Tuesday 29 December 2009

Mobile Phone Photography Blog

I am hoping to purchase a new phone before the 1st of January

This has presented me the opportunity to start a new Internet blog about my unique discoveries.

When considering a new mobile device, camera capabilities are the most prevalent player in my decision making process.

Previously I have owned a Nokia N80 (with a 3 megapixel camera) and a Nokia N95 (with a 5 megapixel camera). This time around I am considering the iPhone 3G S. The iPhone 3G S' camera is 3 megapixels, but people with a knowledge of digital cameras will know megapixels only equate to how big you can print the picture and not image quality. It is the camera sensor that that gives the image it's quality and with that said I believe the sensor in the iPhone 3GS's camera is very capable of producing good images for online distribution and sharing. [See images taken with iPhone 3GS]

I have previous dabble in mobile phone photography and more recently learnt how to competently use a digital SLR camera. With this in mind I am planning on setting up a blog around the subject of mobile phone photography.


Blog Outline

Initially I am going to aim to take one interesting or unique picture a day and post it on this new blog


Initial Goals

My aim for this blog is not only to interest and entertain people by documenting the world around me, I also wish to generate a steady flow of traffic to this new project.


Further Challenges that may be posed

A personal goal I wish to achieve is to use a service such as Ad-Sense to generate relevant adverts on the blog. I hope to make my 1st online revenue stream in 2010!


Finally

If I can find the time I may also write articles about camera phone photography. I would also like to invite users to submit their iPhone pictures to also be posted (just to add some variety to the blog)

An initial starting point with any new blog is coming up with a suitable name

Here are some initial thoughts I have had to help me formulate a name

Living in the city of Leeds the majority of pictures will taken in Leeds

I will be using an iPhone to take these pictures

My current favourite name I have generated is 'iseeleeds'

Other names I have come up with include iphotoleeds & iphoneographyleeds

I am not sure if these names are a little too specific as pictures may not always be taken in Leeds. My reasons for having such a specific name is that I envision the initial community for this blog will be built up around people in Leeds (as this is where the majority of pictures will be taken) then through social media and "word of mouth" more people will discover the blog.

If you can think of any further ideas or inspiration for the name of this blog then please leave them in the comments of this post.

8 comments:

wiibart said...

I think an Iphone is a good choice for as a Internet phone. It makes pictures fine if there's enough light.

But it's clearly not the best phone when it comes to taking pictures. A better option would be a Sony Ericcson. But the iPhone is the best phone for getting those pictures online.

If you can wait 6 months you could also go for the new iPhone wich is suppose to have 5 mega pixels...

cal said...

great idea! now that mobile phones have better cameras, (or at least they have become more accessible) good quality, spur of the moment photos are so much easier to take. keep us updated on the progress of this blog. i'm getting a n85 in the mail tomorrow, so i may have to think about doing something similar.

Luke Beaumont's Design for Digital Media Blog said...

@wiibart

I am choosing an iPhone as I want access to various social media sites, also the range of apps on offer compared to other mobile phones is plentiful and this is what makes me want an iPhone above all other phones.

If I was to get a Sony Ericsson as you suggest then I would not be getting a phone that is also an iPod!

As I mention I believe the iPhone is more than capable at taking good quality pictures and to get an Sony Ericsson just to get more megapixels would seem foolish as I would no longer be getting access to a fully featured app store or an iPod!

As for waiting 6 months, it certainly is an option, but when the 1st iPhone came out I believed it to be over priced. When the 3G came out the iPhone then missed certain featured that I required from a mobile phone, mainly a video camera and GPS. The current revision of the iPhone seems to bring enough to the table to make it a good phone.

The current phone that I am using is a LG Shine. However the screen only works intermittently, so I really need a new phone now. People could always wait for something better to be released, and right now I am happy with the current offerings the 3GS has.

Please feel free reply to this comment if you have more thoughts, I am always very happy to hear from people :)

Also have you had any thoughts on the naming scheme?

