25 August 2016

Pocket Technology

I have been quite slow in adopting mobile technology. Until two years ago I was using a dumb-phone which I think it was the right thing to do. However, In the last couple of years the smartphones matured, became more reliable and a lot cheaper.

Nowadays I carry a smartphone on all of my runs. Currently I use a rather low cost Motorola G3. I record the track using the GPS receiver of the phone. It is still less accurate than my 9 years old GPS receiver, but just good enough. It is water resistant (up to a point), good enough so I do not worry in the rain,

The phone also has a camera which is quite impressive, better that I would have expect. It also has an auto HDR mode that is doing a very good job! At 28mm focal length equivalent, it is sharper than my older Nikon AW-110 pocket camera! At longer focal lengths the Nikon lens gets sharper while the camera does "zoom" digitally, producing bad quality images.

Nevertheless, it is great to have this camera in my pocket all the time. Almost every run I stop along the way and take a few shots. Here are three shots from the last days. At a closer inspection one can see the imperfections of a phone camera lens and small sensor, but overall, the images are very good, certainly great for on-screen display.

Going up on Piatra Mare Mountain .Auto HDR 

Lost in the fog

Early morning in Poiana Brasov. Auto HDR

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