Since I am still shopping around for a Digital SLR camera, I decided to take my current camera, an iPhone 4S, and put it through it’s paces. While I do have another decent point and shoot camera, I hadn’t really tested the limits of the new iPhone camera. I have, however, heard a lot of good things about it, so I decided to put it to the test. Myself and a couple friends went to the town square in Collierville, Tennessee on a beautiful Saturday this past weekend. There are some nice old buildings as well as some rusty old trains there.

Overall I was very pleased. The only real complaint I had with the experience was the need to switch back and forth between 2 different camera apps depending on my needs. The default app is pretty good, and unlike my other camera app, shoots movies and takes HDR photos. The HDR capabilities were the one thing that kept bringing me back to it. However, my other camera app, Camera+, was definitely the clear winner between the two. The most important feature being the ability to focus on one part the shot while exposing for another. This is handled with a really great use of multi-touch. I would go as far as saying that the experience of adjusting the focus with one thumb while tweaking the exposure with the other thumb directly on the image is superior to the experience of using an SLR…if it weren’t for the fact that this involves covering most of the screen with your thumbs.

I’ve selected 30 photographs to upload to a flickr set. I’ve been trying to limit the number of photos I put in a set, forcing myself to act as curator as well as photographer. In doing so I am focusing on my best (or at least favorite) images as well as cutting down on redundancy. Hopefully this results in the sets being more enjoyable for the friends and relatives I force to look at them. I have also made a bit more progress in sifting through my old photos. The result being that I now have a set of images from my studio trip to Mexico as well.