iGlam?

Clicked an iPhone snap of a young lady I was shooting yesterday. At the time, I was recording video for mobile content with a Sony HVR-Z1U hi-def video cam.

Mobile content, leastwise the stuff I sometimes shoot for clients, includes sexy photos and video that are made available for viewing on cell phones. This is R-rated stuff: No full-frontal or overt sexuality and quite popular in Europe and other parts of the world. What else would you do with a cell phone? Make phone calls?

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A week or so ago, when I found out I was going to be putting my grubby hands on an Innovatronix Explorer XT (courtesy of Innovatronix) along with some other cool gear the company manufacturers, my cell phone was really messing up. It kept turning itself off at the most inopportune moments! My phone, an LG, was something of a dinosaur in the world of mobile phone technology, i.e., it was over a year old. In terms of cell phone evolution, "over a year old" is the Jurassic period for many phones. That's how quick the technology changes.

One would think a piece of advanced technology like a 2007 cell phone would last more than a year? Apparently, not so. Personally, I don't think there was anything truly wrong with my phone. My theory is this: When cell phone companies changed over to their 3g networks, a whole bunch of phones (those not designed or equipped to handle 3g) took it on the chin and started acting weird, especially in terms of power consumption and related issues. I ain't no engineer but that's my theory.

Anyway, a day or two after finding out I was getting all that Innovatronix gear, I was on a shoot and one of my clients was trying to get a hold of me. Every time he got through my phone would turn itself off within a few seconds of me answering. Finally, we managed to text each other back a forth a few times. Later that day, I saw the client and he was complaining mightily about my phone. I shrugged. "Wha'd'ya gonna do?" I said. "The phone is screwed. I'll get a new one soon."

Well, "soon" wasn't soon enough for my client and, to make a long story short, he decided to give me a slightly-used iPhone he had as he recently purchased one of the new, 3g, iPhone models. (My "new" iPhone is one of the originals, an 8G model with very little mileage on it.) So, last week, not only did I find out I was going to be the appreciative recipient of some free gear from Innovatronix, I also ended up with a free iPhone! Cool, huh? I love free stuff. It's so... free.

Fast forward to yesterday...

I was shooting the pretty girl on a white cyc (cyclorama) when my iPhone alerted me to a newly received text message. I looked at the phone while still hand-holding the vidcam, read the text and, with the girl gyrating in front of me like I was seated in the front row at a strip club's stage with her wearing the tinyest-teenyest micro-bikini I've ever seen and using a ladder as a set-piece prop, I decided to snap an iPhone pic. Being a multi-tasking sorta guy, I held the Sony Z1U with my left hand, all the while recording the model, and held up my iPhone with my right, touch-screening a snap with my stubby thumb. (In spite of having stubby fingers, opposing thumbs are quite convenient.)

The cyc and girl were lit with tungsten, specifically, a couple of 1k Mole Babies. Later on, when I took a look (on my computer) at the iPhone pic I snapped, I realized the iPhone's little 2mb camera didn't do a very good job of handling tungsten's color temp: Way too orange and yellow with splotchy tints of green and magenta. That's why I converted the pic (above) to B&W-- the color looked that crappy!

But that's okay. Since becoming a proud iPhone owner, I've discovered there's a near-cult-like following of iPhone snapping iPhonographers out there. Go figure, right?

I've noticed the iPhone takes much better quality snaps in daylight. (What a surprise, huh?) I haven't tried it indoors with practical incandescent lighting a room but I'm guessing the results might be worse, color wise, than with the pro tungsten lighting I was using yesterday.

There are no controls on the iPhone's camera. You can't adjust ISO, aperture, shutter, color temp. You can't zoom in or out. You can simply snap pics and let the iPhone make exposure decisions. It's sort of like a digital pin-hole camera. There might be some apps that allow an iPhonographer to make some camera adjustments but I haven't researched that as of yet.

Yesterday's pretty girl was Cassidy, a Greek-extracted cornhusker from Omaha. Remember the term, "hardbody?" That's Cassidy. A total hardbody. Here's another pic, this time snapped with my Canon 5D and lit with strobes.