Would you use a smartphone to take pictures underwater?

[vladimir]

I voted "it depends."

could you please elaborate on this?

Sure. I sort of alluded to my reasoning, but to be more explicit:

it depends on whether I have my $10,000 camera rig with me. I went about five hundred dives in a row with it in hand, but on short trips I occasionally leave it behind these days.

It depends on the dives and photo subjects. Without strobes it would be pretty worthless in anything but shallow water on sunny days, and it would almost certainly be worthless for macro. I envision whipping it out at the safety stop as a manta ray cruises towards me.

It depends on how well the phone functions as a dive computer. I probably wouldn't bring it just as a camera, but if it worked well as a dive computer I might.

 

[DiveNav]

I saw the Mocean Armor iSea camera yesterday at the Scuba Show ....

What do you guys think about it?

Alberto (aka eDiver)

 

[Tigerman]

I andswered very unlikely, but the actual answer is NO WAY.
Smartphones has way crappy "optics" and way too small sensors with way too many megapixels useful in anything but bright daylight.
The flash on them is also pretty much useless.
So no, I wouldnt use a smarphone under water..

With regards to the iSea - I would consider it a complete waste of money, unless the only thing you want to accomplish is show off your iphone or if youre only snorkeling..

EDIT: Seeing the $349 "special" price I would call it a waste of money even if youre only a snorkler.

 

[vladimir]

Smartphones has way crappy "optics" and way too small sensors with way too many megapixels useful in anything but bright daylight.

Click HERE for some comparisons with the Canon S95, among others. Their conclusion:

The iPhone 4S is dramatically clearer and sharper than previous iPhone versions. Using separate focus and exposure in Camera+ on the iPhone 4 & 4S significantly helped create a more balanced exposure. While it's not nearing the same quality as a professional level dSLR, it is comparable to a top of the line compact camera and even outshines it in some ways.
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[DMDavid]

I have been seriously considering the Tat7 housing for my iPhone but would like to see one up close before purchasing.

http://www.tat7.net/

 

[Tigerman]

Having tried the iphone 4 camera myself and seen what the pictures actually look like when Ive used it and people I know have used it looks like, Im not impressed and its not anywhere near "top of the line" compact cameras in actual day to day use as far as Ive seen myself.

 

[vladimir]

Having tried the iphone 4 camera myself and seen what the pictures actually look like when Ive used it and people I know have used it looks like, Im not impressed and its not anywhere near "top of the line" compact cameras in actual day to day use as far as Ive seen myself.

I am impressed by your ability to remain steadfast in your opinion, even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. Consistently. Did you look at the pictures in the link I provided?

I have an iPhone 4s myself, and the picture quality is, in my opinion, quite good.

 

[Tigerman]

I looked at the pictures in your first link, yes and theive all got one thing in common.. Plenty of light.
The videos of the shark, shallow with decent light. Also a video of someone taking photos under water with an iphone is not exactly "evidence" by itself.

I see the quality of the pictures people produce with their iphone 4 and no, you wont have me change opinion of it.

 

[Racer_X]

I am impressed by your ability to remain steadfast in your opinion, even in the face of overwhelming contrary evidence. Consistently. Did you look at the pictures in the link I provided?

I have an iPhone 4s myself, and the picture quality is, in my opinion, quite good.

Looking at those pictures, and the comments, was very interesting. I'm not a camera expert by any means, but I clearly see in those pictures different lighting of the keys and clearly different shooting angles, more than the relative difference in size of the devices would indicate. The cityscape shots showed significant differences in cloud movement. Unless it was a VERY windy day, the lighting conditions might well have been different.

The camera+ application is a great app - I have it for some of my Apple stuff. However, it's "clear" from those photos that the user took advantage of the clarity feature. This is analogous to comparing a photoshop processed image (okay fine, a microsoft picture "fix" setting) to a picture straight out of the camera. Hardly a fair comparison.

Again, with the macro shots. An apt comparison would be a macro lens on the DSLRs, which wasn't used.

So I wouldn't consider it "overwhelming contrary evidence" - more like a few data points that may or may not be useful/relevant. The number one concern for this thread would be its use underwater. Did you look at the low-light picture in the comments? I'm also interested in the other attributes that may make it more/less useful underwater - focus speed, continuous picture speed, etc. Underwater I may not have time to set up the perfect shot, but fire away and make liberal use of the delete key in post processing.

I think there's a clear difference between land use and underwater use in terms of availability. On land, my phone is in my pocket - as someone else has pointed out. However, if I go diving I carefully plan what's in my dive kit and what's not. On land, a phone camera may well be the best option because I'm not going to carry a camera wherever I go. In a carefully planned and executed dive I think different factors come into play.

 

[ScubaSteve]

I like my iPhone 4 camera (not the 4s though :sad but it would not do well underwater IMO. The camera does not do well in low light and quite frankly, if I were not already outfitted and had to start buying strobes etc., then I would just do it properly and buy a camera.

---------- Post added May 7th, 2012 at 03:13 PM ----------

Having tried the iphone 4 camera myself and seen what the pictures actually look like when Ive used it and people I know have used it looks like, Im not impressed and its not anywhere near "top of the line" compact cameras in actual day to day use as far as Ive seen myself.

I use mine everyday and have hundreds (600+) of photos and videos of my son on it. The only bad thing I can say for it is that it does not have all the control of my Canon XSi.....but it is a phone first so that is to be expected. In most settings this is fine and the pictures or videos are great IMO. The difference between my XSi and my iPhone4.......my phone is always with me and readily accessible and convenient. My XSi....not so much.