Part 1: Some geeks are going to have a fit

Local Apple Store. Tasty and telling exchange between a middle-aged man and one of the employees. The man is enquiring about the new iPhone 11 and 11 Pro models. By the looks of it, he appears to be a prospective iPhone upgrader. He also doesn’t seem someone who keeps himself up-to-date with tech news much.

It’s not that I enjoy overhearing conversations, but I was just there trying out the devices, and this man and the store clerk were basically by my side all the time — and they were talking loudly due to the noise and the crowd in the store. I’m quoting by memory (and translating from Spanish to English in the process) but I swear I’m not making any of this up.

– My daughter told me the new iPhones would be on display today…

– Yes, this here is the iPhone 11, and these two are the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max… [the clerk starts blurting out technical specifications, then instantly realises he’s going nowhere with that, so he changes approach]. What would you like to know about them? I can show you the differences between them, help you decide.

– [The man reacts as if he were talking with a car salesman] Well, the first thing I’d like to know is: what’s the big deal about them?

– W‑What do you mean, sir?

– [The man takes out his phone] You see, I have this. It works great.

– Oh, a 6s Plus, yes.

– …Battery was starting to show its age, so a few months ago I got it replaced by you people. It’s fine now. Like new. So… what do these new models have that’s worth putting my phone in the drawer and get one of them?

– Ah! Well, the ‘big deal’ about these phones, as you can see [the clerk shows the back of the iPhones to the man] they have really great multiple-camera systems. The cameras and the way the iPhone processes photos and videos have improved so, so much. I think you’ll really notice the difference compared with the 6s Plus you currently own.

– [The man’s reaction at this moment is so point-blank I have to keep my cool and avoid bursting out in laughter] Okay. But what if I don’t care about the cameras?

– Huh?

– What if I don’t care about the cameras? What else is new here?

– [The clerk clearly didn’t see that coming, and it takes a brief moment for him to answer] Ah! Oh, well, these new iPhones have more powerful chips… Much more powerful than your iPhone. They’re four generations newer. You’ll certainly feel the jump in performance. [The clerk gives a brief demo, I can’t see exactly what he’s doing, but it looks as if he’s showing gestures, animations, applications…]

– That’s certainly nice, and I see this one has a bigger screen [the man points at the iPhone 11 Pro Max], and its display looks really great.

– Definitely. It’s 6.5 inches, while your 6s Plus is 5.5. It’s denser, more contrasty, it’s an OLED panel, has TrueTone [briefly explains what it is; the man nods in understanding], Wide Colour Display…

– Where’s the button?

– Uh, sorry?

– [The man points at the Home button of his iPhone 6s Plus]

– Ah, no, that button is gone. Now you get more screen real estate, and you can quit applications and get back to the Home screen by swiping like this…

– Looks awfully awkward.

– Well, yes, at first I suppose it does. But really, after a few days you get accustomed to this.

– Hmm. So, no button, no fingerprint scanner either?

– No. Let me explain how FaceID works.

[Halfway into the explanation, the man stops the clerk]

– Ah yes, now I remember… My daughter showed it to me. I don’t like it. It really seems a bit cumbersome, less immediate, you know… especially for paying stuff.

– …

– Look, how about you show me the last iPhone that still has a button, a fingerprint scanner, and a screen at least as big as the iPhone I have? [The man now looks at me, and adds My ageing eyes, you know…] I’ll take that.

– That would be the iPhone 8 Plus.

– Do you still sell it?

– We do, yes.

– So it’s not very old.

– It’s a model from two years ago. It’s not very different from yours, size-wise… Here, let me show you.

– Excellent.

At this point, the man and the clerk went to another table, and I didn’t follow them, although I admit that that exchange had left me very intrigued indeed. However, as I was moving to another table to take a look at the Apple Watch, I saw another clerk carrying a few packages (clearly what some of the customers had ordered) and there was an iPhone 8 Plus box among them.

Upgrading from an iPhone 6s Plus to an 8 Plus might seem utterly unthinkable to many of the folks who are probably reading this. And for the smug geeks out there who are perhaps laughing at that man, I’ll say that this is part of what happens when you descend from your ivory towers into the land of ‘regular people’. You may spend time gushing about new powerful smartphone camera arrays, improvements in display technology, the marvels of 5G networking. Then you hear people in stores asking questions like “Does it do Whatsapp?”, “Can I send photos to other people directly?”, “Do I have to recharge it every night?”, etcetera.

It’s not that people are ‘dumb’. A lot of them simply don’t care about certain technological aspects as much and as obsessively as you do. That’s why I felt an incredibly exhilarating sensation when that man in the store replied, matter-of-factly, But what if I don’t care about the cameras? These are simple questions or statements that just pull the rug from under your feet, so to speak.

Part 2: Some observations about smartphone photography

You see, in a sense, I don’t care about smartphone cameras all that much, either. My investment in smartphone photography has been on a declining curve for a while. Mind you, I find all these new advancements truly interesting from a theoretical standpoint. I love what Apple has been doing with image processing and camera technology in recent years. Computational photography is really something. Smartphone cameras have undoubtedly made noticeable progress with regard to image fidelity, and as I said in my previous article, soon we’ll reach a point where our smartphones achieve WYSIWYG — or rather, What You Get Is Exactly What You Saw — photography. But that’s not the photography I’m personally interested in.

