I still shoot with a smartphone from time to time (I'm using the iPhone 12 pro max), and a while ago I had an idea while I was out and about shooting with it.

While I'm definitely impressed with the camera on the 12 pro max overall, I've never been entirely convinced by the computationally derived depth of field effects, i.e the portrait mode. When it works, it can be effective, but when it doesn't, and once you see where it's failed, you can't unsee it.

However, the telephoto lens on the 12 pro max is longer than in other models - it works out as 65mm in equivalent terms. So I thought "What if we try it the normal way: instead of using portrait mode, use the telephoto lens, get very close to the subject, and see what happens". The results were quite interesting, and nearly all the pictures in this article were shot in this way, rather than relying on the "faux DOF".

Anyway, hope you enjoy them!

Some travel pictures coming up in the next week or two.

Thanks for looking!