Tokyo Street with the iPhone 6 Plus Day 1

We arrived in Tokyo yesterday afternoon, dropped off our stuff at the hotel, and took the train to Shibuya. My daughter wanted to shop at H&M, so while she shopped I shot some street. Coming from small town Okinawa, shooting in Tokyo, especially Shibuya, is nirvana for street photography, as most big cities are I'm sure. I had my Fuji x100s around my neck, but I've really been wanting to put the iPhone 6 Plus to the test and shoot street with it. At first the light wasn't all that great, but then as we were heading back to Shibuya station the late afternoon sunlight started beaming between the buildings, and suddenly I started seeing photos everywhere. 

iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/570 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/570 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

What I learned. 

  1. Use "Burst Mode", hold down the shutter to fire off continuous shots. Since the lag time on the iPhone can be significant sometimes this is the perfect way to get the shot for street. On most of the shots I held the shutter down as I was walking toward the subject, and released as I passed them. Then in post you can select the shot you want. This will also help with potential blurring. This leads us to number 2. 

  2. Shoot during early morning/late afternoon high contrast lighting conditions. Now this is nothing new for photography in general, but is especially important, in my opinion, when shooting street with an iPhone. See in order to get clean images you need the ISO to remain low, and to freeze you subjects, the shutter speed needs to be high, above 1/500 sec. Shooting with bright, high contrast light the iPhone gives you both of these.

 iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/800 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

 iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/800 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

I had several shots on this next image, and although I had some with the guy with the glasses eyes open, I liked the look on the girl with the white coat. So I went with this one. 

iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/1000 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/1000 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

Here are a couple more. All in all not bad I think for a camera that fits in my pocket, and allows me to not only shoot, but edit and post the images. Now I'm not saying I'm ready to breakup with my beloved Fuji x100s, but sometimes it's nice to shoot with something simple and fun.  

 iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/800 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

 iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/800 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

 iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/1500 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

 iPhone 6 Plus, ISO32, f/2.3, 1/1500 sec. Edited in Lightroom Mobile. 

Thanks for visiting today, and remember to like, comment, and share if you enjoyed this post. Have a great day everyone. TA:)