Photo by Matt Blum.
Like a large percentage of Americans, my family and I went to see fireworks for Independence Day. I love the fireworks, and every year that I go I try to take pictures of them with my decent point-and-shoot Canon. And every year I’m disappointed even by the best pictures, mostly because even when they look good they don’t look like the fireworks did to my eyes.
This year I started off taking the same kind of pictures, and I looked at a few of them to see how they were coming out. As usual, I was disappointed, so I returned the camera to its case and resignedly resolved just to watch and not worry about photos. Then I thought of my iPhone 4, sitting in my pocket. I figured it wasn’t likely to take any better pictures than the “real” camera, but what did I have to lose? So I took it out and took a few practice snapshots.
I was absolutely blown away. The pictures were crisp and clear, and more significantly, looked exactly the way the fireworks did to my eyes. I kept snapping away, switching over to video mode a few times to see how the iPhone would handle those. Not all of the pictures turned out great, of course, but I got 60 still pictures I liked and three videos. (The fireworks were at a lake, which accounts for the reflections you’ll see in many of the pictures.)
So, yeah, the iPhone 4 has some issues, though I haven’t had any trouble with signal strength at all. And the camera does seem to take somewhat yellower indoor photos than the 3G, but man is it awesome at taking pictures of fireworks!
