When I travel to places I usually bring along the “big” photo kit. It consists of a Sony A7R2 camera and a few lenses, plus a tripod. The obvious downside is that the kit adds a bit of weight to the whole luggage situation. That’s the price to pay in order to capture the beautiful scenes. You do the best you can to mitigate things, of course: my travel tripod is made of carbon fiber and weights only two pounds.
Thankfully, smartphone photographic technology have improved leaps and bounds in recent years. Pictures from a modern smartphone can look just as good as a big-sensor digital camera. Computational photography is a wonderful thing. In the past two years I’ve use almost exclusively my iPhone for photos. It suffices for simple snapshots and the semi-serious stuff like producing a photo calendar. The A7R2 has sat on the shelf, doing nothing but drain the battery.
No surprise then that during my two week vacation at the end of June, I took just the iPhone with me. It’s incredibly freeing to not have to lug around the big camera kit. And honestly, I didn’t miss it that much. The only time I wish I had the Sony with me was in Seattle. We were hanging out by the waterfront area during golden hour, and Mount Rainier was visible at the distant background. Great as the iPhone is at taking photos, it simply does not have physical resolution to do that scene justice.
Other than that, it’s amazing I can use just the phone as the main camera on my travels. No doubt things will only continue to improve as the years roll on. Might I actually sell the A7R2 and go solely smartphone? Possible!
The shot.