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Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

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Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#31

Post by SilasX »

blhack wrote: post #19
kfury wrote: post #2

Will they teach their journalists how to take shallow depth-of-field shots and long telephoto shots with their iPhones? Probably not, since you can't. Given the 'yes and' style of derivative news reporting commonplace today, the Sun-Times might be more effective firing the writers, keeping the photographers, and teaching them actual journalism.

>the Sun-Times might be more effective firing the writers, keeping the photographers, and teaching them actual journalism. I think you joke, but you might have accidentally made an excellent point. My girlfriend, to pay her bills, is a journalist. One of the things that she's talked about a lot (I'm paraphrasing here, these aren't her words) is that contemporary journalists don't have any balls anymore. The joke is:…

>My girlfriend, to pay her bills, is a journalist.

I'm glad she can make that work!

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#32

Post by hnriot »

kfury wrote: post #27
pkulak wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

F/8 and be there. That still works with an iPhone. EDIT: Okay, so an iPhone can never actually do f/8, but I think my point still stands...

Take someone with a DSLR on their hip and someone with an iPhone in their pocket and see who can get the shots you want. Subjects don't stand still and they won't wait for you to be ready.

It's hard to know which side you're arguing for. The iPhone is likely faster, there are a plethora of apps that burst shoot, it can switch to video in a moment and it's faster to start taking photos. By the time the SLR has been set to P mode and auto iso etc e iPhone would have already shot the photos and uploaded them to the server.

The wifi/cell part of the photo is not to be ignored, GPS stamped images uploaded in seconds. The SLR can't compete yet. In a year or two when wifi is prevalent on SLR cameras, maybe, but for the moment is speed counts the iPhone will win for photos and video.

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#33

Post by Tloewald »

kfury wrote: post #25
blhack wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the Sun-Times might be more effective firing the writers, keeping the photographers, and teaching them actual journalism. I think you joke, but you might have accidentally made an excellent point. My girlfriend, to pay her bills, is a journalist. One of the things that she's talked about a lot (I'm paraphrasing here, these aren't her words) is that contemporary journalists don't have any balls anymore. The joke is:…

I do joke, but with truth. As Al Franken popularized it, I was 'kidding on the square'.

Kidding on the square is a very useful (and insightful) phrase.

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#34

Post by Tloewald »

hnriot wrote: post #32
kfury wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take someone with a DSLR on their hip and someone with an iPhone in their pocket and see who can get the shots you want. Subjects don't stand still and they won't wait for you to be ready.

It's hard to know which side you're arguing for. The iPhone is likely faster, there are a plethora of apps that burst shoot, it can switch to video in a moment and it's faster to start taking photos. By the time the SLR has been set to P mode and auto iso etc e iPhone would have already shot the photos and uploaded them to the server. The wifi/cell part of the photo is not to be ignored, GPS stamped images uploaded i…

At least for stills there's simply no way the iPhone is faster, burst mode apps or not. (I speak as a frequent user of both DSLRs and iphones.) The ability to zoom and crop means you can get shots with a DSLR than an iPhone could almost never get (barring ungainly tricks like shooting through binoculars) and you can't freeze action.

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#35

Post by Tloewald »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #10
ctdonath wrote: post #7

To abandon skilled photographers with quality equipment because of a few great photos by unskilled people using poor equipment is to miss a salient point: We notice great photos taken with poor cameras by unskilled photographers because sheer volume will produce a few worth noting; what isn't noticed is the many great photos which don't exist because equipment and/or user was unable to make the picture happen.

This is known as the survivorship bias. More about that here: http://youarenotsosmart.com/2013/05/23/survivorship-bias/

Really it's the Availabilih Heuristic, of which survivor bias is merely a specific case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_heuristic

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#36

Post by kfury »

hnriot wrote: post #28
kfury wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And my comment wasn't about photojournalism. Thinking journalists can become photojournalists by telling them to snap pictures (with their phone or with professional glass) is even more ridiculous than the Sun-Times is being. Don't conflate News Photography with Photojournalism. The second is a subset of the first. News Photography is a field that requires greater diversity than 'being there at f/8 (in daylight, with…

it does negate what you said, you argued that shallow depth of field and telephoto shots were what's needed, and this is wrong, as was pointed out.

Read it again, and note that not all news photography is photojournalism.

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#37

Post by kfury »

hnriot wrote: post #32
kfury wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take someone with a DSLR on their hip and someone with an iPhone in their pocket and see who can get the shots you want. Subjects don't stand still and they won't wait for you to be ready.

It's hard to know which side you're arguing for. The iPhone is likely faster, there are a plethora of apps that burst shoot, it can switch to video in a moment and it's faster to start taking photos. By the time the SLR has been set to P mode and auto iso etc e iPhone would have already shot the photos and uploaded them to the server. The wifi/cell part of the photo is not to be ignored, GPS stamped images uploaded i…

An iPhone is never faster than a pro DSLR. From hip to eye, power on and shooting in under a second. There's a reason the power switch is part of the shutter.

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#38

Post by kfury »

danso wrote: post #5

It's not quality of photo that will be lost, it will be the ability to focus on reporting. Even if taking a photo is easy as Instagram, you still have to take time to edit the photo and prep it for print/production. More problematic is the awkwardness of trying to photograph and interview at the same time. "I'm so sorry for the lost off your children, Mrs. Smith. Now can you look at my iPhone?" That kind of breaks th…

This is a superb point. When the photo is supposed to document the interview the photographer can't be the interviewer. It would be like a news reporter filming themselves.

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#39

Post by zmitri »

ShabbyDoo wrote: post #30

Via eBay, I bought some 50's thru 70's era Chicago SunTimes vintage 8x10 file prints. Apparently, someone acquired their physical archives? The skill of photo journalists in those days was astounding. There were beautifully composed photos of the 1968 riots -- while people were rioting! I'm not suggesting that today's PJ's aren't as skilled, but it's certainly easier with a DSLR.

I very much agree. Photojournalism was it at peak in that era. There were tons of photoessay magazines around but they couldn't compete for ads with other forms of media and most of them shut down.

Re: Chicago Sun-Times will train reporters on ‘iPhone photography basics’

#40

Post by sk5t »

corresation wrote: post #16
potatolicious wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Photojournalism has never been about depth-of-field shots nor long telephoto shots. Photojournalism has always been primarily wide, deep depth of field, and more about lighting and composition than anything else. Shooting "real" photojournalism with an iPhone is more than doable. Hell, the iPhone's field of view is a 28mm equivalent, which is perfect for photojournalism. I don't disagree with the overall point about…

but photojournalism has never been about the capabilities of the camera Fast frame rate. Very bright lens (e.g. f1.4). Large, high-sensitivity sensor. It is very much about the capabilities of the camera, because the truth is that lesser cameras miss most shots, especially in a moving situation where you get a momentary window of opportunity. The iPhone camera may get there eventually, but in that situation right now…

You're right on target about the iPhone's unsuitability for photojournalism. There's the horrendous shutter lag, inability to control aperture/sensitivity/shutter speed to any meaningful degree--I can make all these adjustments using dedicated controls on my D3 without taking my eye out of the viewfinder. A big storage buffer, fast frame rate, and removable, redundant storage modules and replaceable batteries also remain essential. Oh, and interfacing with lighting systems, and of course proper lenses.

In a dynamic/dangerous situation, you need to get on the viewfinder and crank away on continuous-high shutter, and you'll take 200x the photos of even an ambitious iPhone user. Now think that out of 1,000 frames, maybe 2 will be head-and-shoulders above the rest... these are probably frames that the iPhone user had a vanishingly small opportunity to capture at all.

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