Category: photography

We started the iPhone era in 2008, camera quality went backwards, as discussed [confusion.cc] last time. I spent most of 2009 with the iPhone 3G so the photos are not great. Also, and most importantly, the vast majority of my mobile phone photos —and a lot of videos— are of my daughter, born in mid-2008. I gave up on the Sony camcorder I purchased to take lots of videos of her because it was too damn much work to edit them into something that I could watch on the TV or phone. The videos on the iPhone were small but they got used a lot more.

So, anyway, what photos do I have that are not of my wife or daughter or other people I know? Not much. Out of the 425 photos in my archive from 2009, fully 80% of of people. Not leaving much to choose my “best photos” from, but here you go.

First up, two shots, for side-by-side comparison of the weather on two days from my desk, ignore the reflection of the office lights:

Next a random shot of tree leaves… looking up against a cloudy sky for a silhouette effect. I like the trees in Singapore that grow up and spread a single layer of leaves over a vast area, like what we called “Rain Trees” in videos of the African Savanna. I’m guessing it’s not the same tree but same shape when you see them from afar. The single layer of leaves means you get to see this intricate pattern against the sky. This is not the best example, not is the photo high quality, even for the iPhone 3G camera as it was taken handheld so thing are a bit blurry. You could get better photos by setting the phone on a stable surface, but c’est la vie.

Here is a better example of what the iPhone 3G’s camera could do. I guess the light was better, as it’s a lot less blurry this time. The subject is… interesting. I assume I took it to show someone and have a laugh. For those not familiar, it is common in Southeast Asia to get take away drinks, hot and cold, in plastic bags with little plastic straps to hold on or hang on things. You see people carry them whenever you are near a food court of local coffee shop, you see them hanging from nobs and levers on trucks and taxis. And, once in a while, you see them left hanging from random fence posts or tree branches. They look like tree has a colostomy bags to me:

OK, one more. This is the only one taken on the better camera of the iPhone 3GS [wikipedia.org] I got when it was released in Singapore in late 2009. A bit Big Brother this cluster of cameras in Raffles place:

Time marches on…And technology gets better. While the iPhone was released in the US in 2007 the rest of us had to wait for the 3G or even 3Gs (unless you got a very overpriced parallel import) so I entered 2008 as I ended 2007 with my Sony Ericsson, the Z610i [wikipedia.org]. But, it did not last long, in the first month of 2008 I got a Nokia N95 [wikipedia.0rg] (actually the N95-2 or N95 8GB version, the black one).

I got the N95 via work, a test phone we no longer needed, one of the perks of working in the mobile content business. It was very cool phone, one of my favorite of the pre-iPhone era. The first Nokia I liked after the iconic 3310 [wikipedia.org] or my original 1997 252N [nokiamuseum.info]. The N95 did suffer from some “Symbian bloat” and the “why do they move every function around on every new phone” issue that Nokia had with Symbian. In short Nokia had a habit of re-arranging everything on the Symbian 60 UI every new phone just to confuse loyal Nokia users and over the years the Symbian 60 got more and more bloated. Coming from the Sony Ericsson world where the same OS had slowly evolved from the T616, through the Z800i to the Z610i it was a shock. The best thing about the N95 though was the camera. And that’s what we are here to rant about.

The rear camera on the N95 was 5 megapixels. That’s half the megapixels on the Canon 40D [wikipeida.org] that came out the same year, that I took lots of photos with.

But anyway… on with the photos from the N95. The vast majority of the photos are snapshots of my oldest daughter, born in July 2008. Including a lot taken in the minutes and hours after she was born. But we are not sharing photos of people so…

First up, a night shot! From a trip to Kuala Lumpur for work, the Patronas Towers all lit up. Edited in light room as the raw photo had a lot of noise and tried to up the dark sky so much it was like snow from an old TV.

Next up to shots of flowers on the grounds of Parkview Square [wikipedia.org] in Singapore, where I worked at the time:

There is also this shot of rainwater on the marble outside of Parkview Square:

And then there is this awesome shot of Parkview Square, also known as “the Batman building” or “the Gotham building”:

In August 2008, I got a JesusPhone [confusion.cc] via work again. I had to pay for it, but work was able to get a few iPhones a couple of days after it launched officially in Singapore through their corporate plan. The truth though is the iPhone camera was a step down from the Nokia N95. I would be a few years before the iPhone camera was up-to-date with other mobiles. So, I don’t have any photos from the iPhone in 2008 I would consider as part of my “best” mobile photos of the year given that I spend the first 8 months using the much better N95…

I started 2007 with the same Sony Ericsson Z800i [wikipedia.org], that I got back in June of 2005. But it died in late February or early March of 2007 (my last Z800i photos is dated February 25th, but the first with the next handset is from March 11th). I replaced the Z800i with a another Sony Ericsson, the Z610i [wikipedia.org], a more curvy, more shiny flip phone. The camera got a bit better, taking photos at 1600×1200 pixels versus the Z800i’s 1280×1024.

