Vacationing with the iphone

The last time I was on vacation in Europe, I was walking around with a film camera and a bagful of lenses. For this latest trip I figured, I already had a bunch of keepers taken in most of the places we were visiting, and this time around,  I wanted to just "be there" with Dada and the kids, not wandering about taking pictures. As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you when the opportunity arises.  Since my iphone5's always in my pocket... why not?

In good light, it actually performs very well. 

 Parthenon

Or even in mixed lighting, as long as you know how meters work.

Bridge of Sighs

Forget the useless flash in backlit situations, but the AE lock feature helps:

Back of the Bus, Dubrovnik

And I don't think you can beat it for stealth:

Sketching the Colosseum

Or getting off a shot quickly

Kotor, Montenegro

I really liked the easy-to-use panorama for sweeping scenics

 

Venice, Italy

 

Santorini, Greece

Dubrovnik, Croatia

Or to play around with.

St. Peter's Square

And even to convey space in crowded street scenes.

Piazza Navona

 Just be careful with subject movement, like when Miguel decided to skip a stone while I was panning.

Kotor, Montenegro

There are, of course, other limitations.  A big one is that "zooming" is basically cropping, and will quickly deteriorate your photo.  Just try to be judicious and use only as little of it as necessary. 

This view of St. Mark's from the cruise ship shows a lot of noise particularly in the sky, but I otherwise would not have been able to capture it.

All in all, as long as you stick to the same sound basic techniques that you would use with any camera, I would think that the iphone is capable of decent results.  And along with the numerous advantages, especially the portability and unobtrusiveness, I can see why many tourists are happily snapping away with their smartphones.  Sometimes, it may even surprise you, as with this dreamy photo from a cliffside cafe in Santorini

What I don't get are the folks taking pictures with ipads.....

Innovation

Apparently, there is a guy on Etsy making a killing refurbishing old mechanical typewriters.  The kind I used all the way to the last years of college.  Now, don't get me wrong.  There is some innate satisfaction to slapping the carriage return at the end of each typewritten line, a tactile reminder that you have accomplished something.  But really, those things were a pain to work with.  Which is why they are now mere conversation pieces.

Innovation refers to doing something new.  A different method which improves upon the old, accepted way.  This past week, I got two items in the mail which made me think of that word.

The Contigo Autoseal:  I am the type to do extensively research before I buy something.  No different when I realized that I needed a new travel mug for my coffee.  There are quite a few choices out there, but these sold me on the Contigo:

1. It works. One reason I need an insulated mug is that I make a fresh cup, take a few sips, then go into endo to do a procedure.  Come back out and coffee's now cold.  Make another cup, and so on.  The Contigo solves that problem.  On the other extreme, we are having a heat wave in Cnnecticut right now.  Yesterday, I put plopped some ice cubes in and filled it with water.  Took Mikey to Game Stop and picked up a couple of things it Walmart.  all the while the thing is sitting in the cup holder, and the car is sitting in the parking lot in 95 degree weather.  That was at 5pm.  I washed the mug at close to midnight and the ice cubes were still in there.

2. Leakproof.  Drink your coffee in the car to work.  Toss it in your bag walking up to the office.  Settle down at your desk.  Sip again.

3. Dishwasher safe.  Lid is dishwasher safe, and so is the body as long as you get the unprinted stainless steel.  This is a big deal for me.  Hand washing every night or having to disassemble the lid for cleaning gts old quickly.  And from the over 1700 5-star reviews on Amazon, this seems to be the way to keep the lid clean.

If you write with a pencil, you know that every few words, you need to rotate it a little bit in your hand as the point dulls and develops a chisel tip.  Well, leave it to the folks at Uni (Mitsubishi, Japan) to come up with the Kuru Toga engine.  This autorotates the lead by approximately 6 degrees every time you lift the tip off the paper.  Seamless in operation, it keeps the lead point uniformly sharp.  Sometimes you wonder why no one thought of it before.  Sound interesting?  Here's a starter kit on Amazon, which is actually a pretty good deal