A couple of multi lens Smartphone cameras courtesy of Apple
Toronto. … that’s how you do it. In the days of film, most families used a cheap box camera or folder to record family events and relatives. When the digital era took over, people moved to digital over two or three decades eventually trashing film photography.
Today, the bulk of photos are taken by Smartphone. And with good reason. Almost every smartphone contains a sophisticated camera by default. The major reasoning: 1, the phone is always with you; 2, phones make it very convenient to shoot and send full colour images; and 3, the camera is free as are the photos taken.
These little gems use highly sophisticated sensors and lenses to capture both stills and video images. The photos are all auto adjusted for focus, lighting/ISO, white balance, etc.. Phones usually include software editors to adjust the individual images further as desired. While my main film camera is a Leica, and I have a few stand-alone mirrorless digital cameras, most shots today are on my old iPod Touch with its 8mp sensor, tiny lens and 35mm lens equivalent.
Additional editing apps can be added to the Smartphone or the images can transferred to a computer and ‘developed’ (adjusted, key words added, files re-named, photos filed, backup copy made, etc.). But what about the camera collector? We merrily collect cameras as unique entities be they plate, film, or even digital. What will happen in 50 or 100 years from now? Will we still collect cameras? Smartphones? Both? Or will the camera go the way of light microscopes, radios, computers, etc. and be a specialty collected by those eccentric folk devoted to technologies of the past.
NB. An earlier post acknowledges the convenience of digital photography but with possibly serious consequences.
The title is a riff on and borrows from the 1985 song by Mark Knopfler, “Money For Nothing“, and sung here by Dire Straits.
By all means come to our May 5th auction and check out the lots while meeting friends old and new. A slide show and lot list are posted and will be expanded as new images arrive,
