On a recent trip to Oban in Argyllshire, I took these two images of the same subject. Which one is the £1200 mobile phone shot and which is the £3750 Nikon D850 DSLR plus 24mm F1.8 Sigma Art lens shot?
Dunstaffnage Castle is one of Scotland’s oldest stone castles. This mass of masonry guards the seaward approach from the Firth of Lorn to the Pass of Brander – and thereby the heart of Scotland. It still overwhelms visitors today, but which shot is the mobile and which is the DSLR?
Scott K Marshall Photography (@skm1963) 
good one
nice to share it
nice post, thanks for sharing
My pleasure
I love this castle! I’ll have to guess the first shot as that’s what everyone is saying 😂
Glad you like it and very impressive deduction – grinning
I would guess that the first one is a mobile photo: wider angle of view, brighter colours, and the sky looks like it is generated by AI for instagram.
Right on all accounts apart from the Ai comment the sky was untouched – both images processed in Adobe Camera Raw with similar handling
The AI is firmware. Mobile phones get such wonderful photos with toy lenses because the image capture uses AI. You can test it by seeing how long the battery lasts if you take lots of photos and comparing with when you don’t. I call this the carbon cost of mobile phone photography.
Now Scott…tell us if we are all correct or that you have managed to deceive us 🙂
Who would have thought there were so many informed photographers among you? You are all correct. It was interesting how you deduced the correct answer. Most talked about the sky difference. However, my most fabulous hint was the 24mm lens used by the Nikon. The mobile phone on this occasion was a former Samsung flagship, the S22 Ultra (13mm lens at F2.2 offering a 120deg field of view (so vast, I had to crop it to 16:9 otherwise, you would have spotted it straight away).
The point of this post is to show that mobile photography has come so far that it can match DSLR and mirrorless photography and, in some cases, exceed them. I have recently moved to Apple (iPhone 15 Pro Max) again for the first time since the iPhone 6S – what a game-changer that is… (story for another blog)
Dear Scott, I can’t say which shot is the mobile and which is the DSLR, but my focus for this first one, especially the right side of the photograph. There is a a tiny stream and reflections, are they? Impressed me, I wanted to follow it… By the way both ore beautiful photograph. Thank you, have a nice day and weekend, Love, nia
Hi Nia, we can leave the selection of which image is the mobile and which is the DSLR for others. You always spot the artistic details that often other miss and your comments are always appreciated.
Of course, this is a kind of technology talks matter. But for me, photography simply is like that, art of the camera… Thank you, have a nice day, Love, nia
My guess is first one mobile and the second one Nikon. Both are very nice images though.
Who would have thought there were so many informed photographers among you? You are all correct. It was interesting how you deduced the correct answer. Most talked about the sky difference. However, my most fabulous hint was the 24mm lens used by the Nikon. The mobile phone on this occasion was a former Samsung flagship, the S22 Ultra (13mm lens at F2.2 offering a 120deg field of view (so vast, I had to crop it to 16:9 otherwise, you would have spotted it straight away).
The point of this post is to show that mobile photography has come so far that it can match DSLR and mirrorless photography and, in some cases, exceed them. I have recently moved to Apple (iPhone 15 Pro Max) again for the first time since the iPhone 6S – what a game-changer that is… (story for another blog)
Still not too sure but I am on the first image as the phone. It is a puzzle but my ‘clue’ is the skyline round the dormer windows and chimney,on the second shot these are softer on the skyline and more natural…. but who cares, your point is well made, phones are cameras and as they say “the camera you have at the time- is the best camera” 🙂 On a tangent have you ever managed to get a good shot of the hidden Chapel in the woods. Its a tough one and my efforts on several visits have failed miserably.
Yes more and more it is my camera of choice for bathroom work (small spaces). For landscape work the Samsung still reigns supreme but for video its Apple by a country mile. We now use a 3 minute video as pre-marketing. Pop the iPhone on a DJI (Dongle) and you have a perfectly stabilised 4K video.
