There is a time and place for i-phone photos, but it is not everywhere, every time.

Last night I ventured out to do some late day photography. I drove under the railway overpass on Dundas Street and the site of railcars and rail ties under the bridge caught my eye with its “urban” look.

I parked, set up the camera, walked around looking for the right angle and planted my camera. Exposure determined, I was about to take the image when I thought “let’s see what the difference is between my phone and my camera.”

I have an i-phone 6 plus. I stepped in front of my camera and with the phone took a photograph. I then took an image with the camera.

When I got home I adjusted the phone image using the settings on the phone. I tweeked exposure, highlight, shadow, blackpoint, and saturation. Then I took the images from the evening off my camera and opened the one that I took under the bridge. I tweeked it with my software for exposure, contrast, and saturation.

I put both images on my computer and cropped both using a 1:2 ratio to try and make them as close as possible to the same. The final step was to optimize both files for the internet and save them.

The image on the top is the i-phone image. The one on the bottom is from my 30 megapixel Canon camera.

If you can’t see the difference you have just proved Ansel Adams point that the most important part of a camera is the 12 inches behind it.

If you think there is a difference, you too are right. Also proving Ansel Adams theory, and the fact you shouldn’t ignore technology. Put another way, “you can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

The proof of a difference lies in the detail. I took both images and made a second crop using a 2:3 ratio of the centre area of the original exposure. Now do you see the difference?

I-Phone 6 plus

Canon 5D Mark IV