TOPIC: How do you use HIP ?

I'm just a bit surprised as the camera phones have no zoom. Every inspectors I've ever talked to says about half their pics require zoom!

I'm just a bit surprised as the camera phones have no zoom. Every inspectors I've ever talked to says about half their pics require zoom!

My 10X zoom is great for chimneys and when I need to do the roof from the ground.

I would say only 10% I use a zoom.

I'm just a bit surprised as the camera phones have no zoom. Every inspectors I've ever talked to says about half their pics require zoom!

I agree as I always use it to focus on the issues.

I'm not sure what you are talking about, the Iphone has a zoom and a 5 megapixel camera...  It also can make these photos called HDR (high dynamic range) which are really useful. It takes three different photos in a second (underexposed, overexposed, in the middle) and then combines them to give you a really clear photo.  I hardly ever even need the iphone zoom.  It's only a digital zoom, but HIP brings the resolution down anyway so even if I zoom in a bit, I don't really lose quality.  I use to carry a 3.0 megapixel camera with a 7x zoom and I never needed the zoom.

Actually, there was this one time I couldn't walk the roof because of rain, but I could see something looked odd about the flashing.  The 7x zoom couldn't bring me up close enough, but when I broke out the binoculars I realized somone had used old license plates to flash around the chimney!  The way I got the photo was by looking with the camera through my binoculars and shining my brightest flashlight on the plates (it was shaded a bit on that side of the chimney).  I'll have to find that photo and post it here.

You take your inspection photos FROM an iPhone?

How is that bad?  Here I was at work all day and you guys were talking about me behind my back! 

I have an EVO which actual has 8 megapixels Cameron but still would not consider that good enough of a quality for many shots.The lens is simply not good enough unless you have good light and can get close to all subjects.

Would certainly like to see an example of your report shots (how many do you use in a report)? I take 200-300 every job.

The iPhone only has a digital zoom, which doesn't count. You can't zoom in on an item from the ladder of a roof with digital zoom. It's the same as blowing up a photo in any photo editor. In other words, there's no way to get a picture picture with the same quality.

I've talked to dozens of inspectors when they ask about HIP on an iPhone and I ask them all how many times they use the zoom on an inspection. They all say 25-50% of shots. I'm curious to see yours report shots though. I just don't have a steady enough hand to get good shots. Maybe I just stink, but half of my camera shots turn out blurry, even on 8 megapixels.