Travel Photography with the iPhone II (dual lens!)

This is an update to my blog entry on Travel Photography with the iPhone. Specifically, an update to the point about add-on lens for the iPhone to expand its focal length. As many would have known by now, the iPhone 7 plus now comes with dual lens inbuilt. This effectively means that I can now have a always-carry-around-with-me camera which wields a nice 28-56mm focal length!

In addition to the expanded focal length, the IOS Camera app is also updated with a new feature called "Portrait Mode". Now, Photographers all over love taking people photos with beautiful "bokeh" - the creamy blurred background that makes the subject stands out so beautifully. The portrait mode in the Camera app essentially tries to emulate that - pseudo digitally. It uses the 2 lens in the camera, and digitally combine them to simulate the bokeh effect. The purpose of this article though, is not to explain the technical aspects of this portrait mode. Rather, my aim is to show what can be achieved with this feature in reality, esp for travel photography!

Now, the portrait mode is far from perfect. However, with some understanding of the behavior/quirks of the feature, I have to say that the results can be pretty impressive!  Here's a few pointers on utilising the portrait mode of the iPhone 7 plus :

1. Firstly, while its labeled as "Portrait" in the Camera app, you obviously don't need to use it for people portraits.  You can use it for any subject that you want to isolate and have a nice blurred background. After all, after "processing" the shot, the image is marked with a "Depth Effect" label in your image gallery. So yes, essentially you can use "portrait mode" for anything that you want to create a "depth effect"...!
2. In order for the Camera app algorithm to create the bokeh/depth effect, the focal length is fixed at the "tele" end,  ie 56mm, and the subject needs to be literally confined to a certain distance from the camera (the app will tell you to move further/nearer etc). So it is not as flexible as like a DSLR with a 50mm lens with a wide aperture. Learn to know this distance so that you know what sized subject is best for your creative composition.
3. Choose well-defined subjects too, so that the app can clearly "guess" the whole subject. Subjects like bushes with thin branches/stems or subjects with fuzzy lines will confuse the app. 

That seemed rather restricted, isn't it? But the reality is that, I now DO have the additional creative capability. Remember, all my other points about travel photography with the iPhone (in my previous post) are still very much valid! I still carry a DSLR or mirrorless with me on my travels, but as a testament to what I've written about "the best camera is the one with you", 60+% of all my photos which I've selected and deemed suitable for sharing/display is from the iPhone!

Check out the gallery of images below taken during my 3-months trip to Europe and South America. They are all taken using the depth effect of the portrait mode of iPhone 7 plus. Looks good?

Enjoy!

Finally, here's one example that the app failed to properly define the subject :

Notice how the leaf on the right has lost its branch, which has been "blurred" by the app...

Travel Photography with the iPhone

Technology has changed the world - how we live, how we travel etc. And of course, how we take photographs. I started photography using film, but of course progressed to digital, and once I laid hands on a DSLR, I have never looked back. Naturally, my DSLR have been an integral part of my travels.

It was barely 2 years ago when I finally found a compact camera that I could comfortably bring for general travels in place of a DSLR. The image quality and capability of todays compacts have become pretty impressive. But all these while, I've never considered mobile phone cameras to be anything serious - until late last year. In December last year, I finally laid hands on a iPhone 6s plus.

In February, I embarked on a 3-month trip to parts of Central America (Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba & Panama), including a "transit" stop in Spain. I brought my iphone along, and my experience have completely changed my views on mobile phone photography.

Here's sharing my views and experiences on the iPhone (particularly the 6s plus) for travel photography :

1. Image Quality
First and foremost for me when choosing a camera is that the image quality must be good. And I think this is the main reason why I have not looked at mobile phone photography as I've always thought that the resultant images are not up to par. But I have under-estimated the progress of technology! Turned out the iPhone's camera is mighty impressive. In fact, since the iPhone 5, Apple has made significant improvements to its camera system. I find its images really good!

2. The best camera is one that is in your hands
Well, its a well known saying, and so darn true. Now, I am someone who tries to carry my  camera with me all the time. With a casing, my compact camera can fit into my pocket (barely) and most often than not, I bring it along when I carry a pouch or a small bag. But a mobile phone? Most of us carry it all the time! So in essence, now I have access to a (good) camera almost all the time!

3. Street Photography
I discovered that a mobile phone camera is excellent for street photography. For some strange reason, when you bring up a huge SLR to your face, people tend to react to this. Bring up a mobile phone to take a photo, and well... people may not even know you are taking a photo of them! I am also pleasantly surprised with the iPhone's quick focusing system, and in my 3-month trip, I find myself taking more street photos than I normally would.

Invisible Street Photography

4. iPhone Camera App
The default camera app in the iPhone has quite excellent features, two of which I like alot - the Time-Lapse and the Pano. I have been creating panoramic images and time-lapse videos using software on my desktop, which entails certain amount of effort and time. So I take images with my DSLR or compact, and then when I get back from my trip, I do the crunching. For long trips with gazillion photos taken, sometimes I had forgotten that I had taken a sequence of photos which was meant for making a panorama. With the iPhone camera app, creating a panoramic image and a time-lapse video is downright simple. True to Apple's style, everything is intuitive and easy. My video and pano is ready there and then! And a really good job at that!

