[kfury]

Will they teach their journalists how to take shallow depth-of-field shots and long telephoto shots with their iPhones? Probably not, since you can't.

Given the 'yes and' style of derivative news reporting commonplace today, the Sun-Times might be more effective firing the writers, keeping the photographers, and teaching them actual journalism.

[blhack]

>the Sun-Times might be more effective firing the writers, keeping the photographers, and teaching them actual journalism.

I think you joke, but you might have accidentally made an excellent point.

My girlfriend, to pay her bills, is a journalist. One of the things that she's talked about a lot (I'm paraphrasing here, these aren't her words) is that contemporary journalists don't have any balls anymore.

The joke is: a journalism professor, on the first day, stages a siren to play outside of the classroom. When it goes off, anybody who doesn't immediately run out with a pen and a pad in hand is dropped from the class.

Lately, a journalist can do their job without getting up from their desk. A photojournalist, however, can't. They're the ones running into "the action" necessarily. A words-journalist isn't anymore, so much.

[kfury]

I do joke, but with truth. As Al Franken popularized it, I was 'kidding on the square'.

[Tloewald]

Kidding on the square is a very useful (and insightful) phrase.

[SilasX]

>My girlfriend, to pay her bills, is a journalist.

I'm glad she can make that work!

[potatolicious]

Photojournalism has never been about depth-of-field shots nor long telephoto shots. Photojournalism has always been primarily wide, deep depth of field, and more about lighting and composition than anything else.

Shooting "real" photojournalism with an iPhone is more than doable. Hell, the iPhone's field of view is a 28mm equivalent, which is perfect for photojournalism.

I don't disagree with the overall point about the failure of photojournalism, but photojournalism has never been about the capabilities of the camera.

[jonknee]

Perhaps, but most of the iconic photos I remember aren't ones that an iPhone could take. Just take a scroll through Boston's Big Picture blog.

[scrumper]

Exactly. "What settings did you use for that picture, Mr. Photojournalist?" "Easy son, F8 and be there."

[kfury]

And my comment wasn't about photojournalism. Thinking journalists can become photojournalists by telling them to snap pictures (with their phone or with professional glass) is even more ridiculous than the Sun-Times is being.

Don't conflate News Photography with Photojournalism. The second is a subset of the first. News Photography is a field that requires greater diversity than 'being there at f/8 (in daylight, with a fast lens and a ready camera)'.

There are sports photographers, portrait photographers, close subject photographers, artistic photographers and, yes, photographers who need to be on the scene at breaking events, where a wide shot and being close are key.

I agree with everything you said, but it doesn't negate anything I said.

[hnriot]

it does negate what you said, you argued that shallow depth of field and telephoto shots were what's needed, and this is wrong, as was pointed out.

[kfury]

Read it again, and note that not all news photography is photojournalism.

[corresation]

but photojournalism has never been about the capabilities of the camera

Fast frame rate. Very bright lens (e.g. f1.4). Large, high-sensitivity sensor.

It is very much about the capabilities of the camera, because the truth is that lesser cameras miss most shots, especially in a moving situation where you get a momentary window of opportunity. The iPhone camera may get there eventually, but in that situation right now the failure rate to get a shot is going to be incredibly high (obviously a chance is better than none -- the camera you have in your hand is better than the one at home and all -- but we're comparing to ready to go photojournalists).

We shall see how this decision plays out, but personally I think it is a horrible choice because it removes one of the few remaining differentiators between old media and the citizen news, which is that generally in the former you could find great, unique pictures by professionals who know what they're doing.

[sk5t]

You're right on target about the iPhone's unsuitability for photojournalism. There's the horrendous shutter lag, inability to control aperture/sensitivity/shutter speed to any meaningful degree--I can make all these adjustments using dedicated controls on my D3 without taking my eye out of the viewfinder. A big storage buffer, fast frame rate, and removable, redundant storage modules and replaceable batteries also remain essential. Oh, and interfacing with lighting systems, and of course proper lenses.

