Enough with the words for once: let's have a little break from my baseless bloviation and shameless over-sharing. So-called "meteorological spring" has arrived, so here are some very recent photographs, mainly from the iPhone plus a few from the Fuji X20, taken during a couple of those much-anticipated late February blasts of intense raking sunshine, revelations of warm colours, clear air, and long shadows that lift everyone's spirits after weeks of dull skies and rain.
First the X20:
Now the iPhone 12 mini [1]:
OK, so just a few more words...
These photos are all "just" twelve megapixel files, printable at 10" x 13.5" uncropped at 300 dpi. But surely that is plenty for most purposes? Apple's iPhones have been 12 MP cameras pretty much all along, and still are, really, despite the hype. In a world of ever-bigger sensor sizes I am increasingly of the view that – unless you truly intend to make huge, table-sized prints, or need to crop out the tiny bit of the image area that you really want – there is no point in filling whatever storage you have with the very large image files that result from a sensor any bigger than, say, 16 MP, or 24 MP at the most.
Indeed, some of the best photographs I've ever taken, printed, framed, exhibited, and actually sold were made using my 10 MP Panasonic LX3. [2] But, of course, virtually no gearhead with money to spare is going to buy a 12 or 16 MP camera when 40-plus megapixels are on offer – even though "bigger is better" surely stopped being true for most of us even before 24 MP became the norm not so long ago – and therefore no-one is going to be manufacturing them any longer, either. Sooner or later, we'll all be stuck with thousands of massive files that will clog up our storage for no purpose at all.
But if you think that the tiny sensor-plus-lens combo in your phone is really capable of producing 40 or more megapixels of quality data, just like a full-size camera, then I happen to have a bridge in London you may be interested in buying.
True, as a small, compact, older man, I suppose I am drawn to small, compact, older cameras with their small, compact files. Let the big guys haul their "full-frame" dumbbells around: I'm sure they've got an upcoming solo exhibition in a major gallery that needs to be filled with table-sized prints, or at least wish they did. But, when out walking on a lovely day, who wants to be burdened with anything bulkier than a pocket-sized hardback or, even better, the phone you'd probably be taking out with you anyway?
1. The iPhone photos were made with the ProCamera app, which gives "raw" files as well as a choice of HEIF or JPEGs, and has a brilliantly intuitive touch-screen "focus and exposure" device, as well as various other useful features I can't be bothered to explore.
2. In fact, some of the best-received images at my first solo exhibition in 2009 in Innsbruck were made with a five MP camera, the Olympus C-5050z. So much so that this particular subset subsequently went on to be shown in Innichen / San Candido in northern Italy in 2010 (see my book The Revenants, made in 2006). Clearly, size really isn't everything...
