<|-- removed generator --> The Online Photographer: All the Things We Use Cellphone Cameras for that Aren't Photography

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Tuesday, 08 July 2025

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I use it mainly as a counterweight in my left jacket pocket for the GR in my right.

I used to keep a mirror in my desk to see behind the computer, and the iPhone has replaced that. Also useful for looking under things, like the car or the bed, or generally sticking it in holes to find things.

Back in 1996 I bought my first digital camera, an Olympus D300L with a whopping 0.78MP sensor, and among other things, used it to take pictures of expense receipts for a project at IBM that I was a freelance contractor on. It took about a week for them to figure out how to deal with them. I made have been the first person to submit digital photos of receipts at IBM. It hadn’t really occurred to me to me until now.

Many younger travelers use their phones, in conjunction with Google Translate, to read signs in other languages with a quick conversion to English. Very helpful when visiting places like Japan and S. Korea where the signs have no connection to English. Or the other language of your choice.

Very helpful for figuring out the instructions for complex, Japanese, public toilets... And, of course, train routes.

When I’ve forgotten my reading glasses in my truck, I’ll take a quick snap of the check which I can magnify with a simple gesture to accurately figure the tip.

- Google reverse image search: using a photo instead of text
- scanning QR codes
- video calls
- flashlight mode (it's not using the image sensor but the light is intended for flash photography)
- looking around a corner, through a dark hole in the wall, or under a sofa

The later model iPhones can see in the dark. It can be helpful if for example planning to make repairs in a dark place. I remember taking some pictures of a false ceiling to see how the wires and pipes went. Flash did not help because it made some parts over exposed while leaving the rest in the dark. But the night mode in iPhone got a clear enough picture to see everything inside, the only light coming from the small service opening that I could poke my head through.

I work in hospital maintenance. When we go into an office for painting, new carpet, etc. I take a picture of the walls so all the pictures and diplomas are put back in the right spot and any books are put back on the shelves in the right order. If we're moving a desk away from the wall, I take a picture of the network/phone connections so everything gets plugged back into the right plug.

I used the phone to take pictures of the model/serial numbers of my kitchen appliances, lawn mower, etc. so I can order parts for them when they need repair.

I use my iPhone for all of the above. (Except the hair thing) As mentioned it makes a wonderful magnifying glass. Ever try to read the specs printed on the base of your lightbulb with aging eyes? My phone can.

I use the phone camera to document parts of the house before going to the lumber or building store. It helps me explain a repair or project. Handy, but I rarely do any recording that I'd call "photography" with a phone.

Having a poor sense of direction, I use the phone to snap trail photos, especially at intersections, whenever I'm hiking alone. Saves me lots of time trying to figure out which way is home.

I travel internationally. Instead of carrying my passport, which I can safely leave in a hotel safe, I take shots of the current visa and other pertinent pages. I also keep shots of documents, like my birth certificate & int'l driver license, that I might need during my travels.

Many, many years ago, long before the advent of the smart phone, I knew a lady who purchased a Polaroid camera. When she and her husband went on a trip they would stop at historical makers where would take a quick picture and read the information at her leisure as they continued on their journey. Those photos along with a few environmental pictures made a wonderful record of their trip.
Today’s smart phone is the modern equivalent of that record keeper.

Let's see, besides the camera taking photos:

The obvious ones:
Email
Text messaging
Voice communication
Calendar, alarm clock, appointments reminders
GPS - maps, nav system for car, hiking trails
Weather
Calculator
Compass - great for hiking
Carrying and reading documents
Photo documentation and voice recordings

Emergency communications via satellite - important in some areas we hike

Payments
Like a credit card for anything
Paying for laundry (washer/dryer) in building
Paying for parking meters
Donations
Money management - credit cards, banking

News, read Newspapers, news sites
economic news -stock market reports

Entertainment
Music
Radio
Video
Podcasts

Manage home security cameras and car dashcam

Earthquake and fire monitoring

Managing memberships, e.g museums

Not only as a magnifier but as a telescope for distant objects

Tracking important objects like keys, wallets and cars using Apple AirTags

Contacting AAA for services

Contacting Internet service and phone services

Skymap - Star Walk tracks celestial objects, satellites, ISS

Travel - bookings and maps

Available but rarely used
Translations but I usually do that on a computer
Measure
Level

And I probably forgot some things...

