"The best camera is the one that's with you"

This classic from the photo-quotebox made me always avoid a DSLR and prooved to be completely true during the last four weeks of my Interrail trip through Europe. First – I’m not the “artistic” kind of photographer. For me photography is about capturing moments, sharing them with others and maybe swelling backin memories later on. That’s it.
However, to capture the real sense of a moment the camera needs a certain degree of sophistication. Basically light and colors should be about right and the photo shouldn’t be all too blurry. Until now this required me too carry around an “extra camera”, in my case the little Leica D-Lux 3. The 2 megapixels and lens of my iPhone 3G were just too bad when it came to low light, objects closer than 0.5 meters or wanting to print something for grandma. Consequently with the iPhone 4 I was keen to see weather Apple could finally provide me with the everywhere and everytime camera I was looking for?
For anyone in the same situation- Here’s a little roundup of how I got along with the camera under various conditions, what I liked and disliked and if this is finally excuse enough to upgrade your iPhones and contracts.

-Speed: Best new thing for me. Faster shutter speed combined with a drastic improvement in “launch-speed” really lower the barrier to reach in your pocket and grab that moment! Sadly there is no option to make the sleep or volume buttons work as a hardware shutter trigger. For the real “click” camera feeling, I just need buttons, sorry.

-Low light: Steves story about catching more photons really seems to makes sense here. Even with very little light the camera returns pretty decent results. Yes, ISOs go up to 1000 and the photos can get a bit grainy, but it is still enough to capture the situation and that what it all comes down to for me.

-Flash: For “no light-situations” like the obvious girls club portait you now have a fancy new LED-Flash. Although I usually prefer to go “flashless”. (flash makes people ugly and colors weird, I think) it works as promised, adding that the light doesn’t reach much further than about 1.5 meters from your object of choice and the led’s light is a bit cold for my liking (the LED makes for an awesome flashlight though!)

-Video: For low-light videos you can turn the Flash constant-on. Focus can be a bit slow and when you manually focus your finger’s impact on the screen is recorded live. STILL: Quality is mindblowing if you think that you’re holding mobilephone in your hand. Some moments just need moves and sound to be properly recorded!

-Sharing & Editing: Not much needs to be said about hundreds of apps to share, edit & cause instant real time jealousy amongst friends.( I use: Flickr, BestCamera, QuadCamera, Edwin & Photoshop Express/ What are your favorites?)

All in all iPhone 4 has just about everything I need to properly preserve the fluctuative highlights of life for the digital afterworld. Massive improvement if your coming from a 3G. Poor Leica will soon put on a solid coat of dust. What photo gear are you lifting around? How is the improvement coming from a 3GS?

I’m enjoying life in full trains as the Germans say. Interrail Global Pass.
One ticket that takes you all around Europe. One month. Four friends. 10 days already.
Pins on the map: Amsterdam, Antwerpen, Lille, Bordeaux, a little bit of surfing on the French coast near Arcachon and a good bit of laid back beachlife in beautiful San Sebastian. Plans for the remaining twenty days include city exploring in Porto, Vigo and finally Lisbon – all combined with days of surfing and camping life in between. The backpacks are heavily loaded with pots and tents to save our wallets from shrinking all too fast and we try to leave at the peak points of relaxation , only keeping the best memories of every place we visit. The trains offer plenty of time to think, read and discuss- all in all life couldn’t get much better right now!

Anything I’m missing out on in the webworlds? Must-See traveltips or somebody in for coffee along the way?

Photos on on Flickr, more when I’m back..

The first plan tends to contains great ideas about traveling the world and living abroad before you expose yourself to those annoying learning hazzles again. Nice side effect is that you can also postpone the annoying question of “what-to-study” for another twelve months. This was also my first plan.
Travel contains just about every ingridient I love about life: Seeing and learning new things, making new friends, getting a different perspective on things. From every new location you bring home not only great moments and learnings but also the feeling that just how you’ve just added another stamp to your passport you have also just added another little piece to what makes you who you are. Multiple reasons to travel. Other people can explain this even better “Why we travel”) Ranking high on my personal favorites-list were Buenos Aires, Rome or again my beloved Sydney.

But then there is the more logic/conservative side of everyone’s plan-portfolio. It involves multiple variables all circling around your own search for security, expectations of others, financial reasons, sometimes even your first love..

Most often this results in a second plan. Starting to study at University/College or going for any form of further tuition, internships etc. This plan seems far more uncomfortable to many of us. No matter which way you take, each way seems to minimize the choices for your future job-life. For a 18-20 year-old-unsure-student “wasting” your time on what can turn out to be absolutely boring, really doesn’t seeem like an attractive option. The perspective of having to go back to new, even thicker schoolbooks, after you probably had the best summer of your life doesn’t make it an easier choice either.

All in all plan no. 2 is definitely the harder way to go. Some try to make it easier.
They choose something that seems to suit them well and the block out every possible critique or thought that might threaten their carefully drafted plan. Others make it too hard. They forget that there is never just “the one way”, build this up till it becomes a “dead or alive” issue and finally end up even more confused then they were before. Some lucky ones maybe really KNOW what they want to do. My guess however is this only works for creatives and childhood kind of job descriptions. (writer, painter, astronaut, doctor..) I’ve never met a kid dreaming to be an accountant. Because of all the described obstacles, plan no. 2 didnt seem like the “nice-option” to me as well. Particularly the outlook of focussing on one particular subject for a time as long as up to 6 years was at first sight a pretty grim perspective for someone as unsure and variable in interests as the weather. Furthermore and even worse- I had exactly NO plan WHAT to study- not even to mention where.

But as always with a good bit of time and lots of musing added, all pieces somehow came together and at least I now feel that I have considered all options carefully enough for me to stop thinking about them. It is plan no. 2 with a good bit if no. 1 to ease the pain. I still don’t know where to study and whether I will like it, but that’s content for future blogposts. What is (was) your take on this? Meaningful advice/lessons you’ve learned ? Sharing is caring!

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