Review: iPhone4 vs Nexus 4: Taking as Many Pictures as I can

This morning I decided to revert to the iPhone4 from the LGE Nexus 4 to check the iPhone's resolution once again.

It's on par with the Nexus 4 but might be better than the Samsung i757m (Galaxy HD LTE).

Samsung did a good job of contracting out to LGE on the Nexus 4. Its firmware, though, is programmed to focus first, which prevents the "snap as many pictures as I can using the button" mode of the iPhone. You can only get a limited version of this by selecting "Continuous" on the Nexus 4.

That is, if there is a "Continuous" mode for snapping as many pictures as I can on the Nexus 4. I've yet to try the panorama mode, which is more extensive.

The 360° panorama mode can be combined with the "hungry Planet" edit mode which is nifty.

However, the default panorama becomes humdrum after playing with the 360° panorama mode for a bit.

I'd have to buy an app to get these functions on the iPhone.

A Picture Taken with my Apple iPhone 4

This picture was taken with a iPhone 4 with 5MP camera and 8GB of RAM.

While examining this picture, I enjoy letting the mind take it in.

Two trees with leaves of a different color — green and red — the buildings on the left side of the picture, and in the bottom right corner...

I love how the mind finds patterns in nature, caused by sunlight — or lack of it — and the shadows made by buildings and trees.

Yet it's important to me to stop thinking and return to the breath. It's only in the comfort of my house that I think too much. So meditation helps a lot.

When I took the picture, I just turned the iPhone up, tried to time it so that it caught the sun in shade. Here I believe the iPhone fails, because sunlight or bright lights wash out the camera shot more so than my Samsung.

Almost every time I used my Samsung to take a picture of the sun, they have turned out well: a larger than normal oval, slightly washed out.

So the proper use for the iPhone is to avoid pointing at sun. Also use flash at night time.

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Pictures taken with my iPhone: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/113339991496129525363/albums/5875824921943468977?partnerid=gplp0

A Picture Paints a Thousand Words

It is very dangerous to whip out your smartphone and video a police takedown from your front yard. If the cops see you, then they could arrest you for "obstructing justice" when all you are doing is watching the police.

In Canada, legal advice has it that it is illegal to take a picture of a person who may be identified in it and subject to slander, libel and similar injustices.

However, there is also a 50-foot exception since beyond this point, you need an expensive DSL camera to refine details in a picture.

Yet the state of technology of a camera depends on the resolution of a photo. If you choose a picture resolution of under 2048x1536, then picture quality will suffer for subjects 50 feet away from the camera lens.

E.g. the camera in my smartphone has a 8 megapixel (mp) resolution, which means a resolution of 3264x2448, which allows for more detail.

However at 50 feet, a 8 mp resolution still isn't so clear that a person is identifiable, considering that without anti-jitter and at low light levels, the image will still be blurry.

Cameras do the best with detail with portraits, up close.

At 50 feet, picture detail is compromised by low resolution and jitter.

Thus, taking pictures of State action with a smartphone at a distance of 50 feet of more isn't actually illegal. Given the quality of the image, it's possible to create reasonable doubt about anyone identified in the picture.

Therefore, it is imperative for social activists to enforce a 50-foot rule for known agents of the State. However, this means ponying up money to pay for this right.

Sleep Disorder Common Malady of Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

December 8, 2008: According to my experience, mild TBI (traumatic brain injury) began early. I do not doubt that I was quite two when, in a fit of anger, my brother - aged 3 - took the hoe he was using to play in the tiny sandbox we had in the yard.

Since then, there have been numerous mTBI, including a fall down the stairs around 5 years of age, smashing my left temple on the corner of the stone fireplace...

Later in school I once bumped into a fellow student in Grade 2, and got a nasty gash on the back of my head. The fellow who bumped into me, DK, grew up in poverty. His family life was one of deprivation and squalidness.

Years passed. I developed insomnia as a result of antihistamines used for hay fever, and was quite exhausted by age 8.

Recently, a mTBI in July 2004 resulted in a lot of chaos that went away after I became roommates with my ex-GF LJ and her new BF TN.

My guess is, these mTBIs may be the root of my inability to form long intimate relationships with the opposite sex. There just isn't depth to me for a woman to tolerate me for long.

I say it's the TBI combined with the Japanese upbringing. For there appears to be a wall which comes up when I am asked to open up and truly communicate.

It's frustrating though, and yet I carry on, mainly because this blog is the best means of communication for me.

So too is Facebook, especially its ability to use a smartphone's camera to send pictures to the Albums section.

Yet pictures may paint a thousand words, but true communication demands face-to-face communication. Computers do not provide that, even with a webcam.

Only activities which help one to talk with other like-minded people may do that. So I will try to make Meetup meetings when my schedules allows it.

In the meantime, I am happy taking pictures on my KODAK EASYSHARE C763 Zoom Digital Camera.

Update: February 2, 2013

Currently I use my Samsung S II HD LTE smartphone as my main camera since my KODAK camera stopped working. This began during the summer of 2012.

I mainly use the default camera app.

Regarding my sleep disorder, I use flexeril and gabapentin as sleep aids since they both are safe and effective when used as directed.