It snowed again the other day, at the higher elevations that I travel to work. As the sun was rising over the hilltop, the contrasts, lighting and colors were striking and I embarked on an iPhone photo experiment to see how well I could capture the scenes with the low end camera in the phone.

The iPhone 3gs offers some exposure and focus control but a fixed focal length, very wide angle lens. If you want to zoom, in on something, it is a sneaker-zoom option only. The lighting was difficult and varied. That all being said, it can take a pretty good photo.

As mobile computing devices like the iPhone integrate increased functionality and capability, it is not just the laptop, gaming device or the music player that will be replaced. In these photos, I think you can see that it won’t be long before devices like the iPhone seriously impact the low end of the point and shoot photography world. Why carry two, three or four devices when one does good enough on most tasks.

This multifunction ability will allow more folks to experience the local/mobile ecosystem as they consolidate devices and explore the many other capabilities of the devices (and you thought I couldn’t relate this to local. 🙂 )

View the slide show.

What do you think?