About two weekends ago I was hiking around the Flumserberg mountain ranges in Switzerland with my girlfriend and cameras in tow when we were caught out by one of the worst Alpine thunderstorms I have ever had the pleasure to experience. The spectacle consisted of some quite stunning lighting bolts and accompanying waves of rolling thunder. My dSLR decided to hide in my backpack, while my tougher Leica D-Lux3 compact camera decided it would take one shot and then excuse itself with a discharged battery. And so it happened I suddenly found myself limited to the 3.2 mega pixel camera integrated within the Nokia E52 smart phone in my trouser pocket.
As it turns out it, it takes perfectly nice pictures and even has a smart little photo stitch function that lets you take 360 degree pictures of your immediate surroundings. The sensor is of course not as good as one you will find on any average compact point and shoot camera, but nevertheless I can not really fault the sensor or the very basic lens design. For pictures in emergency situations up to 10 by 8 in size it is most useful and usable.
Oh and in case you’re wondering why I took a picture of the above mud hole, well that’s a little cavity underneath a rock ledge we found, which provided us with some much needed shelter from the storm…
Last weekend I unexpectedly spent half an hour in Toulon, while enjoying a rather crazy but perfectly fun road trip from Geneva to a little coastal resort some 25 clicks east of this ancient French naval port.
Although I had my ever trusty Leica D-Lux3 with me, I managed to take exactly one picture with it. The rest of the time I found myself snapping a few shots with my mobile phone’s camera instead. This rather surprised me, because I had never been to that particular part of the world before and all the more so, because I usually never take pictures with my mobile phone’s camera; not when I have the compact Leica point and shoot within arms reach.
Perhaps I just felt like soaking up the atmosphere of the place without taking pictures. Perhaps I was also simply too tired and frustrated by the swarms of killer mosquitoes or the viscous sun burn to my legs to be especially bothered about posterity. Ultimately, though, I guess it’s sometimes also nice to just chill and let the world go by without looking through a lens.
On our return to Geneva and bringing it all back home, sand in my shoes and all, I had Dylan going through my mind: “Discuss what’s real and what is not. It doesn’t matter inside the Gates of Eden. The foreign sun, it squints upon a bed that is never mine. As friends and other strangers from their fates try to resign leaving men wholly, totally free to do anything they wish to do but die. And there are no trials inside the Gates of Eden. At dawn my lover comes to me and tells me of her dreams with no attempts to shovel the glimpse into the ditch of what each one means. At times I think there are no words but these to tell what’s true. And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden…
Here’s quite possibly a novel thought. So many people I meet frequently think their point and shoot cameras aren’t especially good. Has it never dawned on these people that it is perhaps not their cameras, but their total lack of creativity that is to blame for most, if not all, of their below average pictures?
You see, most people buy the latest in modern compact camera technology in the completely misguided belief it will completely alleviate their need to learn about photography basics or even think about simple picture composition. For example the rather mind boggling “Face Detection function on Sony’s Cyber-shot digital still cameras rapidly locates faces in each shot and uses camera controls, including AF, AE and AWB, to optimize the settings for superb reproduction of facial areas”, while Sony’s equally dubious sounding “Smile Shutter function adds the ability to scan facial attributes, detect smiles and automatically control the shutter timing”.
Now maybe it’s just I who is seriously misguided here, but there are at best four not completely trivial points worth making regarding all of the above.
1. Surely compact point and shoot cameras, by their very nature and purpose in life, are already supposed to be fully capable of taking focused and well lit pictures of people?
2. Are camera manufacturers really suggesting their customers are too insanely stupid to recognise faces and smiles when they see them all by themselves?
3. Any point and shot camera in serious need of automatically overriding its own already automated controls, due to its owner’s complete and utter inability to recognise faces and smiles, should be permitted to electrically shock its owner until, either, its owner learns how to take semi-sensible pictures or gives up trying to do the former.
4. Anybody seriously requiring a camera with Face and Smile Detection functions shouldn’t be let within a hundred yards of a camera in the first place!
However, most importantly of all, and this might come as a complete and utter shock to some of those poor souls sitting in random marketing departments: 99.99 percent of people in need of a camera with Face and Smile Detection functions will most likely have never heard of seemingly bewildering and off-putting abbreviations such as AF, AE and AWB. Now there’s something to think about. Oh, and while I’m at it, treat your ears to the most sublime sound of Gustav Mahler’s 8th Symphony conducted by Sir Simon Rattle and performed by “his” dazzling City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus on EMI Classics!
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