After debating for awhile wether to upgrade or not I decided to go for the new iPhone 3GS, mainly for the video features and improved battery life. This year there aren’t a ton of improvements compared to the previous iPhone 3G, but some of these little improvements are very nice and worth the upgrade in my opinion. I’ll give you a brief run down of some new features in my first hour or so of testing. Once I get more real world testing out i’ll update you all

- Screen – There is a little bit of an improvement with the new screen and smudges, its not huge but you will get less fingerprints on the phone and they do wipe clear a little bit easier.
- Voice Controls – This was one part of the keynote that I didn’t think I would really use and glossed over it, but so far it is a very nice feature. I can see myself using the voice dialing a lot when in the car
and for listening to music its pretty nice to just say the artist name or song and have that start playing right away. It works pretty good but you do have to speak clearly, the first few times it got the wrong song so I had to slow down just a little bit and it understood me perfect.
- Camera – Autofocus works great and its so nice to be able to shift focus to another part of the image. Also the macro works really good, this is a huge improvement from the last iPhone camera that couldn’t take close up shots. Another great thing about being able to select your focus point is with exposure, it seems like the iphone uses the part you click on for focus as the exposure basis so if the exposure is off just click a point close by that has a neutral color (white or black will throw the exposure off so look for a neutral color). This helps the exposure a lot which used to be my main gripe on the old iPhone, I was always moving back and forth to try and get a decent exposure and now its a lot easier.
- Video – One of the big features for me I wanted to try out and so far it works just as they say. Video quality is great, not HD but very good for a cell phone. If you are out and need to grab a quick video snippet of something it works perfect and the trim feature comes in handy to trim out unneeded stuff. And being able to upload it right away to mobile me, you tube or email the video makes it very easy to share your videos with your family and friends.
- Speed – The last upgrade the 3GS has compared to the 3G is a faster processor and more RAM. Since I use my iPhone a lot during the day. I am always checking email and doing other tasks, the few seconds waiting for a program to launch or waiting for an email to delete used to add up to a lot of wasted time. The 3GS is much more responsive, scrolling through emails and deleting emails is seamless there are no lags like there used to be with my 3G. Launching most applications seems to be about 50% faster, I used to have to wait about 6-10 seconds for the camera to come up and now its about 2 seconds. If you use your iPhone a lot you will see a good bump in performance.

Here are some sample photos and videos, sorry there isn’t anything too exciting to video my normal model (baby Faith) was sleeping so captured some things around the house. Once I get more energy later i’ll find some cool stuff to film

and a few videos

I’ll post more later when I have used the phone for a week or so but so far I am happy with the upgrade.

– Mark

Subscribe in a reader

Here is one of our recent weddings at the Ranch golf club. A beautiful location for your wedding with views of San Jose and rolling hills. Check out our show below:

There are so many big life moments that are always happening to families, its important to always capture new portraits to tell your story. You may have had a new addition to the family with a new baby (or even a puppy), or maybe your kids are starting to grow up and change. Whatever the case may be remember to capture this stage in your families life and have us create some fun lifestyle photos of you.



Even if you don’t need a portrait right now I am sure there is someone you know that could use a lifestyle portrait. Have them give us a call or fill out the form below:

cforms contact form by delicious:days

We had a couple weddings at the ranch in a row, Joey first shot one and then I was out there the next week for another wedding. It is a beautiful location to have a wedding at, there are amazing views of San Jose, lots of interesting scenic spots to photograph at and some very nice architecture to shoot around (lots of arches, landscaping, stonework, etc…) that make a beautiful spot for a wedding and a great place for photos. Photos coming very soon:

For those of you who haven’t seen our new family portrait site yet, check it out: http://stagiportraitlife.com/
Even though we shoot more weddings than anything else we do a lot of other types of photography like Family Lifestyle photos. These can be such fun sessions, here is a little
more info on how we approach our family portrait sessions. If you are in the bay area give us a call (or if you are out of the area we do travel based on our schedule
so give us a call anyway to chat about your session)

We believe that a great portrait should show more than just what you and your family look like… a true portrait should show what your family is all about. It can be your family snuggled up on the couch with popcorn watching a movie or running around at a park; our lifestyle photography strives to capture your family in a natural setting. That way you have portraits that really show who you are and tell a story of your family at a given point in time.

Families are always growing and changing, capturing natural moments of your family tell a story of this time in your life and are always treasured for generations.