bikes and things

Well everyone on Flickr that is. It seems that a little bit of rising mist in the woods with some sun behind it is a bit of a winner.

I shot this whilst out riding at Swinley a few days ago. Bizarrely enough I took my ‘proper camera’ but forgot it and left it in the van. We got there early and the frost was being warmed up by the rising sun and then beautifully back lit. Hence the effect you get below. I shot it with the iPhone and then processed it with VSCO Cam before sticking it on Instagram where it proved to be my most popular photo to date.

I thought I’d stick the full version on Flickr. I added it to a few groups and got on with whatever I was doing. Then an hour or so later the phone started buzzing with notifications. It didn’t stop for two days. Whilst some people, like Finn, are used to this I’m certainly not.

So my account trundles along at 500 – 1000 hits a day generally, nothing special but there’s the occasional traffic spike. This on the other hand is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Now it’s not me saying I’m amazing, I’m not, and this was just a shot of some mist and being there at the right time. What does surprise me is that quality of the camera in the iPhone and how much I didn’t actually miss my proper camera. The second thing is how the explore page can drive traffic to your photos. If something gets a few hits it starts to hit the bottom end of Explore (popular page in Flickr language) and then it can rapidly climb from there once the views and favourites start piling in. If you look at the explore page it does generally seem to be sunsets and mist so I guess this one hit the spot.

It now sits as my most popular photo with over 8000 views and 180+ favourites, so far. I’m amused to see that my most popular shot is a mobile phone shot which I never thought would have happened just a few years back. I guess those camera makers are in real trouble as they’re only going to get better. The link to this article I found yesterday was entitled “Cameras will die with an iPhone 6s in our pockets” and reference this quote from the article.

After two and a half years, the GF1 was replaced by the slightly improved Panasonic GX1, which I brought on the six-day Kumano Kodo hike in October. During the trip, I alternated between shooting with it and an iPhone 5. After importing the results into Lightroom, Adobe’s photo-development software, it was difficult to distinguish the GX1’s photos from the iPhone 5’s. (That’s not even the latest iPhone; Austin Mann’s superlative results make it clear that the iPhone 5S operates on an even higher level.) Of course, zooming in and poking around the photos revealed differences: the iPhone 5 doesn’t capture as much highlight detail as the GX1, or handle low light as well, or withstand intense editing, such as drastic changes in exposure. But it seems clear that in a couple of years, with an iPhone 6S in our pockets, it will be nearly impossible to justify taking a dedicated camera on trips like the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage.

Convergence is going to continue to be a real killer for a lot of companies.