up in the picture taking and work on taking some quality ones as well.
& per usual gabe is just the cutest and makes me want to have a kid of my own right now! bah. the cute.
Those pictures are amazing! I can totally relate! I have had my new iphone 4s since this summer, and my camera has been left in it’s case for quite a while. It wasn’t until I was trying to take a picture of a beautiful cardinal far away with my iphone that just couldn’t quite focus on the bird that really wasn’t that far away, that I decided to get my camera back out! Ross hates when I leave my camera out and out of it’s bag, but if it’s just out in the open, I am so much more likely to grab it and use it instead of my phone! But I get it, it’s so much easier to just take your phone with you! Happy Photo taking! <3
Gabe is adorable.
I am totally guilty of taking phone-only photos as of late. I think the last time I took a real photo with my camera was on our honeymoon which was nearly five months ago. That means all the Christmas pictures and etc. were all stinkin’ iPhone photos. I need to get better at taking pictures of us and what we are doing with my camera. Of course it’s only a point and shoot, but it’s pretty great in terms of resolution (though nothing like a DSLR). Can’t wait to see more photos!