In a dynamic/dangerous situation, you need to get on the viewfinder and crank away on continuous-high shutter, and you'll take 200x the photos of even an ambitious iPhone user. Now think that out of 1,000 frames, maybe 2 will be head-and-shoulders above the rest... these are probably frames that the iPhone user had a vanishingly small opportunity to capture at all.

[corresation]

It would make for an interesting (and almost certainly viral) test to concoct artificial scenarios of a "newsworthy" event, having participants armed with each type of capture device. Instructing them that something important is going to happen in a few moments (already giving them more information than they would usually have) and then having a staged shoot out go through the scene, or a pretend robbery, etc.

[zaphar]

The announcement said they fired all of their photographic staff.

Which combined with your comment leads me to wonder about their sports section. Taking sports photography is very definitely about the capabilities of the camera and even more importantly the lens. An iPhone is not going to do very well for sports photography.

[snogglethorpe]

> An iPhone is not going to do very well for sports photography

Though it would be amusing to see the attempts... ><

[Seriously though, it sounds like they're simply going to use freelancers for photos from now on, many of whom will presumably have all the fancy kit you need for sports etc...]

[iharris]

My thoughts exactly. For controlled situations where the photographer can dictate the subject's distance, pose, and lighting, I'm sure an iPhone would do just fine. But often, a photojournalist finds themselves in a situation where the environment is beyond their control: a concert with a laser light show, fast-moving athletes in action, or coverage of a natural disaster where your distance requires a telephoto shot.

Don't get me wrong - I use my iPhone's camera frequently and I think it's great. But as a photojournalist where your story (and your livelihood) depends on "getting the shot", you need to be knowledgeable and prepared to shoot in the worst conditions possible. The iPhone can do some awesome things, but you just can't fake good glass with software.

Full disclosure: I sell event photos to my local newspaper that I could not have gotten at all if I had used my smartphone.

[cclogg]

I wonder how you can even train someone for this... Tap to focus, now tap the shutter button, AND done.

Oh, and turn on HDR and wait 5s for it to process.

[pkulak]

F/8 and be there. That still works with an iPhone.

EDIT: Okay, so an iPhone can never actually do f/8, but I think my point still stands...

[kfury]

Take someone with a DSLR on their hip and someone with an iPhone in their pocket and see who can get the shots you want. Subjects don't stand still and they won't wait for you to be ready.

[hnriot]

It's hard to know which side you're arguing for. The iPhone is likely faster, there are a plethora of apps that burst shoot, it can switch to video in a moment and it's faster to start taking photos. By the time the SLR has been set to P mode and auto iso etc e iPhone would have already shot the photos and uploaded them to the server.

The wifi/cell part of the photo is not to be ignored, GPS stamped images uploaded in seconds. The SLR can't compete yet. In a year or two when wifi is prevalent on SLR cameras, maybe, but for the moment is speed counts the iPhone will win for photos and video.

[Tloewald]

At least for stills there's simply no way the iPhone is faster, burst mode apps or not. (I speak as a frequent user of both DSLRs and iphones.) The ability to zoom and crop means you can get shots with a DSLR than an iPhone could almost never get (barring ungainly tricks like shooting through binoculars) and you can't freeze action.

[sk5t]

Nooope, it's not even close--the iPhone is slow, inflexible, and poor-performing compared to a pro DSLR hooked to a 24-70 f/2.8 or 70-200 f/2.8 zoom. Consumer DSLRs are kind of pokey, but the pro models go from "off" to "shoot" in a fraction of a second, with no perceptible delay between hitting the shutter button and an exposure. There is no faffing about with P mode or the like (only someone who doesn't know how to use his camera would be caught out doing this).

The iPhone does have an advantage in network connectivity, but it's comparatively unlikely to capture the couple of moments worth saving.

[kfury]

An iPhone is never faster than a pro DSLR. From hip to eye, power on and shooting in under a second. There's a reason the power switch is part of the shutter.