Thanks for commenting

-luke :)

Luke Beaumont's Design for Digital Media Blog said...

@caleb

The 1st camera on phone I believed to be useable was the Sony Ericsson K750. This camera phone produced images that were not too pixelated or filled with noise. However back then most peoples phones were not connected to the Internet.

I have always at the end of every month, copied pictures from my phone on to my hard drive and then backed them up to DVD.

I also have always tried to use my phone camera as a 'serious' digital camera.

So this idea seems a natural evolution. It will be great to see what I can achieve with a mobile phone camera and by sharing the pictures online I will be able to see if other people believe the pictures have any merit.

I will be writing another blog post about this project tonight as I also need to decided on which blog platform to use. I currently am a little unsure as which to use. Tumblr? Blogger? Posterous? WordPress?

I currently have a small preference for Tumblr but I am not sure wether I can implement Ad-Sense on there.

Please keep me informed if you start a daily mobile phone photography blog.

Please feel free reply to this comment if you have more thoughts, I am always very happy to hear from people :)

Also have you had any thoughts on the naming scheme?

Thanks for commenting

-luke :)

rockbigdave said...

I like the idea dude. :)

I've seen quite a few 365 projects where a picture is posted every day, but yours may very well be the first one to have a reason and mission behind it! :) Me likey.

Have you looked into the HTC Touch HD2 and Droid/Nexus One phones? (WinMo and Android respectivly.) Both have 1GHZ Snapdragon CPU's which makes everything muchos better. :) They also have alrighty cams.

One thing I will ask is you have any rules regarding your output? IE, will it be raw camera output or will ya Photoshop them (crop, colour etc.) and the submission of other pictures.. .Is it iPhone only? Or will ya let other phone pictures to be submitted? (Might be good for contrast or comparison. :) )

Anonymous said...

Interesting project Luke. The thing that interests me is that there are different subject responses and opportunities with mobile photos. And because you carry a phone round with you there is the chance of catching the unexpected. No doubt this will plug into your interest in citizen jounalism. I like the iphone and there's a few flickr groups for it - here's one http://www.flickr.com/groups/takenwithiphone/

Luke Beaumont's Design for Digital Media Blog said...

@rockbigdave

I don't consider this a 365 project (even though it sort of is) Like you say the reason behind this is I wish to test what is possible with an iPhone camera, the person attraction form me is that this is a camera that you can carry around in your pocket, so you have opportunities through out the day to capture anything that catches your eye.

I have just took a look at the two phones you mention, I don't know anything about their hardware, but my initial impressions are wow the screens look hugh. I feel like mobile phones are rapidly becoming touch computers that just happen to have a phone function built in. In the future I am sure this is what they will evolve into.

In answer to your questions about rules, The pictures i post will be iPhone ONLY.

I will most likely edit some with photoshop, I see myself retouching using levels, curves a little dodging and burning where necessary.

I will also be happy to use iPhone photography apps to capture images too

As for user submitted content, as long as it has come from a mobile phone I will be happy to publish it. I see this part of the blog being a weekly or monthly feature, where by at the end of every month I publish a user submitted picture that I think is particularly note worth. One this I will make sure to do is to highlight what mobile phone it has come from, just to avoid confusion.

Luke Beaumont's Design for Digital Media Blog said...

@ Mantelpiece Media

One thing that also interest me is that a mobile phone camera is often carried around in situations that you would not normally carry a camera. Hopefully allowing for some interesting and unusually images to be captured.

Another thing that I like is that mobile phone photography is very throw away and disposable. As I mentioned in the original post I have alway chosen mobile phones based on their camera capabilities, and I would often find myself photographing things and objects I would never give a second thought to photographing normally.

I often found the results to be intriguing, e.g. low angles of coke cans towering in to the blue summer sky and such like. This is my real inspiration for undertaking this project.

If you have any more thoughts or advice you can give to me then I would invite you to leave more comments

-luke :)

 
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