"[Equipment] doesn’t matter at all. People say what’s the best camera, I always say the one in my pocket or the one round my neck. It’s not the camera that takes the picture, it’s the person."
Those were the words of David Bailey, speaking in a radio interview over a decade ago. It's a spin on the well-worn photography cliché, 'the best camera is the one you have with you' – but clichés exist for a reason.
Case in point, the photographs on this page. I want to make clear, first of all, that I'm not saying these are works of art. They're not. But photographing lightning strikes can be tricky – and the point I'm making is that I wouldn't have been able to take these pictures if I didn't have my iPhone in my pocket.
My iPhone 13 Mini, at that – a phone that's 5 years old at this point, with an ultra-wide camera that only has a tiny 1/3.4-inch sensor and a measly 12MP resolution.
Could I have taken better pictures with my Canon EOS R5 or Hasselblad X2D II? Absolutely. And I could have taken the best pictures of all with my OM System OM-3, which has a Live Composite feature that is perfect for photographing lightning strikes.
But I didn't have those cameras with me when I was driving home through this storm. (Okay, the OM-3 was in the trunk. But I'll be honest; pulling into a layby surrounded by trees, while the gods hurled thunderbolts that lit up the entire sky, getting out of the car wasn't my top priority.)
So I pulled the phone out of my pocket and spammed that little white button until I got my shots. Low resolution. Crappy quality. Fully automatic. But I got the shots – and under the circumstances, I wouldn't have got them any other way.
As if there was any doubt, Bailey was right: the best camera really was the one in my pocket. Because the one in the trunk and all the others sitting at home did me no good whatsoever!
So buy all the gear you want. But at the end of the day, if you don't have it with you, that creaky old phone with a crappy camera that you turn your nose up at might just be the one that snaps the decisive moment.
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