I’ve always said that the best camera is the one you have on you, and I’ve mentioned that that cameraphones have a lot of versatility.

I haven’t been shooting seriously in over a year and my cameras are screaming for me to take this stuff seriously again.

Even my iPhone camera.

With my car finally back from the shop, my rear mirror finally repaired, me in the passenger side, and the latest burger from McDonald’s in my lap, I felt a lot of regret I couldn’t snap this with my Leica or Panasonic LX1. But then I remembered I was charging my iPhone…

Ferry Building
Embarcadero, Waterfront, San Francisco, California

Apple iPhone 3G
f/2.8, 3.85mm (37mm)

View Large On Black

From a serious photographer standpoint, I’m struck by how in my digital darkroom, taking the same edits with a different camera makes me end up with a completely different look. I can’t explain it, but I see the world differently with every camera I’ve held. The camera shoots about the same resolution as my first digital camera, one that would have been too bulky to have had the opportunity to be used to shoot this. And the huge depth of field of these lenses turns out to be an advantage in this case.

iPhone as a complete photo workflow

Even more interesting are those who choose to do everything in their iPhone.

Using, Jim Goldstein’s must have photography iPhone apps, Yanik’s list, and this Flickr group’s discussion, I was able to gather that there are programs for doing everything from assisting a photographer (like my old Palm DoF apps); to taking photographs, to edits both mundane (like resizing, cropping, and straightening) to artistic (lomo, shake to develop polaroid anyone); to upload, tweeting, and browsing.

Dessert at Doza

Taken with an iPhone, edited on an iPhone with ColorSplash

Deathwish

Taken with an iPhone, edited on an iPhone with Photo fx.

Buckingham Fountain

Taken with an iPhone, edited on an iPhone with CameraBag

Pasta Hotties

Taken with an iPhone, edited on an iPhone with AutoStitch, uploaded from an iPhone with Mobile Fotos (thought FlickIt is a pretty good free app.)

There is even a blog devoted to this: iPhoneography

When getting caught up in the latest, it’s nice to look back and remember how far we’ve come. That all of us have a camera in our pocket nearly all the time.

We live in amazing times.

(Check out Chase Jarvis’s photos shot and edited on the iPhone for inspiration.)