Mobile Phones Are Banned at India Tiger Reserves
Too many Selfies!
You know if you travel that selfies have gotten out of hand. Some people will go to any length to get a great shot of themselves in front of a bear, crocodile or tiger, or stand stupidly outside a restricted area of an amazing public place.
Did you also know that more of these crazy people happen to be in India, the “most treacherous country in the world for taking selfies,” where some 214 people have died taking stupid shots, per Travel & Leisure?
Now, when people visit the popular tiger reserves of India, home to the largest tiger population in the world, they have to put away their phones, per Petapixel.
A statement from the Ranthambore National Park says tourists who use their phones to chase down pictures or videos of tigers “often lean out of their vehicles, approach the tigers too closely and often notify other gypsies (otherwise known as a jeep) when a tiger is seen,” and this creates vehicle congestion and stress to the wildlife.
It adds: “By eliminating the noise associated with electronic devices, it restores the sense of tranquility to one of India’s most highly visited locations for tiger sightings. For safari visitors, this is also an opportunity to reconnect with themselves and nature instead of having to worry about staying up-to-date with social media notifications.”
Taking along a dedicated big camera is fine, although there may be a fee for that. The issue isn’t photography, but people doing dumb things like getting too close to the animal, making noise and creating a traffic jam in the reserve.
GoPro
It was a great run while it lasted. Back in the analog era, Nick Woodman wanted a waterproof camera to capture his surfing, and out of neccessity he invented the GoPro. Over the years, the tiny camera has become a staple for us to snap onto surfboards, bike helmets, ski poles, the back of and inside of cars—anywhere you needed to get a point of view from a place that couldn’t handle a bigger camera.
Those were in better times, as sales have been hurting for quite some time. GoPro stock now sells for just over $1 share; in 2014 it was $100 a share.
This week GoPro announced that it was basically throwing in the towel, saying it was looking at “strategic options” that could include a sale or merger. In other words, the good times had come to an end. This, just a few weeks after GoPro excited a lot of us longtime fans with an announcement of upgraded models that would be higher resolution and more cinematic, the Mission 1 models.
How did GoPro get to this point? Two factors: China and the phone.
Many people don’t want to walk around with a dedicated camera anymore—why bother when there’s a smartphone with a great camera on it that they already take everywhere?
Then there are the Chinese companies Insta360 (worst offender) and DJI, which came out with their own GoPro knockoffs and essentially killed the brand.
With the two-punch onslaught, GoPro never recovered. But their innovation will live on, sadly, with DJI and Insta360 knockoffs.
Customizable camera
In reviewing the Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, one of the most frustrating things about using it was accessing the atrocious “30x” and “100x” telephoto digital zooms, which are nothing more than pixelated crops. No consumer should be faced with having these crappy features in their camera menus.
But I loved that I could download a Samsung app, and instantly customize the camera app menu, pushing out 30x and 100x forever, so I’d never have to see them again.
Why couldn’t Apple do that? The “spatial” tab in the Camera app is irrelevant to 99.9% of iPhone users (it’s just for owners of the $3,000 Vision Pro headset) and Timer is hidden in a sub-menu. Why can’t I put that in the main menu?
Here’s some good news. Mark Gurman from Bloomberg reports that Apple is planning to do just that later this year, when it updates the iOS software that runs iPhones in September. “Users will be able to choose which features appear in the Camera app — and where they’re placed. That includes controls for flash, exposure, the timer and resolution” he writes.
I can’t wait!
MacNeo Update
A few weeks ago I told you how I had bought a second laptop, the new budget MacBook Neo, for a European trip, so I wouldn’t have to lug my super heavy MacBook Pro 16 inch laptop to France and Italy.
The tradeoff is that a less powerful computer chip runs the Neo—the same one Apple uses for the iPhone. Yet overall, I said, I was very happy, mostly because of the weight, price and ability to pretty much do what I wanted on the road. A few weeks later, I have some updates.
At the time the newsletter published, I had done some light photo and video editing on the Neo and it was fine. Well, I’ve since tried some heavier tasks, and now I can report—yeah, it’s slow. I imported over 1,000 pictures into Adobe Lightroom Classic and had to wait around for quite some time for them to load, but then, wouldn’t that be expected?
The Neo only has two slots, to three for the MacBook, and apparently only one has much power. When I put accessories into the other slot, Apple counsels me to move it to the back slot (the same one that you use to plug in for power) for more juice.
My dream was that the Neo could be a dedicated computer for live-streaming, when I do live talk backs with Scripps News on Thursdays and Fridays, but that hit a snag this week.
The Neo didn’t have enough power to make it happen. I plugged in my camera, audio source and teleprompter the usual way, via Zoom, only to be told that the camera image had frozen. Then I quickly switched computers and all was fine.
Perhaps I’ll come up with a live-streaming solution to this problem, but I just wanted to update you on the latest.
Hello Route 66 Texas
We’re back on the road again on Route 66 in Texas Sunday for Photowalks with a full-length episode on one of the smaller routes through one of the largest states. Have you seen the new Route 66 stamps from the United States Postal Service? One of the cafes we profiled in the episode, the U-Drop Inn Cafe, now stars in its own stamp. Congrats to everyone at the U-Drop Inn!
The show debuts Sunday at 10 a.m. ET on Scripps News, with replays on YouTube.
Thanks as always for taking the time to read, watch and listen!
Jeff