The Canon Rangefinder

Our CoCo never sits still for long. As I walked through the front hall she was sitting there looking at me. No time to for a “real” camera. Ideal situation for my smart phone.

I Was Wrong

Flynn Marr                                          12 November 2024

It is amazing how arrogance can creep up on us and we don’t see it installing itself in our point of view. But it happens! To illustrate I will tell a story on myself.

I have had a cell phone since the days before they had cameras, the days when we used them to make phone calls. And when cameras in cell phones did arrive I was sure they were beneath any serious photographer. My “big” camera arrogance had settled in but it did not feel like arrogance at all. It felt like superior knowledge and experience. Heck, I had been taking pictures for sixty years and I knew my cameras. How could I be wrong? But I was.

At first I ignored these tiny cameras. They did not interest me. But that phone was always in my pocket which meant I always had that camera with me. And soon enough the convenience of that ever present little camera got to me. 

If you look carefully at this picture you will find it pretty hard to criticize.  An image like this was not intended to be “art”. It was meant to be a snapshot of my cat. Quick, easy, and exactly what I wanted. But look at it up close. Every hair on that cat is sharp and well defined. Technically this is a great photo.

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I take a lot of pictres of our CoCo. I mean ‘a lot’! And they are now usually with my cell phone. Cat people like pictures of their cats. It’s just a thing with us!

CoCo loves her dolly. She spends much of the day curled up with this little figure either snuggled against it or with her head in its lap.

At first I used my smart phone camera to record my car’s licence plate because I could never remember it (really bad memory). Then I would use it to record labels in a store so I could remember what I had looked at. I would photograph phone numbers when I had no pen. And eventually I began to take the occasional family picture of the kids, or more often, the cat. It was just too handy to ignore. Really convenient. And the pictures were better than good for snapshots. But it was not a real camera.

The turning point came when I bought a new smart phone, a Samsung S20, which is advertised to have a 12 MP camera with a wide field, normal and telephoto lens. And I really liked the pictures when I viewed them on the phone. Sharp, crisp, they had good color, wide latitude and you got good pictures in the most appalling lighting situations. From what I understand the phone is able to do this by manipulating the image before saving it as a JPG. Whatever I would have done in Photoshop the phone attempts to accomplish automatically. It was not trying to create images for serious enlargement. The intended viewing medium was the small screen and I had to admit the results were amazing.

The park on Burnaby Mountain has a Rose Garden. My Samsung S20 is perfect here because it will focus so closely allowing good composition.

Inevitably I began taking my cell phone out instead of my real cameras to see what I could do with it. I was pleasantly surprised. The images in this post were all taken on my S20. I e-mailed them to my desk top computer, brought them into Photoshop and produced these images.

The pictures of CoCo were taken around the house on various occasions. I have taken may pictures of her with my EOS camera but it is not always with me, especially at home. This is where the smart phone comes into its own.

We have a park near our home called Burnaby Mountain Park which has beautiful views of the city and north across the mountains. Susan and I went for a walk there recently and I took only my S20 cell phone as I always do, and no “real” camera. On our walk I took some pictures and I was surprised by the results. Some of them are posted here. They are pretty good for snapshots.

As impressive as the results were it was not all good news. I found that the images once in Photoshop had been pushed about as far as one could go. The color intensity could not be changed without throwing the color balance off. There were few details in the shadows to bring out. Sharpening had been maxed out. Really, there was not much Photoshop could add. Maybe a color balance shift, some brightness and contrast adjustment, but that was about it. And as far as enlargement was concerned, 8″x10″ was the maximum size before serious image issues began to appear.

 I had to admit that my S20 is an amazing snapshot camera. But it has limitations. Stay within those boundaries and you have a good camera but try pushing it and you run into trouble pretty quickly.

Too often I have carried my big, and heavy, EOS 5D Mk II to family events or gatherings with friends and all I took were snapshots. I have ended up with dozens of 30mpx RAW images that I printed out as 4″x6″ glossy prints for the family. It was overkill. Too much camera for just family memories. My Samsung smart phone did the job better.

I have said before in these pages, there are no bad cameras. There are only bad choices of a camera for a given task. So long as one appreciates what the smartphone is capable of it is a useful tool and it can produce great images. For the right job, your smartphone is the right camera. And a pretty good one all said.

In the distance you can see the Lion’s Gate Bridge reaching across Burrard Inlet. To the left of it is Stanley Park and the buildings of downtown Vancouver are visible on the left edge of the picture.

To the north of Burnaby Mount are the mountains of the Coast Range. In the foreground is Burrard Inlet with Indian Arm branching off to the north. This is near our home and we walk here often.

Yes, I was arrogant and I was wrong. Because it was so handy and ever present I began finding uses for my camera in my phone and that led me to rethink my attitude. The smart phone camera is an amazing device. I can use it to scan codes for products. I can record information. I can scan text so I can translate it into other languages. And I can use it to take beautiful pictures. It is just a matter of knowing your gear and what their strengths and limitations are.

Watching the sun go down over North Vancouver across the Burrard Inlet. We were out for a walk on Burnaby Mountain. I had left my cameras at home because they are heavy and I was not feeling very “creative” on that evening. But I did have my smart phone and this was one of those occassions when I was glad I did. Notice how well the lens handled the direct sun falling on the lens. To do this, make sure the lens of the phone is completely free of finger marks or grease which will cause flare.

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