Decided to post these while on the subject of iPhone’s camera capabilities and while writing a new article on photo noise reduction. This first image is slightly modified in Lightroom 3 (+20 Fill Light and +10 Saturation, Noise Reduction: +50 Luminance, +80 Detail):
First of all, big thanks to everyone who participated in our first giveaway – we have gotten over 60 comments from our readers and over 120 people voted in our poll. Before I announce the winner of the giveaway, I would like to first provide the answer to the question “what camera the image was shot with” of the Maroon Bells. The majority of the readers guessed it right – I did shoot the image with the iPhone (specifically iPhone 4). The original image did not look very good and had a couple of problems, specifically:
Here is the original image:
Maroon Bells iPhone Original
While driving through a local state park with my family, I saw this beautiful sunset and decided to take some pictures of it with my iPhone (I know, I left the real camera at home). I took a few shots and then realized that the scene did not quite fit the frame, so I put the phone in vertical position and took a few vertical shots using the same technique I describe in my “Panoramic Photography Howto” article. The only problem was, I could not lock the exposure or change white balance on the phone… So, here is the result:
iPhone Panorama
I stitched the panorama in Adobe Photoshop CS5, then brightened up the grass a little and slightly increased contrast. I think the result is OK, although the colors are a little out of whack…still not bad for a crappy phone camera (the new iPhone 4G is supposed to have a much better 5 megapixel camera). As Chase Jarvis puts it, the best camera is the one that is with you :)
