When the iPhone 5S was first announced, I like most people, wasn’t particularly impressed. I’m a huge fan of Apple and their products, but unless they are announcing something revolutionary, their minor product updates are pretty pedestrian. Better camera and a finger print sensor. Both nice, but certainly not essential.
However, my iPhone 4, the one I queued up for on launch day way back in June 2010, was on it’s last legs. The latest update to iOS 7 worked, but only just. You could tell the 3 year old phone was struggling to cope with all these new fancy features. There were so many features that didn’t work on the iPhone 4, and newer apps just ran so slowly on it. In particular, recording video with Instagram, and exporting images from VSCO Cam both caused a crash, every single time.
Considering how much I rely upon my phone for taking photos, dealing with client emails, reading ebooks and managing my social media, I figured it was about time a treated myself and upgraded to new phone. (In case your wondering, I didn’t take out a money grabbing, stuck for 2 years, ripoff mobile contract)
So, from a photographers perspective how am I finding the iPhone 5S? It’s fast. Really, really fast. Fast to start up the camera, fast to take images, editing apps whiz through previews and exporting, and sharing via instagram & facebook etc is quick as lighting and hasn’t crashed once. Compared to my iPhone 4, I can now shoot, edit and share in a fraction of the time it used to take. This has had a really positive impact on the amount of photographs I’m taking and sharing.
Sure, they are only mundane day-to-day snapshots, but the iPhone 5S feels to me like a properly capable camera, not just a smartphone. It’s effortless. It makes me want to use it, and use it a lot. Other features that newer iPhones have had for ages, like panorama and image stabilisation are good to finally have access to. Plus the bigger screen and battery life are big bonuses for me. My poor old little iPhone 4 barely lasted 8 hours on a charge, without taking a single photo.
As for image quality, its probably not amazing compared to current smartphones or a certainly any kind of DSLR, but for me, it is innumerably times better than my old iPhone 4. These images are actually half decent, sharp clear and a great starting point for processing through some of my favourite editing apps. The iPhone 5S can also shoot up-to 10 frames a second, silently which is pretty incredible for a phone. I’ve only briefly played around with the new “true tone flash” and slow mo video, but I’m sure those are gimmicks I will forget about soon enough.
For me the biggest benefit of the iPhone 5s is the speed and responsiveness, together with pretty decent image quality. It makes you feel like you can actually shoot a decent picture is most situations. It doesn’t feel like there are limitations to what it can do. Most of all, its quick, convenient to use and always with me. Which more than I can say for other cameras I own…
Here are some snapshots from my first week with the iPhone 5S, all shot and edited on the device. Follow me on Instagram to see more.
by Chris Scuffins