Before reading the previous comment, I’d decided the 1st shot was the mobile, as it looks like the phone has probably enhanced the sky tones. 🤔
-✧✦☆❖◈❋✤☆✦-∞-♡-∞-✦☆✤❋◈❖☆✦✧-
Who would have thought there were so many informed photographers among you? You are all correct. It was interesting how you deduced the correct answer. Most talked about the sky difference. However, my most fabulous hint was the 24mm lens used by the Nikon. The mobile phone on this occasion was a former Samsung flagship, the S22 Ultra (13mm lens at F2.2 offering a 120deg field of view (so vast, I had to crop it to 16:9 otherwise, you would have spotted it straight away).
The point of this post is to show that mobile photography has come so far that it can match DSLR and mirrorless photography and, in some cases, exceed them. I have recently moved to Apple (iPhone 15 Pro Max) again for the first time since the iPhone 6S – what a game-changer that is… (story for another blog)
I think you have to see the pictures Inca higher resolution to know which one is which.
Who would have thought there were so many informed photographers among you? You are all correct. It was interesting how you deduced the correct answer. Most talked about the sky difference. However, my most fabulous hint was the 24mm lens used by the Nikon. The mobile phone on this occasion was a former Samsung flagship, the S22 Ultra (13mm lens at F2.2 offering a 120deg field of view (so vast, I had to crop it to 16:9 otherwise, you would have spotted it straight away).
The point of this post is to show that mobile photography has come so far that it can match DSLR and mirrorless photography and, in some cases, exceed them. I have recently moved to Apple (iPhone 15 Pro Max) again for the first time since the iPhone 6S – what a game-changer that is… (story for another blog)
My guess is the first shot is from the telephone, based on the fact that it has slightly higher local contrast that has more of a look typical of mobile phone processing, and the colours are generally more saturated, which is again how phones tend to process images.
Who would have thought there were so many informed photographers among you? You are all correct. It was interesting how you deduced the correct answer. Most talked about the sky difference. However, my most fabulous hint was the 24mm lens used by the Nikon. The mobile phone on this occasion was a former Samsung flagship, the S22 Ultra (13mm lens at F2.2 offering a 120deg field of view (so vast, I had to crop it to 16:9 otherwise, you would have spotted it straight away).
The point of this post is to show that mobile photography has come so far that it can match DSLR and mirrorless photography and, in some cases, exceed them. I have recently moved to Apple (iPhone 15 Pro Max) again for the first time since the iPhone 6S – what a game-changer that is… (story for another blog)
In a post I have in the pipeline (it’ll be posted in a few weeks) I briefly show a circumstance where phone cameras exceed ’proper’ cameras (a term I use as a catch all for dedicated camera systems): long exposures during the day are far easier with a dedicated app, rather than worrying about tripods and ND filters. Most of the family photos printed on my wall are from phones rather than big cameras too.
Thanks for that feedback Rob – I have been using my mobile in property photography for 6 or 7 years. Clients can’t tell the difference. However the ratio of the lenses doesn’t work so well.
🤔 hmmm— my guess is the 1st is the mobile phone shot — sky’s brighter, but not foreground. A real puzzler! Great castle fortress 🤩
Who would have thought there were so many informed photographers among you? You are all correct. It was interesting how you deduced the correct answer. Most talked about the sky difference. However, my most fabulous hint was the 24mm lens used by the Nikon. The mobile phone on this occasion was a former Samsung flagship, the S22 Ultra (13mm lens at F2.2 offering a 120deg field of view (so vast, I had to crop it to 16:9 otherwise, you would have spotted it straight away).
The point of this post is to show that mobile photography has come so far that it can match DSLR and mirrorless photography and, in some cases, exceed them. I have recently moved to Apple (iPhone 15 Pro Max) again for the first time since the iPhone 6S – what a game-changer that is… (story for another blog)