iPhone Photography?

I have no experience with DSLR cameras, so I can't do a comparison, but I think for my skill level my iPhone 6S Plus does the job well. Better lighting aids my phone photos a lot, but I don't have a good place to take better photos so I didn't invest in a high-end camera.

Untitled by Fawn, on Flickr

 

i use a dslr and my iphone :~) you can definitely get some great shots with an iphone, especially with nice lighting
i took these of my boy tommy with my iphone-

i think the quality is decent, though you can see some clutter in the background haha

the snapchat filters work on dolls ;D it's so cute plus you can make photo stories and stuff pretending your dolls have snapchat

 

Not exactly iphone, but Resin Aperture on Deviantart once had a photography challenge for phone photos. I think the examples in the prompt here are examples of what kind of well-taken photos you might get despite a lower quality camera. You can also see all the photos submitted for that particular prompt, although the skill of photography is different for different photos.

And I don't use an iPhone, but I do take phone photos of my dolls along with DSLR shots. Even though these are from a Samsung S3, it might be a similar process so I'll just share what I usually do with phone photos.

1. Blank/plain backgrounds tend to work out better though sometimes patterned backgrounds are okay too. Usually I just try to avoid clutter because the phone camera's tendency to focus on everything makes the doll not stand out in a photo if there's too many distractions behind.

2. I do edit my photos quite a lot if I take them on the phone. Most of the time I use Instagram's editing functions (brightness/contrast, up the sharpness, add a blur filter to blur out the background, edit the colours of the photo). The second photo below I drew on the photo from the phone as well, but you can ignore that, it's mostly just a mirrored photo with a patterned background (my curtains).





Also, just to show you, I did take about the same photo with a phone and a dslr. You can tell the difference in camera quality but if you have a mostly blank background, it's not too bad for the phone camera! On the other hand, a blank background in a dslr photo seems kind of a pity, because of the blur and focus it can do.

Phone photo:

DSLR:


The DSLR shot here isn't the greatest because I like the phone one already, but you can get a rough idea. Hopefully this helps! And sorry about the big photos, I took them from instagram and didn't have any options to resize. ^^'''

Also, so that I won't spam the thread with photos, I do have a lot of phone photos on my instagram mixed with DSLR photos in between. You can probably scroll through it and see what I mean about the difference. With DSLR I go for complex backgrounds since the blur distinguishes it from the doll, but I prefer simple backgrounds for phone photos.

 

If you have a good eye for colour and composition and some strong light, you can take a good photograph with whatever you have to hand. However, you will be able to take a good photograph in a greater range of situations with a "proper" camera. This is largely because a camera copes better with low light conditions, like many of us shoot in. With a phone, a situation where there isn't much light will lead to a grainy, blurry photo. This is partly because you can't change the settings to accommodate for the situation you find yourself in (so, shutter speed, aperture and ISO). It is also because the phone has a tiny sensor compared to a DSLR. This is the bit that collects the light and makes the picture. Large sensor - lots of light collected. Small sensor - not so much, so the camera struggles to do something useful with it.

Another advantage is that you can change lenses with a DSLR, which can be useful if you are shooting something very small or very large. A phone can do a thing called digital zoom but this is just like cropping a picture in post processing and isn't an ideal solution.

If you have a phone you enjoy using, use it! When it will no longer do what you want it to do, think about taking the next step and getting a camera.

 

Lighting is generally what makes a photo good, I think! I'm no pro, but I do enjoy exploring both the dslr and my iphone! The great thing about iphone is that you can download so many different apps and play around with them to make your photo look even better the photo below with purple background was taken and edited using my phone, the one below it was taken using dslr!

 

Working with an iphone and working with a big camera are way different, but you can get such good results with most phones cameras that the biggest different will only be noticeable to you as a photographer. there is no zoom, no macro, only partial control of the light, and no Raw format (which is easier to use for edits) on phones, but with a decent lighting you will capture very clear pictures with beautiful colours!

