Photography, Photography Tips, Travel
Shooting “Blind” with the New iPhone 13 Pro Max in Maui
It’s like the old days of mirrorless cameras with no viewfinder
I was late to today’s mirrorless camera game. I loved the idea of a smaller, lighter camera (made possible by the omission of the traditional “mirrors” in DSLRs) but I hated the fact that there was no viewfinder in the earliest version of these cameras. In bright sunlight it was just impossible to see what you were taking a photo of on the digital screen on the back of the camera.
On my first trip to India, in 2004, when I went to go study with a teacher in Mysore, I brought a pocket-sized Sony Cybershot, one of the first digital cameras, and left my bigger film camera behind because I was trying to travel lightly. It was not mirrorless though. It did have a viewfinder.
But I fell in love with the ability to shoot as many photos as I wanted and then to be able to sort through and delete them later. I used to really be judicious about how many pictures I took because it was so pricey to get them developed.
Then I bought the Nikon D70, my first digital DSLR, with interchangeable lenses, and never looked back at film.
I did purchase a Panasonic Lumix, one of the earliest mirrorless cameras, in 2008. But I did not consider it the equal of my Nikon D70. I loved that little camera though, despite the fact that it had no viewfinder and I often felt like I was “shooting blind.”
It was great for hikes and for travel. And then my husband dropped it over the side of a cliff on a mountain biking trek in Bend, Oregon. We replaced it, but it was about then that I began to get a little more serious about photography and I didn’t really use the Lumix much anymore.
Around 2010, I began to see people using new mirrorless cameras with interchangeable lenses. But that viewfinder issue was a game killer for me.
Little did I know that a company called Apple would eventually embed such an amazing camera system into their phone. There’s an old saying in photography: “The best camera is the one you have with you.” And that phone seemed to always be with me.
I did switch over to Nikon’s new z-series of mirrorless high-end cameras (with viewfinders) last year. And I sold my trusty D500, my old DSLR.
And I also just bought the new iPhone 13 Pro Max.
So, last week, in Maui, my husband and I had a little fish-taco picnic on Kamaole Beach II and I decided to test out the new iPhone camera. It was mid-day, and I found myself shooting “blind” into the sun, just like in the old days of the Panasonic Lumix.
I could not see a thing I was photographing, but I tried to keep the camera level and just considered it a great experiment.
I was quite amazed with the resultant photos.
For these next ones, I used the new Apple ProRAW option — it captures more data and adds more color and depth, but it does take up a lot more space on your phone.
This one is almost the same shot as one of the photos above but was shot with RAW. Can you see the difference in the colors?
While the iPhone will probably never be quite as good as a Nikon, I thought these photos were quite nice, considering I couldn’t even see the subject when I was taking them.
And who knows what Apple will think of next? It would not surprise me if they figured out one day how to add in a viewfinder. It would be a game-changer.
For all of these photos, I just hit Apple’s “magic” button to edit them (with maybe a few tweaks of the sliders here and there).
Erika Burkhalter is a yogi, neurophilosopher, cat-mom, photographer, and lover of travel and nature, spreading her love and amazement for Mother Earth’s glories, one photo, poem or story at a time. (MS Neuropsychology, MA Yoga Studies).
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Photos and story ©Erika Burkhalter. All rights reserved.