2007 was a bit of a barren years as far as mobile photos goes. In total I have a couple of dozen photos and most of those are of coworkers or family, so I’m not sharing them. I did pick out three from what little remains after excluding portraits.

First up is this looking up shot taken, I think, at Ministry of Sound during it’s short life in Singapore. It seems I have had a fascination with taking “looking up at lamps” [confusion.cc] shots for a long time.

And another abstract shot, no doubt also from clubbing… Never point a laser at your camera processor. At least that’s what they say. You can get some spiffy photos out of it if you do:

Finally something different, a non-abstract shot taken in Moscow, on a work trip:

I was working on a project with the Russian mobile operator, Beeline and on the way to their office the first morning after I arrived I passed this sign, which I believe is pointing to their office building I was working it, just down the road. Fun fact: I got deported from Russia [confusion.cc] on that trip…

Well, that’s it for 2007.

Continuing on my journey reviewing all my mobile phone photos over the years we come to 2006. (you can see 2004 here [confusion.cc], and 2005 here [confusion.cc]).

2006 was a big year for me, I got married at the end of the year, I changed jobs here in Singapore (which was big as it meant no automatic repatriation, any going back to the US would be on my own dime and, um, I’m still here). But for mobile phones it was a dull year, at least for me. I got the Sony Ericsson Z800i [wikipedia.org] in 2005 and kept it all of 2006. And somehow I don’t have a lot of photos from my phone for 2006. But anyway… here are three photos from what I have that I will call “My Best Mobile Photos of 2006”:

First is a shot taken, I think, from a car. Judging by what I think are reflections (about halfway up the left side) and the fact that it’s shot up at a strange angle catching the stoplight and street lamp pole.

Next is a another sky shot. This time a rainbow. Probably also taken from a car.

And lastly, a shot of a good night out with the team from the office.

I started 2005 using the same Sony Ericsson K700i I took my best 2004 mobile phtos [confusion.cc] with. I used it for the first half of the year, and the only photo worth sharing during that time that is not a portrait is another panorama:

The photo stitching is much better in this one, as the camera was sitting on the table when I took all the photos, I just had to rotate it for each shot. So maybe, just maybe, the software was good and the photos in that shot of the Singapore CBD skyline I shared from 2004 were really not level.

Moving on. At some point in 2005 I got a new phone, one that I loved, I think it was the best phone on the market at the time and I can’t understand why it was not more popular. The Sony Ericsson Z800i. A flip phone with a rotating 1.3 megapixel camera, a step up from the K700i’s 640×480 (with an “extrapolation mode” which output photos at 1280×960). The Z800i output photos at 1280×1024, which isn’t much bigger than the K700i’s extrapolation mode but they look much better:

There are still a serious lack of actual good photos in my library. Focus was an issue, on both the K700i and the Z800i. Also, action was an issue, even the slightest movement is blurred.

I actually went through two Z800i’s, as shortly after I got it my wife —now wife, then girlfriend— sent my new phone for a ride through the washing machine. One night after drinking I left it in my pocket and she decided do to the laundry early in the morning due to the smell of smoke and alcohol on the cloths. At the time I was living in a shared corporate flat and I didn’t even know the phone when through the wash, I found it on the table in the living room and just assumed I left it there. But when I tried to turn it on it was dead. I spent the afternoon waiting in Wisma Atria to see a Sony Ericsson agent to get it fixed, since it was nearly brand new. After waiting for my number to come up it took the agent all of 2 minutes to tell me the damage was not covered by the warranty as it was water damage. Apparently there is a little white square of material on the battery that turns blue when exposed to water. At first I couldn’t figure out how the phone got “submerged” and argued that it could only have been sweat or a splash from normal usage, I had not dropped it in water. I was only when we got home and my co-worker cum roommate told me he found the phone in the washing machine when he went to do his laundry that we managed to piece the story together.

So I had to buy a new phone… I don’t remember how much it cost but I do remember it being painful and my wife being surprise I did not get angry with her. C’est la vie.

Anyway, here are a couple of more photos for the Z8ooi that I can count as my best mobile phone photos of 2005. First a photo of the US flag from my hotel room in Washington DC on a trip back in July of 2005 to attend a wedding:

And… then there is this:

That’s my killer rabbit that used to look down on my cube in the office in Virginia wearing a hat I got at a St. Paddy’s day pub bash in 2002 in England. I gave the rabbit away to a coworker, and the hat eventually got trashed. C’est la vie.