15-1-19

"The best camera is the one you have." - any number of people who talk about photography and what camera is the best camera have said that, or similar. And there's those who will call bullshit. Annie Leibovitz praised the iPhone 4 camera, and Apple has made 3 better camera since. My phone has a 20.1 megapixel camera in it. It took these photos today. My first digital camera cost more than twice as much as my phone did, was 3.3 megapixels, and I couldn't play Angry Birds on it, or make a phone call. I'd argue you couldn't really take a picture with it either but at the time it was not only the best camera because you had it on you, it was simply the best digital camera available.

At BlogScale™ they look alright, these pictures. If you see them full sized the noise is awful, the colours muddy, they are not the best pictures, but I only had the one camera on me, the one in my phone.

The best camera is decidedly not the one you have on you, but the camera you have on you is the best camera you have on you even though there are better cameras.

Though I would also argue that, on occasion, the best camera isn't the best camera. To that end I'm going to spend a week or so shooting film for this blog again. I've done it before. It means I don't have to update as often, it also means I don't update as often. The days are getting a bit longer and I might be daring enough to suffer the limits of short days and the single ISO of a loaded roll of film. Kodak Portra 400 in a Nikon F100, if anyone is keeping score. If it's genius I'll load a roll of T-MAX 400 into a Pentax Spotmatic and really push it. Sometimes the limitations of the tools results in building a better thing, if the limitations are understood. Film is magical, and limiting, and probably not the "best" tool, but it's a good tool.

That's probably still a week away.

Or maybe I'll start tomorrow.

I'll have to wait and see what camera I have on me when I find the picture.