In the last few weeks I've had a pretty major equipment reshuffle. While I didn't mention it on here (deliberately, for reasons which will soon become clear), I've spent the last two or three months shooting with something I always wanted to try: medium format digital (a somewhat older model; even if I could, I would never shell out the kind of prices required for the newer ones). Quick and dirty conclusion: truly amazing image quality, and truly not very practical to carry around. That has now been sold; I intended for it to be a kind of experiment. I've also upgraded my phone from the iPhone 7 plus to the 11 pro, of which more in due course. So all the pictures in this article (and the one to follow) are either from the iPhone 7 plus or a 50MP medium format camera.

The point of this and the following post will be to show that even on a fairly large screen, unless you know what you're looking for, it's not always easy to tell a photo taken with a 50MP medium format camera from one taken with an iPhone 7 plus (sometimes it is, but not necessarily always). What does count are the usual suspects: composition, colour, interesting subjects, light, and so on; if they're no good, you could be shooting with the most expensive camera on earth and it won't matter. (None of these points are remotely original; smart photographers have been saying this for decades. This is just my own take on it).

Anyway. Hope you enjoy these!

The second part of this will, hopefully, be up next week.

Thanks for looking!