This Saturday I was out for a run with my wife, and I came across a couple of plants I wanted to take pictures of. I pulled out my iPhone camera and snapped away. When I got home to look at the photos, I could see right away something that is a major failing in camera phones today, lack of control over depth of field.

The two images below were focused on one edge of the plants, while the camera opted to blur the other side. Both images were f/1.8 equivalent, yet the shutter speeds were over 1/500. Because controlling the f-stop is not very easy on phone cameras, I couldn’t get the rest of the plant in focus at the same time as the focal point at the edge.

This is one of the reasons why DSLR’s will always beat phone cameras when it comes to detailed photography work. They can take amazing images, especially of large scenes, but when it comes to control up close, they will always come up short.