iPhone cameras and Instagram

After my 365 project, I felt a great need to NOT take photos anymore. Of course, I have continued to snap away with my Nikon D90 and still enjoy photography. What I suppose I needed to take a break from was the editing and the posting of my photos as well as sometimes the "burden" of my heavy DSLR hanging like an albatross around my neck. Enter the iPhone 4S into my life early in 2012 and my life has been transformed. I will not say that a phone camera takes the place of a DSLR. It just simply can't touch what a DSLR camera has the capacity to do. However, when you are out walking around New York City, shelping your heavy DSLR and gear and you feel like your arm may go numb from the weight of all the stuff you are carrying around, well, the iPhone camera with the aid of Instagram comes quite handy and actually produces some pretty nice photos to boot. In reality, the type of camera a photographer uses is only part of the equation. The other part comes from the eye and skill of the photographer.  Now, I am not attempting to say that I am the best and most gifted photographer out there, far from it. What I do say though is this, in photography, it is more important to use what you have on hand and attempt to capture the best image that you can while enjoying the experience that you are capturing over having really awesome equipment that you may  or may not be able to capture a good image with and/or weighs you down to the point that you are somewhat miserable because of the equipment that you are hauling. Case in point, I chose to not take my DSLR on our pumpkin patch excursion this past weekend. Instead I captured our trip using my iPhone and Instagram. I was happy not to have my DSLR hitting my hip every time I reached down to get a pumpkin and I think I couldn't have gotten any better images like the one above even if I had had my DSLR. I still love shooting images with my D90, and no, it has not started to collect dust; however, sometimes, depending on the situation, it's very nice to have a lighter alternative to capture the moment at hand.