My new camera

I was looking into fi when it first came out, but was fairly limited in coverage, and only the Nexus phones were being offered. I decided to wait a while.
Now may be the time re-think it. I like the data policy they are discussing, though I can run 30-40 GB a month, right now. On the other hand, over 30 is costing me a bit, and I need to re-think my whole data usage.

LarsMac said:

I was looking into fi when it first came out, but was fairly limited in coverage, and only the Nexus phones were being offered. I decided to wait a while.
Now may be the time re-think it. I like the data policy they are discussing, though I can run 30-40 GB a month, right now. On the other hand, over 30 is costing me a bit, and I need to re-think my whole data usage.

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With that much data Fi won't work for you. That would be $300 to $400 per month. Now they have the best coverage in the country. As time marches on more companies will be building Fi into their phones. I anticipate the day all carriers use all networks. But that is five to ten years down the line.

SeilerBird said:

With that much data Fi won't work for you. That would be $300 to $400 per month. Now they have the best coverage in the country. As time marches on more companies will be building Fi into their phones. I anticipate the day all carriers use all networks. But that is five to ten years down the line.

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By the time we actually hit the road, now, We may not need all the Data. Most of it is for work. And I have been testing my NetGear WiFi extender connecting to wifi at places like starbucks and others that still offer free wifi. It works fairly well.
We'll see after the FCC guy finishes his shenanigans, though, just what we end up with.

LarsMac said:

By the time we actually hit the road, now, We may not need all the Data. Most of it is for work. And I have been testing my NetGear WiFi extender connecting to wifi at places like starbucks and others that still offer free wifi. It works fairly well.
We'll see after the FCC guy finishes his shenanigans, though, just what we end up with.

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Well the nice thing about Google is that it is easy to take it for a test drive and use it for only one month. No contracts to sign. Very user friendly web site. And if you do sign up don't forget to use my code and we both save $20. Fi comes with a bunch of free Wifi too.

You're right Lars, nothing's certain with the net neutrality gone. I'm interested to see what happens in the next few years too. I bet nothing good for the end consumer.

Android Headlines web site just voted the Pixel 2 as the Best Android Smartphone of 2017. Actually that would make it the best smartphone of 2017 period.

https://www.androidheadlines.com/2018/01/ah-awards-best-android-smartphone-of-2017.html

My brother and I both spend a lot of time every day watching a pair of baby eagles (eaglets) in a nest down in Fort Myers. They are about a month old and we have been watching them every day since before the eggs were even conceived. This morning I decided to see if I could get it to come in on my TV and when I did I took a photo to send to my brother. I am blown away by this camera. It managed to get the room which is very dark, the bright TV and the very bright outdoors all visible. The HDR works so well. The photo is a little blue but this is the way it came out of the camera. If you are interested in checking the eaglets out just search for Southwest Florida Eagle Cam.

Joe Satriani is my all time favorite guitarist who did not play in the Beatles. Last night I got to see him in concert with G3 at the Hard Rock Cafe in Orlando. My ticket was in the very last row about 50 feet from the stage. The room is pitch black except for the spotlights and I am 50 feet away from my subject. Can't get much more challenging than that. The Pixel produced very nice results. Not super great, but acceptable considering the circumstances.

Wish I had been there, he's one of my favorites also, along with Steve Vai. I assume Petrucci was playing too, was anyone else there?
Nice pics too. I get aggravated at my phone taking low light pics. It's really terrible. Tried to get pic of moon this morning. What a waste of my time.

I love Steve Vai too, I just saw his 25th anniversary tour of Peace and Warfare. Yep it was John Pedrucci and Phil Collen rounding out the cast. Excellent show.

I have been trying out the Portrait mode. It is a setting that allows you to take a shot with only the subject in focus and the rest of the shot blurry. Like when you use one of the 20th century cameras and you had to stop it down for massive depth of field. With this camera you set it to Portrait Mode and it gives you two shots, one without blurring and one with blurring. You can elect to keep either one or throw either one away. Too cool.

There are several pairs of Sandhill Cranes that come by to see me every day. They are really tame. I had the camera about one foot from his beak (bill?) He just stood there and stared at me. He did hiss a little bit but not much. Lots of people in the park feed them so they stay here year round instead of migrating. They have a regular route that they follow every day to take advantage of the free food.

Nice!

If only his full beak had been pin sharp I'd have preferred that photo. What a great feature! Oh and great pic too!

Thanks Jackie. When I bought the Pixel in November is was at the top of the DXOmark list with a score of 98. Today I discovered it was beaten by the new Samsung S9 with a score of 99. I am thrilled watching the phone makers knock themselves out producing better and better cameras. When I upgraded my phone to Oreo last month they added several new features to the phone. It just keeps on getting better and better. Old style cameras used to go out of date quickly as new features were added to the new phones the only way to get the new feature was to sell it and buy a new camera. Now they upgrade it silently.

