A fashion photographer advises that the best camera is the one at hand when an important moment occurs, often meaning the phone in your pocket. This perspective highlights improvements in smartphone photography technology, as exemplified by Apple’s recent iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max releases, which feature advanced cameras including a new adjustable-aperture main camera and dedicated telephoto lens for better travel shots of landscapes, food, architecture, and portraits. Additionally, the foldable iPhone Duo offers unique features such as rear-camera selfies visible on an outer screen and automatic group photo taking without needing a timer or third party to trigger the shot.
Written locally by qwen2.5:14b on 2026-09-27,
using this article's own text rather than the other coverage of the
same event (that is the story summary below).
I once asked a fashion photographer to recommend a good camera for a trip to Japan.
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I → ask → Japan
I wanted a recommendation for an SLR, something with a proper lens and enough manual controls to make me feel confident I’d come home with superior pictures to every other tourist in Kyoto taking the same ones in the exact same spots with their phones.
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I → want → phones
I wasn’t alone in thinking I needed a “real” camera for better pictures.
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I → think → pictures
Gen Z has rediscovered the digicam, carrying around palm-sized point-and-shoots in pursuit of a softer, less polished aesthetic.
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Z → rediscover → aesthetic
And if they don’t have a vintage camera sourced from eBay – or the very popular Fujifilm X100VI, which is new but designed to take photos like an old one – they’re likely using apps like Dazz Cam or Leica Lux to fake the look.
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they → have → look
The photographer, however, wasn’t buying into the hardware hype.
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photographer → buy → hype
“The best camera,” he told me, “is the one already in your hand when the magic happens.”
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magic → tell → hand
He meant, of course, that taking great holiday photos is less about the equipment you use, and more about capturing the moment.
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you → mean → moment
And in most cases, the camera we have in our hands when a moment worthy of taking a picture arises is going to be the one in our phone.
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moment → have → phone
Which, for what it’s worth, is getting very good.
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it → ’ → ?
No piece of technology is going to make a bad photographer into a good one, but both come with features that are indisputably handy when you’re trying to catch a moment, whether you’re on the cobblestone streets of Prague or chasing a child around the beach in Yamba.
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you → go → Yamba
The iPhone 18 Pro and Pro Max both have three 48-megapixel cameras, including a new adjustable-aperture main camera and a dedicated telephoto lens, making them particularly useful for travel’s greatest hits: landscapes, food, architecture and portraits.
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them → have → hits
There are also more manual controls for anyone who wants to get beyond pointing and tapping.
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who → be → pointing
While it loses the ultra-zoom, the much discussed Duo makes a different case, particularly for solo travellers: you can use its rear cameras to take a selfie while seeing yourself on the outer screen.
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you → lose → screen
So instead of using the inferior front-camera, or turning the phone around and hoping that you and the Eiffel Tower are both somewhere in the frame, you can actually see what your hair is doing while using the better quality rear camera.
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hair → use → camera
Rather than setting a countdown and then sprinting into position, the phone works out when everyone’s ready before it takes the shot – and it will keep taking them until you stop posing.
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you → set → them
The Duo can also be folded and propped up, which means a couple travelling without a third person can get a photograph of themselves together that doesn’t involve asking a waiter in broken Spanish, por favor.
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that → fold → favor
Not that you need a new phone to improve the quality of your holiday snaps – there are plenty of ways to get better pictures out of whatever camera is already in your hand.
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camera → need → hand
Here are some tips from photographer (and avid traveller) Hayley Andersen on how to get the best possible pictures from your phone camera:
- Find the light before anything.
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tips → get → anything
Make sure the light is coming towards your subject, not from behind.
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light → make → subject
Shooting towards a light source with a phone looks bad, especially indoors.
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Shooting → shoot → phone
- Bringing exposure down is my number one tip for almost every situation.
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Bringing → bring → situation
It gives a cleaner, crisper look.
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It → give → look
The one exception is the beach, where I actually increase exposure by around 0.5 because it makes the water look brighter and bluer.
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water → increase → 0.5
It is the most overlooked thing and it instantly affects quality.
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it → overlook → quality
- Stick to the set focal lengths (0.5x, 1x, 2x etc), and never zoom in between them as the quality can drop significantly.
- On an iPhone, turn on ProRAW.
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quality → stick → ProRAW
Instead of shooting at 12 megapixels you are shooting at 48 megapixels, which gives you so much more detail, more data to work with in editing, and a higher quality result.
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which → shoot → editing
I always turn RAW on for big landscapes where quality really matters.
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quality → turn → landscapes
Most people leave the phone on auto and it blows out all the highlights.
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it → leave → highlights
Bring it down and the scene looks so much more true to life.
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scene → bring → life
(And did you know you can actually shoot the Milky Way on iPhone?
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you → know → iPhone
You just need a tripod, a very dark location, and Night Mode set to 30 seconds.)
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You → need → seconds
- HDR produces a more heavily processed image; turn it off and the difference is dramatic.
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difference → produce → it
Also, shooting video in 4K makes a massive difference to quality.
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shooting → shoot → quality
It’s not something people think to do but zooming in on a dish at 4x or 8x looks completely different and often really beautiful.
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zooming → ’ → 4x
- Hot tip for group shots: set your phone on a tripod and film in 4K video using the rear camera, then screenshot the exact frames you love as photos.
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you → set → photos
The quality is so good that nobody can tell the difference and you end up with so many more moments to choose from rather than one stiff, posed shot.
- The most common mistake people make with their snaps is not assessing what is actually inside the frame and leaving too much ground or too much sky in the photo.
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what → tell → photo
Turn on your grid lines in settings, and never just stand in one spot and shoot without taking in your surroundings first: move around, get low, look at what else is around you that adds to the story.
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that → turn → story
The Aporia
