Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Giving credit where credit is due

I have done my share of commentary of my feelings toward Steve Jobs.  That behind me, I have to praise this little piece of sunshine... my iPhone4.

I know.  It's just a phone.  Yes.  But, allow me to give you a piece of my thought process over at least the last year.  I have kicked around getting a point-and-shoot that I could carry with me, as having the Nikon strapped around my neck is not always convenient.  When I want pictures that POP, absolutely.  But when something comes up in my every day, not so much.  I have an older Cool Pix, but was never 100% happy with my use of it (I think the camera is fine... it was my use of it as a photog that lacked... or at least that's my story).  I was also looking at purchasing a Flip video camera for those ever so cute things that happen in life that require everyone on Facebook to see.  My first gen iPhone had no video, so I was looking in to other options.  Note on cost: a point-and-shoot was looking to run me between $150 and $200 if I got a decent one on sale.  A Flip video... depended on the ads for the week... usually ran between $100-150 depending on the quality of video I wanted.

Sometimes, friends, it's good to wait.

My iPhone 4 is about as big as a standard iPod.  It takes amazing pictures.  It has the same limitations as a typical point-and-shoot as far as optical zoom.  You want a good zoom that's not super pixelated when printed at 300 dpi?  Use the Nikon not the point-and-shoot.  However, I just printed some day-to-day shots and, I have to say, WOW.  Just WOW.

The video is pretty great, too, although I must say we have been pretty spastic with it.  You have to be cautious as to how you hold it... you can actually video upside down (ask me how I know).  And, it saves the video in HD in .mov format.  What does that mean?  Large file sizes that have to be converted if you plan to edit, unless you use iMovie itself.  However, it works for our purposes.

So, there you have it.  One of the reasons, as a scrapbooker, that I love this phone.  $199 rather than $300 for two different pieces of equipment, and the same bang for the buck.  This merely scratches the surface of what this little baby can do!

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