I've been only shooting with the iPhone 11 Pro Max (64GB)

 The weather has been miserable here in Ottawa for the past 2 weeks or so.  We've gotten another dump of snow this week. I haven't touched my Sony a7R Mark II or any of my camcorders in about 2 weeks.  I've been using my Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max (64GB) for all of my photography in the past two weeks.  I carry my iPhone with me everywhere I go.  I use to obviously keep contact with my family, my fiancee and work.  I'm currently listening to some music via my phone and my brand new AirPods Pro earphones.  That is another story for another day.  I don't know yet how I feel about the AirPods Pro.  They sound great in the ear.  The noise cancellation is fantastically amazing.  But back to photography.

There are multiple reasons why I upgraded to the Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max with the 512GB of internal storage.  First, is the storage.  My current phone has on 64GB of internal storage.  For a Pro designated phone, it should come with a minimum of 256GB of storage and have the options of 512GB and 1TB of storage.  My new phone will have 512GB of storage which is enough storage to store all my music, documents, photos and videos that I plan on shooting.  Eventually I will run out of space on my phone, iPad and iCloud.  But not if I manage the storage with some logical thought.  For vlogs, I'm going to be deleting whatever footage I get after the vlog is updated to YouTube.  I will also be uploading the B roll to Pond5 or Adobe Stock for sale, if they get accepted.  

The phone will shoot 4K/60fps video.  On my current phone, I'd shoot for 30 minutes and I'd run out of storage.  Yes 30 minutes is a long time for video but when you don't have access to Wi-Fi or external storage, 30 minutes is not a long time.  512GB should be good enough to get the shot or video.  I'll be editing everything on my 2018 Apple iPad Pro with 512GB of storage.

I've been looking at videos of Apples own M1 based laptops and computers.  They seem to be very impressive.  Even the Macbook Air.  I want portability and all day battery life.  I get that with my current iPad Pro and I'll get it with the new iPhone 12 Pro Max.  

I think within the next 2-3 iterations of the iPhone, most DSLR and Point and Shoot cameras will be obsolete.  Most Point and Shoot cameras are obsolete now.  Along with P&S cameras, most camcorders are obsolete for public consumption.  99% of kids and adults have either an iPhone or an Android phone.  The phone operating system and hardware will just keep getting better and better.  As a photographer myself, I keep changing equipment every couple of years.  My current equipment will stay with me for quite a while I think just because it's so capable to meet my needs as a photographer and videographer.  

The iPhone 12 Pro Max with iOS 14.3 will give me the ability to shoot in ProRaw which will give me 25MB files.  That's more than enough information in the photo to play around with.  I just wish the phone came with a 70-200MM type lens for those close up shots.  Eventually I think Apple will be able to do that through software and hardware.  By then, mirrorless and DSLR cameras will not be needed and everyone will just carry around a phone with them.  

You can pretty much do 99% of stuff you need to do on a phone and a tablet.  Soon you'll be able to properly code on an iPad.  Laptops and desktops will eventually not be needed and everyone will be walking around with just a phone and iPad type tablet.  With 5G added to all new devices, we won't even need Wi-FI.  That's if the data plans increase and prices continue to fall.  Unless you're in Canada where cell phone plans continue to increase in price.

Photography in the time of COVID-19

Photography, especially, landscape, nature, wildlife, astrophotography is probably the best type of photography to learn and do while social distancing in the time of COVID-19.  You are surrounded by nature socially distancing from everyone.  No one is around you.  You’re out in the fresh air.  It’s fantastic.  

These four photos were taken in Moosecreek, Ontario which is situated roughly halfway between Ottawa and Montreal.  The sky glow in the bottom picture is actually sky glow from Montreal which is about 45 minutes east of the location.  It’s almost like photographing the night sky in daylight which is not good.

The shots were taken with the Sony a7R Mark II with the Sony f3.5-6.3 24-240MM lens.  Pretty good ISO at 1600.  Hardly any noise.  All photos were edited on the 2018 Apple iPad Pro with the 12.9” screen and the 512GB hard drive.  All pictures were edited on the 2018 Apple iPad Pro in Affinity Photo. I am using the Apple Magic keyboard to type this and it’s actually an amazing typing experience this blog.  My configuration consists of the 2018 Apple iPad Pro 12.9” using the Magic Keyboard to type and the Magic Mouse as my primary pointing device.  I am using the USB-C card reader made by Apple to get all my photography.  I also have the second version of the Apple Pencil for very specific editing.

I’ve gone out twice to do astrophotography in the last 2 months which is twice more than I’ve done in the last several years.  It took me a while to find focus since I’ve never used this camera for astrophotography before but I think the pictures came out very well.

I think this summer, the fiancée and I will head up to the Algonquin Radio Telescope for night and do some photography from there.  I haven’t been there in a few years and I need to revisit the place with my new photography setup.  

Mating Canadian Geese

Couldn’t set up my 4K camera in time.  Shot this on my Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Canada’s Parliament Buildings

I walked up to Canada’s parliament buildings yesterday after work.  The whole place is under construction and will be for next ten years or so at rough cost of $10,000,000,000.  Knowing the Canadian government, it’ll take twenty years and cost double the estimate.  Knowing that the Parliament buildings were under construction and it being Wednesday and the start of an apparent massive snow storm, I knew there would be a limited amount of people and tourists on the Hill.   And I was right.  There were only 2 or 3 protestors on the hill.  Took the shot and got home a few hours later as I was waiting for my fiancé to pick me up.

I edited the photo on my 2018 Apple iPad Pro with the 12.9” screen and the 512GB hard drive using the Pixelmator Photo app which is perhaps the best and reasonably priced app on the Apple App Store.  I believe I only paid $5.49 for the app.  I am totally happy with this setup.  I think I’ll be using the Sony RX100 Mark VII for the photography and the Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max for my footage.