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The Plot Twist: Small Sensors, Big Impact

Terry A. McDonald, luxBorealis.com
So, what about those trade-offs?
Would you believe me if I said these were made with an iPhone? No, definitely not. How about a 1” sensor camera. Possibly. A few years ago, I wrote in LuLa about the perfect travel camera—the Sony RX10iii (now iv), with its excellent ƒ2.4-4 stabilized Zeiss 24-600mm equivalent lens. What about M43s? APS-C? Full frame?
When I shot 4x5, it was because I could not get a decent 16x20” print from 35mm. With recent advances in digital technology, I can now produce a 16x20 from my current system that is of higher  visual quality than a 16x20” made, at the time, from a 4x5 negative or transparency. And, I can make that raw file without a tripod from a camera and lens combination weighing less than a quarter of my 4x5 camera and lens.

Kammerzell House and Cathedral, Strasbourg, France. 40mm; ƒ8 @ 1/125, ISO 200; raw file processed in Lightroom. My favourite view in Strasbourg. There’s nothing like the details of carved wood an...

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Terry McDonald is an artist, author and educator, working in fine art landscape and nature photography. He approaches photography as both an art and a craft: a solid grounding in technique frees him to explore a variety of visual styles. As a photographer his goal seems simple enough: capture and recreate the inherent art in nature. However, nature is not always so accommodating! Although Terry grew up and has lived most his life in Canada, he has lived, worked and photographed overseas for 10 years in Tanzania, Germany and, more recently, England. Additional travel destinations have included much of western Europe, across Canada to two of three coats, South Africa, south Florida, the Galápagos and Iceland. Terry lives with his family in Guelph, Ontario, his home base for hiking, backcountry canoeing and nordic skiing. When time permits, he offers classroom and field workshops throughout the year. Terry’s work has been featured in Photo Life and Light & Landscape and is in private collections on three continents. His work may be viewed at luxBorealis.com or at his luxBorealis Flickr account.
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