I live on 300 acres of mostly bushland, and use my phone's camera for GPS coordinates of maintenance jobs. For example, I'll note holes for repair along the western fenceline, where the electric deer fence runs, where deer, wallaby, kangaroo and wombats* have found a way to push through to avoid the zap. Also, for summer weed spraying, I'll note small outbreaks of St. John's Wort for attention (or Horehound, or Mullein, or thistle, or...but mostly Wort) - it's as easy as just taking a photo.

(Not that this is about photos, but the phone also GPS tracks my actual backpack-weedpraying route in summer - using a fitness app - so I can see where I've sprayed and monitor how much spray I've used over how much area... it's good to see a difference being made each year).

Otherwise I'll use it to take photos of things I might want to look up later, or do later - I just send the photo to my Reminders app. And I've definitely grabbed a stray eyelash or bit of sleep-sand by using the camera as a "mirror".

Oh, and I just remembered... I use it for health things, taking photos of potentially problematic skin issues (ie. skin cancer stuff) that I want to monitor over time, or if I want to make sure something that showed up is okay next time I go to the GP.

And, of course, it's just a good notebook/memory aid, for stuff like awkward serial or part numbers on whitegoods or cars or...

Cheers,
Marc

(*Nothing stops wombats - they are the D9 tractor of the marsupial world. But I persist.)

I'm in my 8th decade and my iPhone has become a central part of my daily life. While some of what I use it for I could do on other devices - my iMac or my iPad - it's often just much handier to use the phone. However there some things I can only do with the phone. So here goes:

a) finance stuff: I use the phone for a lot of on-line banking tasks, and just generally keeping up with where I am with my finances. These are tasks that I could do on the other devices (via a browser) but it's simply easier to use the relevant apps. And of course, a VPN for security - I always start the VPN before doing anything to do with money on a device that's not physically connected to the network;

b) having found out how much money I've got, I'll spend some of it using the phone. This is particularly the case for small purchases (coffee, books, etc) from favoured restaurants or shops for which I've got a loyalty card, held on the phone;

c) tickets for travel and events, installed in the wallet;

d) Social Media - this is how I keep in contact with family and friends;

e) keeping up with the news. I can't remember the last time I watched a TV news broadcast - I use the BBC app for that. (To be fair, this is something that I'll happily use the other devices for if I've got them available, but if I'm out and about then it's the iPhone.)

f) other media consumption, especially YouTube;

g) and occasionally I might make or take a phone call!

None of my cameras have gps. Assuming all the camera clocks are set correctly, a quick snap with an Iphone will pop up in the right place in a Lightroom catalogue and tell me exactly where this or that 'proper' photograph was taken. Very useful when identifying churches in Italy or wherever.

1. I have aplication with my national ID card and my driving licence.
2. I pay with my phone wallet, having 3 cards in his memory.
3. In Japan I use google translate to read restaurant menus - otherwise I would die of hunger.
4. If my doctor prescribes some drug, I get sms with data necessary to buy it - no need for paper receipts.

Just the iPhone camera itself is basically secondary storage for my brain - recording invoices/receipts, snaps of blood pressure readings, anything I want to remember I did (e.g. pills before I take them), screenshots of articles, recipients and all those things whenever I think “I must remember that” - I also use the phone as a scanner - from time to time my work involves archival research of documents / books that (shock, horror) don’t exist digitally. Instead of old fashioned photocopying, I tend to snap and use scanning software to OCR if I need to use the text.

I store it all in iOS Journal (free) and use basic keywords and tags to help me remember it all - they are critical or the information gets lost fairly fast. I expect AI will take over manually keywords and tags in the not very distant future - at which point anyone with access to my phone records will be able to recreate large slabs of my life in incredible detail. That is, if it isn’t being done already!

Hi.

Not the camera, but I just used my iPhone to scratch my back.

Peace,
Dean

After watching an older man fumble a magnifying glass over his phone trying to read it, I researched the Android options. Turns out there are accessibility tools - Magnifier and Magnification.

The Magnifier uses the camera but you don't have to take an image; just for viewing, and I think it works better than the camera for some reason, unless my tremors are bad that day.

Magnification plops a variable size window over the phone screen that you can set the power and vary the size of the window. I've not used it enough to get good at it, but if it was the sort of thing you needed, it would be very handy.

Both of these can be easily started from a small icon in the lower right corner of the phone. So, if you can't see very well, it would be easy to start either of them without having to navigate anywhere else on the phone.

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