Intimidation Factory

Being a photographer means that you often have to field questions from your friends about cameras and photography; This happens to people who work in IT as well. The computer geeks in IT get, “hey, I am having x problem on my computer. What do you think it is.” Where as the photographer gets questions about what camera to purchase.

Recently, I had one such question.  A friend of mine had started sending me links to cameras he was thinking about purchasing; all of which were in the sub $300.00 range. Instead of sending him back any finding from DPREVIEW.com, I had started asking him what he wanted the camera for.  He had indicated that he just wanted a good camera to take snap shots of his daughters and capture the moments.

That being said, I remembered that he had a Droid 4 and while it is not the perfect camera, it can work just as well as any sub $300.00 point and shoot. After all, that is exactly what the camera is on his cell phone! With decent lighting and a little know how, one can still take good photos with an Android phone.

When I am out and about, perhaps I forgot to grab my Canon G12, I will use my droid to capture images.  Chase Jarvis wrote a book called, The Best Camera Is The One You Have With You. This book, partially,  illustrates why I will use my droid while I am out. With Geo Tagging features, I can also use the Droid when I am scouting locations; This allows me to quickly recall where a location is and tie it in to a map via Google Maps.

I have been able to produce some nice work with my generation 1 Droid; This is partly due to my experience in photography. I do not use any special apps on my phone, nor do I do any post processing on these photos. As they say, all the work has been done in camera. Just as with any piece of equipment, you have to realize and understand it’s strengths and weaknesses. I tend to view the camera phone as the digital version of the Holga.

Recently, I upgraded my Droid to the Droid 4; Though I have not had time to go out and really get a feel for the new version with the 6 Mpx camera. Likely I will go out this weekend and play around with it a bit. So far, I have been impressed with the hardware and the OS on this new phone and I am looking forward to using it in the coming months.

Why don’t I use the Iphone? Honestly, I am just not that interested in the Iphone. It is not a Droid vs. Iphone, Mac vs. PC or even a Canon vs. Nikon thing; It is just a personal preference. At first, I was disappointed in the lack of professional tools that were available for the Droid, but the developers are catching up and understanding that not everyone has or wants Iphone. I will admit, I did give Apple’s little toy some consideration before sticking with the Android format.