Giant Sequoia Trees Through a Tiny Lens

On the latest episode of Nature in Focus, Ian Shive visits the world’s largest trees in Sequoia National Park. This time he leaves the professional gear at home. See photos of the ancient giants taken from Ian's smart phone.

October 27, 2022

By: Ian Shive

Show: Nature in Focus

Shop This Look

Photo By: Ian Shive

While hiking in Sequoia National Park, California, on the mountain trail known as the Lakes Trail, I limited myself to only the most basic set-up, the camera on my smartphone.

Good light, solid composition, ample depth of field and sharpness throughout the image. The camera definitely performs better when it's much brighter out.

Fall colors at the Lakes trailhead in Sequoia National Park, California.

This dragonfly looks pretty good, but there were some definite limitations between this and my usual camera, a DSLR. The low light the dragonfly was in reduced my control on depth of field, meaning not everything was as sharp as I would have liked it. Look at the tips of the wings, for instance.

I could never get a shot like this quickly or easily. My DSLR would require underwater housing or at least a splash bag. This shows the increased versatility of my options while on the hike.

This is where I saw the greatest limitation. While this squirrel tore this pinecone apart, I used the camera's zoom and immediately there is a degradation in quality. That said, I didn't have to pack a big heavy lens in my backpack either, so I am trading some loss in overall quality for the luxury of moving faster and with less weight on my back.

Another one of my favorite images from the hike, with solid sharpness throughout.

This was the destination I wanted to get to, Heather Lake. Lakes provide a lot of great compositional opportunities such as working the reflections, the colors of the sky, and the riparian areas surrounding it. The phone had some limitations once again in balancing the brightest part of the shots with the darkest.

This is the ultimate test to compare the phone camera with my DSLR. It's amazing how well this came out, but still some limitations in balancing the shadows of the bush on the rocks with the highlights on the mountain. I even tried to adjust this one a bit afterward, but the contrast range just wasn't there, even considering that I was shooting in RAW mode.

Love the shot, but once again it shows the limitation of depth of field in the foreground where the grass is out of focus. If I used a third-party app, I probably could have controlled this more, but honestly, most people look at my images on their phone anyway these days, so who will notice?

Evening light on the face of the mountains while hiking back to the car in Sequoia National Park, California, on the mountain trail known as the Lakes Trail.

Stunning light shot up the valley on the hike down, revealing better photographic opportunities than I found at my target destination, Heather Lake.

Walking back down the trail at sunset, the camera performed incredibly well. I chose to use only the basic camera app on the phone - no specialty apps - which could give me more control over aperture and other settings. But why ruin the fun!