With all the incredible advances in smart phone technology over the past few years, there are two in particular that have caught my eye. The first is the GPS capabilities that have been standard for a while now and which I'm currently experimenting with and will blog about soon. The second thing I became interested in after acquiring a new iPhone recently, is the photography and video capabilities of the modern cellphone.
For a complete blog post / review, see my
full length article on explor8ion. Following is a quick summary of my findings for CT longevity;
Using interchangeable prime lenses, like the
Moment or
Olloclip solutions, your smart phone can become a pretty nice photographic tool.
I have tried the camera on my iPhone 6s for a while now, and have concluded that it can perform amazingly well, especially in the form of a small / light, carry-anywhere tool that also happens to give me GPS, phone calls, texting and many other useful functions. The auto-backup functionality of iCloud works well for me and I have already captured many family moments that are special for reasons beyond technical photograph perfection.

[
The 18mm Moment lens allows a much wider angle of view (AOV) than the default 29mm iPhone 6s lens. I'm impressed with this jpeg's color and tonal range too. I had to open up the shadows a lot in LR as I exposed for the sky.]
Obviously there are shortcomings in a smart phone camera and YMMV on whether or not you decide to use it as a backup, as your main photography tool or just a casual snapshot generator for social media posts.
I think it's pretty cool that as photographers, we have so many choices that allow us to express ourselves in the art form that we love so much!