I recently discovered some pictures taken on the iPhone that was somehow quite impressive knowing the low quality delivered by the iPhone built-in camera. It is said that what's important is not the camera but the person using it. "Yeah but what if the camera delivers low quality files?" was I asking to myself. So I decided to give a go and try to get some decent shots with both my iPhone and MDA Vario IV.

This started last week during my Easter break to Devon. My wife and I decided to go to Torquay after seeing a TV program "Hotel Inspector". The sceneries shown in the program seemed very attractive and we wanted to have a try and hoped it was going to be a sunny trip as it usually is for all our Easter holidays. So we packed up for a 6 days trip to Devon with my D300 and her D70s and of course our mobile phones.

Luckily for us the weather was so lovely that week while it was raining cats and dogs in London. So Saturday and Sunday were spent at Slapton Sands a 3 miles long beach near from Darmouth. I was really lazy that day and most of the time was spent sleeping under the sun in the lovely breeze. From time to time I would try to get some pictures taken but with my mobile phones leaving the D300 in the backpack (until the Sunday before leaving the beach doing some jumping shots on the sand, but this will be for another post).

Few months ago I've said bye "bye!" to Three, my UK mobile phone provider and say "hi!" to O2 with their offer for an iPhone 3G v2.0. And I'm glad to have done this. Browsing the Internet is so more intuitive and easy, the multi-touch (zooming with two fingers) screen is awesome. And as a photographer the iPhone is a very neat tool to use as a pocket portfolio, the LCD is bright and sharp and you can rotate your pictures just by physically rotating the phone.

The Apple Apps Store also offers a bunch of free and paid applications and some of them are quite interesting for a photographer.

I just discover this product on a website and thought it would work great with my SB-600 whenever I would need a lightstand but don't want to travel with one... If it can hold a compact camera it should be able to hold a small Nikon Speedlight SB-600... Leave it in a bag and if I encountered a situation where I need to set the flash somewhere I can just use that Monster Pod X and stick my flashgun virtually anywhere.

This could be really cool indead. But being sometimes spontaneous, I haven't done my research properly and did not see that article on Strobist.com which mentionned that Monster Pod X won't hold a SB-800...

But well, lets hope it will hold smaller flashes...