Excellent in-camera panorama

5. Add-on lens
For travel photography, my main "complaint" of the iPhone camera so far is its fixed lens. Nevertheless, there are add-on/clip-on lens in the market that help address this somewhat. The common add-on lens are for fisheye, wide-angle and macro. I was again, pleasantly surprised at the results, especially for the macro lens add-on. It enabled some extreme closeup photos. And these add-on lens are infinitely lighter and easier to bring around than an actual macro lens!!

A macro clip-on lens does wonders!

6. Posting/Sharing on Social Media
I have been sharing my travel images online and in social media for some time now. I have my own website and blog, where I put up my image galleries after each trip. For on-the-fly or in-the-field sharing of images, I use Instagram. I believe that Instagram was developed as a mobile photo-sharing platform, and so I use it as such. By mobile photo-sharing, I meant that the images are either direct from a mobile device or a wifi-enabled camera, have not gone through any desktop processing, and often "in that moment". Today, many use it just as a photo-sharing tool to reach the masses, where the images are usually post-processed to perfection already. Whatever the case, for me, I have been using a wifi-enabled camera to send the images to my mobile to post to Instagram. With the excellent image quality (see point 1 above) of the iPhone, I now post to Instagram direct. And with a travel data sim card, I can now truly do mobile photo-sharing on the go.

So, as mentioned earlier, I took alot more photos from my mobile than I would have in all my past trips. It has, in fact, become my always-with-me camera. Below is a gallery of Instagram posts I have done with the iPhone 6s plus throughout the whole 3 months. Check it out and hope you enjoy the images of central america and Spain! You can also go to my Instagram gallery to see the other non-iPhone photos taken during the trip.

(You can click through the image to open another window to see full captions and hashtags etc)
   

Singapore Boat Quay & 5FootWay.Inn

For visitors to Singapore, Boat Quay is a well known tourist dining and pubbing area. Situated by the Singapore River, and lined with rows of old shophouses, which are preserved and converted to serve various needs, it is particularly atmospheric at night.

Historically, it was of course a quay which had seen a large part of our shipping and trading past. Today the area is dominated by restaurants and pubs, and at one point in time, the IT company I was working with had an office in one of the retrofitted shophouses! Well, nestled within one of these shophouses is also a hostel known as 5footway.inn.

Marketed as a boutique hostel, the reception area is pleasantly decorated in a very cosy setting. The shophouses within Boat Quay all hold certain historical value and I think it is an excellent idea that such buildings can be used for tourism in such practical useful way.

Reception area

The layout of the hostel was a little confusing to me though, perhaps due to the original interior structure of the shophouse. Luckily, ample signs were available to direct customers and I was shown to my room by the staff anyway, so all's good. However, the shared toilets and bathrooms were in a section such that for some rooms, access would require one to walk pass the reception area. For those who are more conscious of their "outlook" when going to/fro the bathroom, well, time to get used to the hostel community lifestyle! :). The toilets and bathrooms are clean though and shower head and hot water all functioning admirably!

The rooms (or at least the standard private room I stayed) have a minimalist look, with simple white furnishings that are so common in so many hostels around the world. A nice touch is the side light and a power point just beside the bed - a necessity for today's many flashpackers! A note to light sleepers though - the wooden floorings of these old shophouses do creak! So you may likely be well alerted of the human traffic outside your room!

The lounge and breakfast area is situated at the topmost floor. A nice surprise was that part of the hostel includes a photo gallery within! Showcasing exhibits from a local award-winning photographer Edwin Koo, you get "free entry" to the gallery with your hostel stay! ;) As a photographer myself, I find that is an excellent tie-up and cooperation between the hostel and photographer. The free breakfast is the usual - toast and cereal, nothing to shout about. But the best part of the kitchen is the coffee/tea/milo machine. Unlimited coffee/tea/milo at a press of a button. Niiice! It's a non-cooking kitchen though, but you do have a microwave to heat up stuff.

Lounge/TV room & photo exhibits

Kitchen with a cool beverage machine

And the really best part? The terrace! Offering views of the Singapore River, the Marina Bay Sands, the Boat Quay crowds below, it is such a great place to just relax and chill. And of course, meet other travelers as well. The day I was there, there were ALOT of Korean guests and almost all girls..! :)

Terrace with a view

Terrace with a view. The photo exhibits extend to the terrace as well!

While Singapore is not a big country, staying at a central location still has its advantages. Easily accessible from MRT, and in a really central location, I do think it is probably the best location of its 3 projects (the others at Bugis and Chinatown). And as mentioned previously, the nighscene in Boat Quay is really pretty. Check it out if you're visiting Singapore!


**My 1-night stay has been kindly sponsored by 5footway.inn