Why do people always apologize about iPhone pics?

I can't understand, for the life of me, why some photos, especially of stationary objects like gear for the B&S forum, are sooooo bad, and it's always the same thing, "Sorry for the bad photos, shot with my iPhone". I take photos all the time with my iPhone and I never have the problems that some people have. Pics are out of focus, crooked, too dark... none of which are the phone's fault.

How many times have you seen this:

For sale, lightly used USB card reader. See photo. Sorry for the terrible iPhone photo .

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Poor photographers + poor camera = really poor photos.

The upside is whatever they're selling was barely used, if at all. If it was heavily used, they'd have sufficient knowledge to take a good picture of it.

cdifoto wrote in post #11982011
The upside is whatever they're selling was barely used, if at all. If it was heavily used, they'd have sufficient knowledge to take a good picture of it.

Exactly... so the best deal is the items with terrible iPhone pics... never thought of it that way...

Well. If the photo is really clear and sharp, you know what you're getting. If the photo is blurry as hell, you still know what you're getting.

There's really no way to lose when there's a photo!

I think maybe the older iPhone cameras didn't focus? People try to take macros with cameras that don't do macros is the biggest mistake I see (or not putting the camera into macro mode.)

The worst one is people selling DSLR's and lenses with absolutely useless pics, I mean seriously wtf

funkyfones wrote in post #11983773
The worst one is people selling DSLR's and lenses with absolutely useless pics, I mean seriously wtf

So true, when I sell my camera stuff I always set up a "pro" shoot and try to get an artsy feel to it. Saddens me when I get a photo of the camera on the floor shot by a iphone with focus off.

I hate to call someone out, but there is a listing in the Sell forum that prompted me to rant here... Someone is selling an "advanced point and shoot" and there are 2 photos and an apology for the quality of the images because "they are from an iphone"... meanwhile, they are dark, too close and they barely even have the item that is for sale in the middle of the frame... and there is an 800 pixel wide close-up of a memory card, I think we all know what a memory card looks like...

Sometimes they make it seem like they snap their fingers and the iPhone jumps off the couch and takes the photos for them, then they need to apologize for the quality...

And who puts expensive camera gear on the floor to photograph it, to sell it...

if I only have one camera body and I'm planning to sell it..I can't make it take a picture of itself. *takes out iPhone*

I put my expensive stuff on the floor before. It doesn't hurt anything.

mguffin wrote in post #11981973
I can't understand, for the life of me, why some photos, especially of stationary objects like gear for the B&S forum, are sooooo bad, and it's always the same thing, "Sorry for the bad photos, shot with my iPhone". I take photos all the time with my iPhone and I never have the problems that some people have. Pics are out of focus, crooked, too dark... none of which are the phone's fault.

How many times have you seen this:

For sale, lightly used USB card reader. See photo. Sorry for the terrible iPhone photo .

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NO...!!!! You know what, the screen on an iPhone is big enough that you can see the photo is terrible. Re-Take it...

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I agree 100%. If you have to apologize for taking the picture being unsatisfactory, then don't show it.

That is, at least, not until AFTER people rip you a new one. If you display something that you think is great, and people rip it to shreds, and then you take in their comments and realize that they were 100% right, then go right ahead and apologize.

But I simply HATE when people make apologies for things before anyone ever said anything bad about it. If you know that it's trash BEFORE serving it to me, then apologizing beforehand doesn't make things any better. That just means that the person KNOWS that they're serving me trash and is doing it anyway.

The fact that they apologize before I ever get a chance to complain shows that they KNOW that it's all jacked up and wrong. So...if it bothers them so much that they have to apologize in advance, then they shouldn't show the **** until they fix the stuff that they're concerned about.

And on a practical level, how does that HELP? If I show someone a photograph and then say "sorry about it being out of focus, but this excuse...", then now it's UNAVOIDABLE that the picture is all kinds of messed up. If I hadn't said a damn thing, then there's at least a tiny chance that the person/buyer/whatever wouldn't have noticed the flaws. But...they sort of HAVE to notice the flaws once I start PRE-EMPTIVELY APOLOGIZING for the flaws before they ever get a chance to take a good look at it.

Anyone who spends some time on this site should know that any camera, even a camera phone, can take acceptable pictures of a static subject if they bother to light it properly. Its not that hard.