I’ve read many reviews of the new iPhones, I’ve watched as many video reviews on YouTube. I’ve seen many sample photos taken with the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro. And previously, same thing with the Samsung Galaxy S10, the Google Pixel 3, the Nokia 9 Pureview, and so on. And what I’ve seen are often great snapshots, with great lighting, impressive dynamic range and colour science. Every time a new iPhone comes out, I take a look at Austin Mann’s reviews to have an idea of how a professional photographer uses the iPhone as a tool. And well, in the vast majority of cases, I find smartphone photography lacking. Sometimes it’s depth, often it’s that je ne sais quoi I could call ‘mood’. Smartphone photos taken with the best phones out there — and straight out of the phone’s camera — all tend to have (at least to my eyes) a sort of clinical, precise, documentary look. Or also a glossy, slick look, if you like. (Many of the ‘Shot on iPhone’ photos I saw on Apple’s site last year after the contest was over looked like aspiring images for Apple posters and billboard ads.)

When they look more punchy, when they have a touch of mood, when they start to really transmit something to me, it’s usually because they have been post-processed and ‘made imperfect’ through the use of filters and other retouching techniques (ah, the irony). Image fidelity is important, just as sound fidelity is. But just as a lot of people still prefer the sound of vinyl records to the sound of CDs and digital music files despite these being technically superior, image fidelity is not necessarily — or not always — what makes great photography.

The technology behind Google’s Night Sight and Apple’s Night Mode is indeed impressive. Like me, you’ll surely have seen a lot of with/without Night Sight and with/without Night Mode photo comparisons by now. And when you’re truly interested in capturing a night scene in a way that you can actually show people what was there, instead of a mostly-dark frame, these Night modes are fantastic tools. But when your intent is less documentary and more… emotionally driven? artistic? — you may want to render a night scene in such a way that visual impact becomes more important than the minute portrayal of what was actually there. Just like when a grainy black & white photo just hinting at certain details turns out to be more gripping and memorable than a perfectly-rendered noise-free colour snapshot.

I’ve been a photo enthusiast since I was a teenager; over the years I’ve taken photos with the most varied gear — 35mm film cameras, medium format film cameras, point-and-shoot compact cameras, digital cameras of different sizes and formats, feature phones and smartphones — and again, I certainly appreciate all the technical advancements we’ve all been witnessing in photography in the past couple of decades. And in a sense I even agree that the smartphone today is the best camera you have with you. It’s the first thing I reach when I want to capture a certain moment. Today’s technology is making it the fastest, most accurate tool for this task. I have indeed captured many otherwise uncatchable moments, and accumulated a series of scrapbook memories. And sharing some of these has been easy and fun. But for me — for me — smartphone cameras are not enough when I want to try capturing something in a truly memorable way, when I try capturing something with any kind of artistic intent or purpose. This is why I very often carry a camera with me.

Additional closing notes:

• While I can’t help raising an eyebrow every time Apple or other smartphone manufacturers talk about ‘Pro cameras’ in their phones, when it comes to video it’s a completely different story. I really think that the flagship smartphones released in the past few years can be used to shoot video at a professional level, and the iPhone 11 Pro demos at the latest Apple event have indeed impressed me.
• So far, the only smartphone I’ve handled whose camera experience and results have felt like handling a ‘real’ camera has been the Nokia Lumia 1020 (a phone from 2013). Photos taken with this smartphone have always had something about them, a distinctive quality, or look, or mood, right straight out of the camera. Very rarely I felt the need to adjust things afterwards.
• I remember a time when I was definitely more attracted by the iPhone as a camera to try stuff and experiment with. It was roughly from the iPhone 3GS to the iPhone 5 era. I remember when folders in iOS still had an app limit, and I ended up filling three different folders with photo-taking and photo-editing apps. I kept wanting to take snapshots everywhere I went, to then import my snaps in this or that app to apply a vintage filter, or a ‘grunge’ effect, or convert them into fake polaroids. When I finally updated from my aging iPhone 5 to my current iPhone 8 last year, I thought that the better camera and processing power of the new iPhone would rekindle this impulse to keep shooting and experimenting, but somehow it did not happen. I mean, I still use apps like Hipstamatic to experiment with different effects, but it’s just not like before. I’ve tried to rationalise this, and the only explanation I’ve come up with is that the iPhone 8 is so effortless in taking generally good shots that I don’t feel compelled to further bother with them. Previous iPhone cameras were good phone cameras for the time, but their limitations kind of urged me to be more creative after the fact. Another factor may be that some years ago there was a huge wave of great, diverse photo apps for iOS. While today there are indeed a few excellent apps worth having, the rush feels over and the landscape saturated.
• We have amazing cameras in our smartphones today, but then I look at the photos regular folks show me every now and then and yes, they’re as crappy as ten years ago. But it’s fine — not everyone cares about the cameras…