iPhone v Dedicated Macro Lens
“Here! Take a macro shot of this flower I have just caused to open using my super human powers!” my friend Andy said as we walked around Dunecht Estate. I looked at it.
“I don’t have my macro lens with me!” I told him, “Just my iPhone so it won’t be very good.”
I took the flower, put it safely in the car for later photography antics. Forgot about it, and let it wither and die.
A week or so later I was thinking about it while I was sitting in the garden and spotted tiny blue flowers growing from the edge of the paving. What is the difference between an iPhone ‘macro’ and a dedicated macro lens on a DSLR or mirrorless camera? First an admission, my phone is an iPhone 8 so it certainly doesn’t have the latest camera technology in it. It can do pretty good close ups, but I think you’ll see the difference between the two options.
The first shot is with the iPhone and while the flower is not focus you certainly get an idea of the limits of the camera’s capabilities. The whorls on my finger and the hairs on the leaves give a better indication. Of course it can be cropped in a bit more but eventually pixelation begins to appear and the use of the shot becomes limited.
By comparison the shot below is from the AstrHori x2 25 mm macro lens. The difference is more than subtle.
It’s this huge difference that keeps me interested in exploring the hidden worlds of macro photography. I am planning to upgrade to an iPhone 16 when it comes out at the end of the year and will perhaps revisit this comparison then.
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