For the Canon photos, I intentionally overexposed by about 1/3 stop compared to the standard exposure, and unfortunately, some shots ended up slightly out of focus. Also, since the shooting angles and positions were a bit different, this isn’t a perfectly accurate comparison. Still, seeing them side by side like this really highlights how, in well-lit conditions, smartphone cameras nowadays can produce photos that rival those taken with a dedicated mirrorless camera.
In particular, one photo taken with the iPhone looks almost like a scene from a fairy tale and would definitely stand out on social media.
However, compared to the actual view I saw with my own eyes, it’s clear that the images are processed rather heavily: the greens of the leaves look unnaturally vivid, the shadows on the clouds are emphasized, and each cherry blossom petal is sharply defined.
My iPhone is the most affordable SE3 model, so the results might have been different if I’d used an iPhone Pro or another high-end model with more advanced camera capabilities.
High-end smartphones like the iPhone Pro now cost over 150,000 yen, which seems extremely expensive for a phone. But if you think of it as a camera with a phone attached—capable of taking photos on par with a mirrorless camera—it’s somewhat justifiable. That said, I do hope prices come down a bit more!