The Blurred Image: DSLR or Mobile
JONATHAN YUE
John Tran just shoots photos for fun. He doesn’t own a big fancy camera, or a computer. All of his photos are taken on his iPhone 6 Plus and he has a large following by the Toronto photography community for those photos. When asked by other photographers to go on a photo walk, he can’t help but decline, believing that it will be too awkward to shoot photos on his phone while others carry their DSLRs.
“It’s not that I don’t want to do it, I just find it a bit weird,” Tran says. “Everyone now has the potential to be a photographer. Everybody has their own style and as long as you stick to it, you’ll always find an audience.”
Tran, graduated with a graphic design degree and now a banker in Toronto, has even sold some of his photos, showing that even though they aren’t taken with a DSLR, there is still an interest in his photography. Known as @hagow on Instagram he has accumulated over 41,000 followers.
For many years now, DSLRs have been seen as the professional choice for photographers. But with the rise of social media and online journalism, phone photography is quickly becoming an option that is considered. From live photo posts on Twitter to Facebook Live, phone cameras are becoming more useful in the work place, especially journalism. Even though this may be the case, many still prefer the art of taking photos with an actually camera in hand.
Agata Piskunowicz is a resident of Toronto and was the runner up in the iPhone Photography Awards in 2015. She is now a multi-disciplinary designer with her company, Vox & Lux a company where she combines her first passion that is photography with the elements of design to bring new meaning to brands and clients. She sees photography as a craft that extends beyond what mobile photography provides.
“When it comes to the art of photography, you can use any medium (iPhone), but that’s also very niche” Piskunowicz says. “I think the art of photography still needs to be captured with the craft of a camera.”
In a time when phones are becoming more and more advanced, the cameras that come with them are also improving. Phone cameras may have become an easy way for people to capture the world around them but when asked if phones would ever make DSLRs obsolete, Piskunowicz sees this as just part of the cycle, comparing it to the struggles of print media.
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“People used to say that print is going to die and everything is going digital. Some of that is true, but actual good print is still existent and so the same can be said about photography,” Piskunowicz says. “The quality of photography will still exist in a good camera and a good lens.”
Piskunowicz also notes that phones cameras can be used for normal day to day shots, easy for people to take a quick shot of a tree as a memory, for instance. Improvements to these phone cameras will only make these memories clearer.
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Photo comparison between DSLR shot image (left) and iPhone shot image (left)
Phones are getting better with each new model. Tran has tried out many and has seen the advancements. Starting out with his iPhone 3 to the Samsung Note 7 (which runs on Android operating system) and iPhone 7 Plus (running on the Apple operating system or iOS), Tran says that comparatively, iOS cameras edge out Andriods.
“iPhones are a little more superior in their photo processing after you take the shot, and it’s more intuitive in terms of software,” Tran says. “Personally, I really like the Android for their openers (of applications), but a lot of phones are great.”
Tran, who takes photos in his spare time and on outings with his family, says he never planned on gaining mass attention from the community. One profession where we can expect to see a rise in attention towards phone photography, if not already, is photojournalism. Toronto Star photo editor Rene
Johnston recalls when a photo taken by on a mobile phone was featured on the front page of the Star.
“The Air France flight 358 plane crash at Pearson (airport) a couple years ago, the camera phones were getting good enough, so a person runs off the plane and takes his phone, takes a photograph, and it runs on our front page the next day,“ Johnston says.
Johnston, who started out as a photographer since 1996 with the Calgary Herald before joining the Star in 2000, says that since the Air France photo, it has changed the way journalists cover the city. Reporters aren’t able to get to the event faster than the phones that are already there. But even then,
Johnston doesn’t see the phone being capable of capture photos for publication in the long run.
“With the onset of the selfie, those (phone) cameras are built for the selfie-ing,” Johnstons says. “A camera that is used for news photography, is a different monster. If you look at television news cameras, these guys are still carrying big huge pieces of equipment with them. There are phones that collect fantastic video, but the people who use (big video cameras) are not using the lighter gear (found in phones).”
Over time, phones will continue to improve, but Tran is a firm believer that even though people are showing interest in his phone photography work, DSLRs are here to stay.
“It’s more accessible opposed to before because the camera on our phones are getting better,” Tran says. “I think they will get really good, but DSLR technology will also improve.”