SeilerBird said:

Thanks Jackie. When I bought the Pixel in November is was at the top of the DXOmark list with a score of 98. Today I discovered it was beaten by the new Samsung S9 with a score of 99. I am thrilled watching the phone makers knock themselves out producing better and better cameras. When I upgraded my phone to Oreo last month they added several new features to the phone. It just keeps on getting better and better. Old style cameras used to go out of date quickly as new features were added to the new phones the only way to get the new feature was to sell it and buy a new camera. Now they upgrade it silently.

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I read a review that said the S9+ had a better camera. The prices are crazy though.

jackiemac said:

I read a review that said the S9+ had a better camera. The prices are crazy though.

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Yeah. You can buy a nice DSLR for a lot less than some of the pocket computers/cameras ("Oh, by the way, there's a phone in there somewhere, too.") cost.

Larry N. said:

Yeah. You can buy a nice DSLR for a lot less than some of the pocket computers/cameras ("Oh, by the way, there's a phone in there somewhere, too.") cost.

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Yes you can and my cell phone camera can do many things that no DSLR can do including not needing an SD card since it comes with unlimited storage for free. And it uploads all the photos to my computer automatically.

jackiemac said:

I read a review that said the S9+ had a better camera. The prices are crazy though.

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I paid $900 for my Pixel and it is worth every cent. DXO said the still camera was much better but the video was not quite as good. It got a 104 for the camera and 91 for the video for an overall average score of 99. I am thrilled. I can only imagine what the cameras of five years from now will be like. Anyone who wants to read the S9 review it is here:

https://www.dxomark.com/samsung-galaxy-s9-plus-review-premium-specs-top-end-performance/

SeilerBird said:

Yes you can and my cell phone camera can do many things that no DSLR can do including not needing an SD card since it comes with unlimited storage for free. And it uploads all the photos to my computer automatically.

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Not needing an SD card? Then that obviously means online storage, which I don't want. Nor do I want it to automatically upload pics to my computer -- that's something I want to control for myself each time.

As for things no SLR can do, you may be talking about certain processing things, but my SLR can zoom in tight, roughly 8x with the current lens, without loss of quality, and it has a better lens in the first place. And... well, you know all the benny's of an actual camera, but since the convenience and certain features are important to you, then that's the way for you to go. It just doesn't apply to everyone, as some of your posts tend to indicate.

About the same time in December when I bought my iPhone X Plus, I also spent $1k on a Sony RX100 V (version 5) point and shoot camera, which has a larger Sony sensor and about a thousand settings as well as a super auto setting. Both are smaller and more convenient to use than my 50x digital zoom 2013 Sony Cybershot DSC-HX300, which has a 1200m telescoping lens that is great for hikers who don't want to carry a lens bag.

The RX 100 takes better pictures on Super Auto than the iPhone, but it's less convenient when it comes to putting the pictures on the phone and on iCloud. It's easier to email iPhone pictures right away than to mess with the other two cameras, which I have to connect to a computer to transfer pictures (easier than using the RX100's wifi feature, which is clunky.).

Basically, the iPhone is a Sony camera set to Super iAuto. What I like about it most of the time is that its big screen gives you a better look at your newest pictures. It lets you zoom in and out, and it adjusts for the light pretty well. Also, in bright sunlight, I can see what I'm shooting on the iPhone a lot better than on the RX-100. Indeed, in really bright light, I can't see what I'm shooting with the latter camera even when I take off my sunglasses.

The RX100 is a better wide angle camera, and it is much better in rooms with poor light. Further, you can manually set the aperture and shutter speed to get great photos in the dark and in poor lighting situations. Spend $10 or so on the book, The complete guid to Sony's Cybershot RX-100 by Gary L. Friedman. I have the ebook version from Amazon. The book covers version one of the camera and is out of date regarding a lot of the setting, but it's incredibly interesting and useful. The author raves about the camera's capabilities compared with larger single lens reflex cameras he owns. He uses the camera to shoot pictures of his grandkids, etc.

I shoot mostly landscapes and nature. A few pictures of people. And I'm mostly a point and shoot photographer. But I use some of the manual settings in special situations when I'm using my RX-100.

For bird and nature photography, especially on trips to Alaska and Yellowstone, etc, you can't beat the DSC-HX300. I like it better than my older Nikon telescoping camera. Its limitation, however, is that when you telescope out into digital zooms, the pictures are not as you get with a real long range lens. So I have to keep that in mind when I use that camera.

Bottom line, if you're an Apple ecoSystem customer like me, the iPhone X is worth the money and great fun. I'm taking a lot more photos with it than I did with earlier iPhones. You can use the iPhone out of the box. I've spent a lot of hours with Friedman's very detailed RX-100 manual, and I have a lot to learn with that one.