I've gotten good results out of the iphone and haven't really used my big camera in a long time because it's too much hassle in comparison (and I haven't tried to do proper photography in a long time)

Edit: for comparison sake

iPhone (4s?)
Sans titre by draw-my-heart-on, sur Flickr

Canon powershot sx20 IS (not a DLSR but has manual light settings and such)
spring 035 by draw-my-heart-on, sur Flickr

 

It is axiomatic among photographers that the best camera is
the one you have with you and for most of us the camera we
have with us is our phone. Having said that, as I do have a
competent DSLR when I'm at home I always take my doll photos
with the camera, when I go to meet ups I carry my camera,
when I'm at a doll show I use the phone. The quality of the
image is significantly better as a RAW image out of the camera
but when it isn't with me I have no problem pulling out the phone
so as not to miss a photo op.

 

I'm no pro at doll photography, and all I have at my disposal is my iphone camera with no prior experience using a DSLR (though I hope to get one eventually!) when I take doll pictures, so that's basically all I use. I find that I can actually get some pretty decent pictures out of it though, especially when using natural lighting! It also helps using programs like Gimp or the free photo editor that photoshop provides on their website to help spruce them up a bit! The only thing that really bothers me with using the iphone camera is when I want a dark or shadowy sort of effect for certain photos, it tends to be really grainy, and there doesn't seem to be an option to help lessen that.

 

My profile picture is taken with my ipod and instagram filters and i think it looks pretty good X'D

 

I take all of mine with an iPhone! the key to a good iPhone picture is lighting I find natural light the best.

 

It's good to hear that you can get decent results with an iPhone camera! I really do need to invest in a proper camera if I'm going to really enjoy this hobby. Lol so many things vying for my money.

 

I'm lucky enough to own a dslr an an iphone and I have to admit even tho I have not taken any pics off dolls yet you can get some fantastic photos with an iphone plus there are some apps that you can get which gives you so much more freedom when using the iphone camera allowing you to adjust so many different settings to take some great shots.

Aww he is so cute, where did you get him from

 

I use my IPhone for photos in a controlled environment at my house. I can control the lighting conditions and obviously my subject, but I bought a used DSLR camera because I plan to photography my dolls in public settings.

 

Hello. As I am ignorant so can you please explain what is a dslr?

 

A dslr is a high quality camera with interchangeable lenses and greater manual control over various settings than your typical point and shoot or phone camera. Hope this helps!

 

Thank you!

 

I am excited to take photos using my iphone, too. My hubby owns a dslr. I wonder, Are there specific dslr lenses that are really good for taking doll photos?

 

I have a point and shoot Canon and my iPhone, but I think it really is about putting in time to get a good photo. I have hand a tremor so find that a tripod is a must. I tell myself to just take more photos and enjoy the process which will help me get better. All this info was extremely helpful.

 

I take all my pictures with my iPhone (some HDR and others not; I'm not even that sure what HDR does, but anyway-). When I'm done taking pictures, I email them to myself at full quality (to bypass plugging in my phone and messing with iTunes), then edit them in GIMP (good free editing software!), and save them as a .jpeg file with the largest "side" of the photo resized to 2000px. I use Flickr as a host, and here's the result!


05-24(1) by kiyoshisenshi, on Flickr


05-24(5) by kiyoshisenshi, on Flickr

It took some fiddling, but I finally found a way to edit and upload my photos that retains the image quality. They're kinda huge, but that's okay. My phone works best in natural lighting, so most of my pictures are outside. (But I don't have any decent spots for pictures inside, so it works out! ) iPhones can definitely be decent cameras; the only real negative I've found is that dramatic blurs in the background of portraits and stuff just...doesn't happen. But that's a small price to pay for, well...not having to pay for an actual camera.

(Edit: I should add that I have an iPhone 6 that's a couple years old. It works well, in my opinion!)

 

Any suggestions for iPhone tripods/supports? I get hand tremors sometimes and I was wondering if something like that existed

 

I use this tripod from Photojojo...a bit on the expensive side, but versatile and it is compact when I need to put it away. Works great with my iPhone 7
The Backpacker Air Tripod

 

Ahhhh these are great photos. I have a lot of learning to do. I haven't messed around much with Gimp, but will try it. Thanks for these great examples.

 

I have only a iPhone at this point so I am excited to see how other folks use it. Very helpful info for a newbie.