http://www.boatinternational.com | April 2016ILLUSTRATION: PING ZHU
You never use your camera any more, do you? Don’t worry,
I’m not judging. You mean to, but it never happens. You’ve
got a nice one, swarming with buttons you don’t quite
understand, and you always take it on holiday. Only, when
you get somewhere exciting it never quite makes it out of
the cabin. Because you pick it up, don’t you, and then pause,
and think, “ah, never mind, I’ve got my phone”.
You do know, good as your iPhone is, that a proper
camera is notably better. Zoom, depth, focus, all that. Only,
it’s a hassle. Whereas your phone is in your hand already.
Always. Hence that argument you keep having with your wife.
The DxO ONE could be the answer to all that. It’s a little
bit bigger than a matchbox and it snaps on to the end of your
iPhone (or iPad if you must), thereby transforming it into
a 20.2 megapixel camera, with a shutter speed of one
eight-thousandth of a second. Which, in consumer camera
terms, is about as good as you get. It rotates, it spins,
it’s a lot of fun. And, because it uses the screen you already
have, it’s tiny. So you’ve no excuse for not keeping it
in your pocket wherever you go. Unless you’re swimming.
It isn’t perfect. My own chief annoyance is the way it
obviously has an Apple connector for your iPhone, but its
own charging socket is a micro USB, thus forcing you to exist
in two wholly separate tech infrastructures all at once. Plus,
it’s ever so slightly cumbersome and you’ll need a bit ofpractice so as not to spend your time taking lots of really
excellent, super high-definition pictures of your forefinger.
Still, I loved it. There’s an extra, boyish thrill in using it all
by itself, sans phone, as something tiny and excellent but
wholly without viewfinder. It feels like one of those tiny
cameras James Bond would use, to photograph blueprints
on a yacht. Particularly if you’re actually on one. I’d imagine.
DxO ONE, £449, dxo.comSnap happy
Click the DxO ONE on to your
phone and shoot like a pro.
Or at least like Hugo RifkindOccasionally a label comes
along and achieves what it
set out to do so perfectly
it’s hard to believe it wasn’t
there all along. The men’s
collection by London-based
1205 does exactly that. This
should come as no surprise
because its founder, Paula
Gerbase, has an impeccable
Savile Row heritage; first in
the womenswear atelier of
Hardy Amies, then five years
as head designer at Kilgour,
as well as a stint as creative
director of Sunspel. In 2014
she was appointed creative
director of Hermès-owned
shoe brand John Lobb.
She launched her women’s
business 1205 in 2010 and,
still aged 34, premiered the
full men’s collection for
autumn at London
Collections Men in January.
And it has gone down a
storm. The aesthetic could
be defined as a misleading
minimalism. Pieces such
as suits in feather-light
performance fabrics or
shearling coats appear to
be triumphs of simplicity
but are full of traditional
tailoring techniques,
unexpected details and
craftsmanship. The result is
almost clinically beautiful
and has to be touched to
be believed. Expect to be
seduced when it hits the
shops this summer.
1205.euvOne to watch
1205BEST PHONE CAMERAS:
boatinternational.com/
# best-smartphone-camerasBOAT LIFE
THE DXO ONE
IS THE WORLD’S
SMALLEST 1-INCH
SENSOR CAMERA