New Year. New Decade. New photography

There is one full day left in 2019.  I haven’t done as much photography as I wanted to this year.  Haven’t done as much photography over the past two years as I wanted.  2020 will be different.  I told my new fiancé that in April I want to move out west to Calgary.  I really miss the mountains and the fresh air.  I hate being here in Ottawa.  I miss Calgary.  I hate the humidity of Ottawa.  I hate the winters.  I hate the summers here.  I would rather sleep in my vehicle or a tent under the stars.  I miss photographing the mountain landscapes.  When I was in Calgary 2 years ago, that’s all I did on my weekends.  Just spend my weekends in the mountains.  Now that I have my 2018 Hyundai Santa Fe Sport, I have room in the back to sleep.  I have pretty much all the necessary equipment except for a cooler for food and drinks.  But I could just spend $60 on a good sized cooler and use that for weekends.  In the next couple of months I will start looking for a job in Calgary.  I wish I could do landscape photography full time but I don’t know if it’s feasible.  I want and need it to be.  I am totally sick of doing the I.T thing.  My Sony RX100 Mark VII is a great camera to do landscape photography.  I don’t need a DSLR.  Actually for the photography I do, all I need is my Sony RX100 Mark VII and my 2018 Apple iPad Pro.  All the software I use is run on the iPad Pro.  I have Affinity Photo.  I have Pixelmator Photo.  Apple Photos is good enough now for doing just the basic edits.  A few months ago, I bought a book for Affinity Photo for the iPad.  I’ve started reading it but never completed it.  That will be my goal for the next 3 months.  Find a job in Calgary to sustain us and finish my Affinity Photo book.

I really don’t want to do any more wildlife photography.  Although it sells a bit on Shutterstock and Adobe Stock, I really enjoy landscape photography.  I like the solitude of being in the mountains.  I gave my fiancé my Sony RX100 Mark VI.  I don’t want to spend any more money on photography equipment.  Not for a while.  The Sony RX100 Mark VII does what I need it to do.  I shot the above photo with the Sony RX100 Mark VI.  I shot the below shot with the Sony RX100 Mark VII.  I’ve sold both images on various micro stock stocks.  A full frame DSLR with an f2.8 16-35MM or an f2.8 24-70MM is not needed.  It’s not the camera, it’s the photographer.

More night photography with the Apple iPhone Pro Max

The 2010’s are coming to a quick close with New Years here in just 2 short days.  Fiancé and I went to play some pool and have some drinks last night and got home quite late for us.  Decided to step out onto the balcony with the iPhone Pro Max and take a test drive with the iPhone to do some long exposure night photography.  This was taken with the default Apple app.  3 second exposure, hand held off the ninth floor off our apartment building.  Edited in the default Apple Photos app.  I can truly say the iPhone has come a long way in the past 12 years or so.  Couldn’t do this 10 years ago, let alone a few years back.  I could make out some of the stars in the Big Dipper at the top of the frame.  The sky was noisy but in the Apple Photos app you can get rid of that.  I think in probably 3-5 years, you will only need an iPhone and an iPad to edit your photos on.  No more need for bulky DSLR cameras or point and shoots.  The hardware and software is getting much, much better.  The wide angle camera is pretty good so far.  Just needs optical image stabilization.  The zoom lens needs work as the image is shaky and noisy.

Night photography with the iPhone 11 Pro Max (64 GB model)

I got the 2019 Apple iPhone Pro Max (64GB model) earlier this month.  I got it just because of the 3 camera system.  It’s still a 12 megapixel sensor which is good enough for blogs, micro stock agencies and such.  I had my doubts as it is a small sensor on a phone regardless if it’s an Apple iPhone or an Android phone.  I honestly don’t get these 106 megapixel phones that are just coming out.  It’s still the same sized sensor.  No matter how many pixels you put on there, it’s going to be small.  Even full frame cameras shoot up to 61 megapixels.  The Sony A7R IV is such one camera.  Yes there are 100 megapixel full frame sensors but you’re paying up to $100,000 for those cameras.

The Apple iPhone Pro Max actually quite surprised me as to how sharp the above night photo is.  No noise whatsoever and the colours are actually pretty nice to look at.  I haven’t had a chance to shoot long exposure night photography on the phone yet.  With the cold Canadian winters here in Ottawa, I don’t know when I’ll get a chance to do that.  Personally I hate the Ottawa winters.  They’re cold and miserable.

I edited the above photo in Apple Photo on my 2018 iPad Pro with the 12.9” screen and the 512GB SSD HD.  I read a comment on some forum a few weeks back which has kind of stuck with me. It basically stated that iPhones and iPads are going to be the future of photography.  I’m 90% sure that comment is correct or will be correct in a few years.  The Apple iPhone Max Pro is almost there.  The sweet point for me for a camera lens is the 24-200MM.  The Apple iPhone Pro Max already has the 13MM wide angle lens equivalent which is fantastic for wide angle photography.  Just need the lens to go up to 200MM or maybe even 240MM lens and no more DSLR or mirrorless cameras will be needed.

Time lapse time

I haven’t shot a time lapse in a long time.  Decided to shoot one this morning going to work.  I shot it using my new Apple iPhone Pro Max with the new camera system.  It was quickly edited in Apple Photos.  I am actually quite impressed with the Apple Photos app on the iPhone and the iPad Pro.  The link is here: https://youtu.be/_BDz-Z4Jfz8  Please feel free to like and comment.  I think I’ll be putting it up for sale on Pond5, Shutterstock, Videoblocks and Adobe stock.  I’ll upload to all of them when I get home tonight.  Luckily don’t have to go anywhere tonight and see anyone so I have time to upload the time lapse.  It’s a short 23 second video.  I wish it took me 23 seconds to get to work.