Babys First Year Blog
Are Cell Phone Photos Of My Baby Enough?
As much as I adore my iPhone, and my favorite photo apps — Instagram and Hipstamatic — I have started feeling some major mom-guilt about the fact that 90% of the photos that I have taken of Kara so far are cell phone pictures.
I have this vision of her at age 20, thumbing through a printed photo book of her baby pictures, then asking me if I actually owned a real camera when she was a baby.
Yes, future-Kara, Mommy owns a real camera. In fact, it is a really fancy camera, with all the bells and whistles, which makes the guilt even stronger.
I know that I took more photos of my son when he was a baby, but having two kids now just makes doing anything a million times harder, and I find myself grabbing my cell phone instead of taking an additional five minutes to pull out my good camera.
No apps, no funky color filters, and no vintage borders. Just simple, clear, high-resolution images shot with my Nikon.
Do you ever feel like the convenience of your cell phone makes you neglect taking photos with your camera?
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8 Comments
Pippi commented on Feb 03 12 at 3:09 amI have three cameras: my iPhone, a small Canon that can fit into my purse and that can travel to the beach w/o worrying if sand gets into the lens, and a fancy schmancy Nikon SLR (probably like yours) with several lenses and a portrait flash. Each camera has a purpose. I haul out the bad boy when we go to the tulip gardens or somewhere extra special. I bring the silver mini for vacations nowadays instead of hauling the camera back and killing my shoulder. And I take near-daily shots with my iPhone. The beauty of that is that I can email photos to grandparents in 2 seconds. Each camera has a role and sometimes I suck and don’t drag bad boy out for several months. But it’s there when I need it. At least you’re taking lots of photos! Just sync up your iPhone every now and then so you’ll have those pics forever.
Meagan commented on Feb 03 12 at 9:35 amI’m betting that part of why 90% of your photos are on your phone is because you take SO MANY PHOTOS. How many photos did you take of your baby’s first week? I took 10-15 photos of my son on my digital camera, and another 30-40 on my phone. My parents have 3-5 photos of me in my first month, and I’m an only child. I have already taken as many photos of my 8 month old son as my parents have of my entire childhood. On my digital camera. I have about 10 times the amount on my phone. And you know, the photos on my 12 megapixel camera are “nicer” photos, if we are going somewhere special, all dressed up, I bring the camera and get a posed family photo. But my favorite photos are all on my phone. Who brings a camera to the mall and captures their baby reaching out of the stroller, apparently trying to get a Starbucks fix? Who has the camera for that first failed playground experiment? Anyone with a phone, that’s who. And how many of our parents do you think actually managed to catch our first sitting and first crawling and first standing and first steps oin photos? How many of US have those moments saved on our phone’s sd card?
If your daughter rolls her eyes at your camera use, it will probably be asking, you had a camera mom? A camera that WASN’T a phone?
And people actually printed out photos once upon a time?
Katie @ Pop Culture Cuisine commented on Feb 03 12 at 6:04 pmNo worries, I was feeling the same way about all of the iphone photos I have, I mean like 90% of the pics I have taken are on it, that was until I uploaded them onto my computer and started editing and making a photobook on shutterfly for my daughter and realized that the iphone photos were editing just as well. Now you can’t always blow them up huge b/c of the resolution, but they are pretty dang good if you ask me :)
Lindsay commented on Feb 04 12 at 8:14 pmAbsolutely! It wasn’t until I read this that I even thought that it might be a problem. I take a lot MORE pictures of my kids because I do have an iPhone that can actually take decent photos. I need to start hitting up Snapfish and get some photo books made if I hope to not get “that look” when my girls grow up!
B commented on Feb 05 12 at 3:13 pmMy baby just gets a serious look with a real camera- semi perplexed by it, I think. At least with the phone, I can sneak some shots. Use both – it’s true a DSLR just gets better quality prints (at least this year).
I think the point that when we were kids there were probably 30 good pictures of our first year altogether is a good one. I mean really – how often do you ACTUALLY go back and look at all of them? Do you really need a picture of EVERY moment?
Edward Yau commented on Feb 06 12 at 12:05 amIt’s more about laziness or convenience than the quality of my cell phone. I always have my cell handy, but don’t always carry around my camera.. it just ends up that way! But thankfully cell cameras are “good enough” these days.
Natalie B commented on Feb 06 12 at 8:00 pmI agree with Katie! If the lighting conditions are right the photos I take with ny phone are pretty dang good. I’m not a pro but wouldn’t the same principles that apply to taking a photo with a “real camera” also apply to iPhonography? The best camera is the one you have with you afterall. :)
DGMommy (Tamara) commented on Feb 10 12 at 11:24 amThis is hilarious to me! I haven’t had a real camera since my youngest started walking! He walked away with it and dropped it in the cat’s water bowl! ALL of my pictures and videos for the past year and a half are from my phone! They aren’t great, but they are better than nothing!
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