It is true that I was standing closer and using a wide-angle lens with the iPhone. But it wasn't on purpose to tip the scales, I was just taking an iPhone photo as I've done many times.
So it would be a fairer comparison to use a longer focal length, but it's also true that I am the Average Joe, and Average Joe took a better photo with the camera, because it guided me in that direction more than the iPhone did.
Right but at the same time, Average Joe will take better photos with a digicam because they'll behave exactly like I did and make the same mistakes, so arguably it's very naive but also an accurate depiction of the average idiot who clicks a shutter
You posted a camera comparison blog post to a nerd site, and there's plenty of camera nerds here. You might find that it's not the audience you were looking for, if you weren't intending to be objective or rigorous in your comparison.
But also, very fun to see the Copper Country featured on hacker news!
You were guided to stand where you were because of the lens on the camera. If your lens was a 23mm you would have stood in the same spot as you did with the phone.
I agree with this. The comparison is one tool versus another and the way you would naturally apply them figures into that equation. There's a million apples-to-apples pixel peeping technical tallies, this compares experiences as a whole.
most hn comment of all time. The whole point of the product is that giving someone a QR code ticket is easier than collecting email or phone number, which makes a big difference at high volume.
What kind of volume are you doing? I see three examples. Hell, I get more people than that stopping me to ask for pictures or try to hire me for event work when they see how I use a camera, most days when I'm just out for a walk.
Really, what it looks like to me is just that you have a product that costs ~nothing to operate and seems like it sort of makes sense for smallish wedding-and-anniversary party venues - but you've discovered too late what a nightmare that market is and that the fit's not actually that great, so you're pitching to people like me to try to salvage with a pivot, not realizing that the ask to add a Wal Mart style belt mounted printer to my kit in order to produce these QR code tickets is really just never going to happen.
It's bizarre to me in what world you live where this constitutes "easier," but I also don't care. You want to intermediate and transactionalize a relationship so ephemeral it can already be nearly overlooked even to exist, and where your presence is unneeded and unwelcome - and mine is the most HN comment ever? But it does explain why no one in your sample shots is smiling.
Most I've done is 60 group photos in an hour at a trade show.
> Really, what it looks like to me is just that you have a product that costs ~nothing to operate
Correct
> and seems like it sort of makes sense for smallish wedding-and-anniversary party venues
I would say the intended use case is destination venues like a upscale golf course or hotel.
> the ask to add a Wal Mart style belt mounted printer to my kit
Not how it works. If you looked at the website, you'd see that you print and cut the tickets at home before hand on a normal printer.
> It's bizarre to me in what world you live where this constitutes "easier," but I also don't care
Handing someone a ticket is easier than collecting their email.
> You want to intermediate and transactionalize a relationship so ephemeral it can already be nearly overlooked even to exist, and where your presence is unneeded and unwelcome - and mine is the most HN comment ever?
I have unlimited confidence and patience. Hit me with the snarkiest rebuttal you can muster!
I did look at the website, of course. How else could I have critiqued your comparison of phone and discrete cameras?
At a rate of one a minute in a destination venue, sure, this makes sense, assuming you could land that kind of deal reliably. So why are you trying to sell it to street photographers like me, who do things differently, with different desiderata and different needs? And if you are going to try to do that, then don't you think you might be wise to listen when a putative customer explains how you have failed to earn their money?
@throwanem I think I hit the depth limit so replying here. I would be happy to chat about how a street photographer could use Candid9, but do know that I've made plenty of money in other businesses and this is a fun passion project for me, so I'm not begging on my knees for someone to use my side project.
There's no depth limit, it's just that the reply link takes a few minutes to show up at depth. You can always reply from the comment view (click the timestamp) until the reply window (iirc 14 days) has closed. I don't care about Candid9; as I said, there's no place for it in anything I do. If it matters to you to pitch effectively to street photographers, I assume you would want to find out what we care about. If not, why pitch us at all? Unfortunately for me, it's too goddamned hot right now to go outside and live, and I'm bored of doing house chores. Good luck.
I don't really understand the current street photographers as I don't know how they would ever make money. Basically if you're already a street photographer, then you aren't motivated by money, which the pitch of Candid9 is that you'll make money. So pre-existing street photographers paradoxically are not the target market.
Right, at which point I cease to understand why the "For independent photographers" tab reads as if trying to pitch me a gig-economy style addon to an existing practice. I can't speak for the market you are trying to target, but I would wonder whether you miss people like them by hitting people like me.
I guess maybe it could be worth clarifying your copy, but who'd care? I do street work when I do it because I like meeting people and because it makes people smile. If I wanted money also out of it, I'd more likely just drop my hat on the sidewalk or something.
I still don't see why the comparison page (the one originally linked here, the iPhone 16/mirrorless shootout) treats variations in pose and composition as equivalent with those caused by camera physics, which was what originally caught my interest in any case.
Yes one use-case is a gig-economy street photography practice, which does already exist in places like the Brooklyn Bridge, Candid9 makes that easier.
Another use-case perhaps in your case is to do it for free and do higher volume and market your money-making services? I agree that it is fun and mood-lifting to take portraits, but also it would be cool to make it sustainable.
but yeah overall Candid9 is a hammer looking for a nail right now.
Thanks for replying and congrats on releasing your idea to the world. I just signed up to check it out and will use it in parallel with my project. I like your idea of session-based versus photo-based and also the approach of pre-printing QR codes. That is a simple workflow quite accessible to the less technical on both sides.
I don't think I have specific questions now, but I'm excited for the kinds of interactions it can spark. I mostly imagine getting lost in a sea of QR codes if it is not managed well. I was going to try to composite an extra copy for photographer reference.
It's automatic. (If I'm handing a stranger my camera.)
> zoom level
This is maybe the hardest one, I guess, … but I do think most people have seen enough TV cop dramas to instinctively know. Or, they can just take the photo at the zoom I've handed them, and it won't be a big deal. Walking forward a few steps is also like zooming.
Agreed: I usually compose a shot with everybody but me in it, stand until a passer-by walks nearby so they'd end up in roughly the same spot. It's not the same and composition is usually off, but they are passable for what I want them to be (full family photos, usually).
Sometimes you get a stranger looking through a viewfinder and crouching and you know you've got yourself another hobbyist (or pro) as well :) Those compositions usually are better too!
> Sometimes you get a stranger looking through a viewfinder
This happened the last time I gave my camera to someone and I was smacking myself, as I'd put the camera into "LCD screen is viewfinder mode", since then it is closer to a phone for most people. And I'd found someone who knew what a viewfinder was! Of course, it's just black. (The mirror being in the way.)
The CCD digicams that are trending aren’t known for the technical quality of their sensors of lenses or whatnot, but the CCD low dynamic range aesthetic
iPhones always take "decent" photos even under tricky conditions, but they never take great photos. I would take 10 great photos over 100 decent photos myself.
I regularly take photos outside, at night, in ambient light with my Fujifilm X-Pro3 and 56mm f/1.2. I'm stretching the limits of it a bit, using high ISO and as low a shutter speed as I can get away with.
In the same lighting conditions, an iPhone will basically take 3-5 shots and composite them together in software. The result, predictably, is unusable for most moving subjects.
reply