iPad was supposed to be the perfect computer, eh?

Depends on what I am taking pictures of.

For single cards that I don't need everything perfectly in focus I'll just use my iPhone 6s.

For single cards that I want everything in focus, I use my tabloid sized CCD flatbed scanner with a box cut to size so I can leave the top cover open.

For larger pictures or pictures of a lot of stuff, I use my Pentax K-30 and an appropriate lens. For stuff that I need super fine detail with or pictures of small objects, I'll use my Pentax 100mm f2.8 MACRO lens.
I only take pictures in RAW format.

Adjustments for RAW photos are done in LightRoom.

Cropping, etc. is done with GIMP.

I just take photos with my phone and email them to myself. Not ideal but it works. For large quantities I can use Google Drive, but obviously I can't access that from vintage machines.

I have a Sony ZX3 phone. I usually just use that.

I'm no expert but for images of hardware i.e. indoors close ups, I've found that lighting is more important than using a fancy camera*. Close ups means the amount of light that can get into the lense is limited. I especially struggle as I have a black desk and terrible lights so the entire lense is filled with black (which doesn't reflect much light itself) except for the GPU (say, red coloured) I'm photographing, which means there is quite a big contrast between the level of light and my camera can't get both looking good..

E.g. bright screen, dark room. The camera chose to balance for the screen image, so the wall and speakers look very dark.

Compare that to something from an LGR video. White on white with lots of light, the camera can have every thing in the image sharp, with the correct white balance and colours.

*by which I mean my phone takes better pictures in decent lighting than my 1100D DSLR does in poor lighting.

Yes, I think a good mobile phone camera should do fine like an iPhone 7 Plus or Google Pixel.

When taking photos on low light conditions the most important factor is keeping the phone stable. For example leave the phone on the edge of a box in order to take a photo of a card below it

Almoststew1990 wrote:

bright screen, dark room.

I think your right. Good lighting is very important.
I am surprised in the path camera companies are taking ?
I don’t understand why more BIG camera companies like Nikon and Canon don’t devolop there own mobile phone.
Or at least some sort of small tablet like device for taking photos ?
Why don’t they have there own Cloud service for uploading and storing photos and photo printing service ?
These camera companies are not go to succeed in the future when they are loosing business to Apple, Google, and Sony. They will end up like Eastman Kodak and the HP digital camera. They did not succeed because they did not have a Cloud serivice like Apple and Google do for uploading and storing photos.

Probably they are primarily optics companies and cameras aren't necessarily their biggest earners anyway. Fuji makes more money from instax than digital. The camera companies that get involved with phones seem to be panasonic (they makeor made phones anyway, and they had the cm1 i think it was), samsung had a camera/phone hybrid, and leica lend their name to one of the eastern brands (huawei?). Oh and kodak (in name at least, maybe no direct descendant of old kodak) produced a cheap phone that was photo-oriented and had some sort of integrated print service. Of course sony are now big players in professional level cameras, and they also make phones. Looks to me like market segmentation. Small cheap compacts have been pretty much killed off by phones, so the cameras that remain are much more capable hardware. And they do try to integrate with phone apps, just never very smoothly (in my opinion). Sony is probably the most interesting, where you can download software for your camera, via your phone, use the phone as a remote etc. Others similarly. Fuji has an app for printing from tablets etc to their instax printer. So it's not like the camera companies aren't aware of mobile devices.

Personally i hate using my phone for taking photos, much prefer proper cameras.

As to cloud services, they have to be paid for one way or another, and there are already big players in the freebie market (though i'm not sure whether recent changes with google+ affect that). Flickr now charge c. £50 a year roughly for a pro account (1000+ images). Pretty sure i saw other services were similar, unless you don't mind poorer quality, adverts, and the AI classifying you as the wrong species. Again, kodak or someone using their brand was looking to set up some sort of cloud service (may have been as an aid to deriving revenue from your pics ). That sort of thing runs into copyright etc sort of issues that i'd rather not think about, just being an amateur.

Intel486dx33 wrote:

They will end up like Eastman Kodak and the HP digital camera. They did not succeed because they did not have a Cloud serivice like Apple and Google do for uploading and storing photos.

No, Kodak failed BECAUSE they focused on gimmicky "photo-sharing" abilities when those abilities really only belong and make sense on an all-in-one devices such as smartphones, which didn't exist yet. They should have focused on making the best professional DSLR they could, and they could have been a worthy competitor to Nikon, Canon, etc. Even to this day they still haven't learned from their mistakes, for example trying to wedge their way into the highly saturated smartphone market with a phone that didn't do enough things for enough people to be viable. It was obvious to everyone that it would fail when they launched it, but they have their heads too far up their you-know-whats to understand that they will drive themselves into bankruptcy again with that kind of stupidity.

All the people who are saying a phone cam will do is fooling themselves. That said, the best camera in the world won't save you if you do it wrong. Get one that can be set up for color temperature using a cartela, get decent lighting, use a tripod and snap away.

y'all should take pictures of your vintage hardware with period correct film cameras.

I actually have some of the first digital cameras. An Apple take two 150 like new in original box with all accessories and software and an HP digital camera C30 NEW in box. I tried using the HP with Windows but it is really slow. But will work for posting using I.E. 6.0
I can use my old Macintosh’s with the Apple camera which was actually make by Eastman kodak for Apple.

Currently I like to use my iPad for taking pictures and posting. It is really easy to use once you get the hang of it.
Just take a photo using the rear camera in good lighting and then you can resize or edit the photo for posting.
For photos from the internet just open the photo in the web browser and then take a screen shot. Edit the screen shot to just display the items or webpage you want to share.

It’s really easy to use if you have a keyboard. I have a basic iPad so I use the Logitech ultra thin Bluetooth keyboard. I think it is the best value non-apple keyboard available.

What is nice about the iPad is it’s all-day battery life and instant on function. It’s always on and you never have to force update or reboot. Every photo and document gets backed up to the iCloud and you never have to worry about loosing anything.
Even notes gets instantly backed up so you never have to worry about loosing your notes text.
As you type it gets backed up.

Maybe this summer I will have time to setup my Macintosh TV for games and photo taking.
And my HP C30 camera too.

I just take photos on my Galaxy S9 and connect it to USB via my PC. I did try sending them via Bluetooth previously but it sometimes feels like more hassle than it's worth with slow transfer speeds and transfers outright failing at times.

I soemtimes try and get some good lighting going on if I can be bothered :p

keenmaster486 wrote:

No, Kodak failed BECAUSE they focused on gimmicky "photo-sharing" abilities when those abilities really only belong and make sense on an all-in-one devices such as smartphones, which didn't exist yet. They should have focused on making the best professional DSLR they could, and they could have been a worthy competitor to Nikon, Canon, etc. Even to this day they still haven't learned from their mistakes, for example trying to wedge their way into the highly saturated smartphone market with a phone that didn't do enough things for enough people to be viable. It was obvious to everyone that it would fail when they launched it, but they have their heads too far up their you-know-whats to understand that they will drive themselves into bankruptcy again with that kind of stupidity.

Kodak "failed" (they're still around) because they weren't quick enough to adapt to the arrival of CCD imaging in the consumer space. Now that they restructured to focus on optics, sensors, printers, and commercial imaging, they might have a chance.