For them not interested in reading, you can see the photos in THIS<<link SmugMug Gallery.  

For a SmugMug slideshow, click HERE<<link. When you click the link, it will open in a new window, and you have two options:
1) Manually scroll through the photos by clicking the “<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos.
2) There’s a PLAY/PAUSE button at the top-left of the screen with the transition set at about 5 seconds. Note: clicking the PLAY arrow activates the option for a full-screen slideshow. You can then still use the”<” and “>” symbols to the left or right of the photos (this will pause the slideshow).

If you want the full experience, keep reading.

As mentioned in the title, these are all Note 20 Ultra photographs. Some are shot at the regular 4,000 x 3,000 pixels size, and some are shot at the 108MP resolution which produces 12,000 x 9,000 pixels photos. The 108MP photos — depending on the amount of detail — can be larger than 75MB (the camera outputs JPG which are compressed even though I choose minimal compression).

Really, by the time I process them and output them for the blog, you can’t really tell which version is which unless doing a direct comparison and know what to look for.

So, these were shot in the middle of Illinois. Melisa was attending the funeral of one of her cousins and since I didn’t know her or her relatives, I opted to spend a few hours driving around.

Lest you think me a jerk, Melisa’s sister was with her, otherwise, I’d have gone in with her.

I wanted to try the phone out on something other than flowers and bagel faces. 

Landscape photos such are these don’t show too badly at the resolution they’re posted . . . but, if you go to the SmugMug gallery, you realize they are not pixel-peeping worthy. It’s the combination of a small sensor and a small lens. Frankly, I’m amazed these look as good as they do.

The first scene captured my attention because of the lone tree in the middle of the large field. I couldn’t see any evidence of it, but I’m betting some emotional significance to the tree or the location. Like, maybe, an old grave or some initials carved in the dead trunk next to the live tree. Or, the farmer just wanted to make people wonder what’s up with the tree.

We’ll never know.

The above was snapped at a small park. I went there to see if there was anything worth shooting and, other than the squirrel, there wasn’t.

The above shot is at 2x magnification. Let me talk about magnification and the Note 20. Regardless of the zoom I use (digital or optical), the lens used is the one at 14.2 mm, so I can’t tell you for sure what the magnification is. However, I’m calling 1x as being the 35mm equivalent of a lens at 24mm. Now, some will say 35mm is more accurate, and others will say that a 50mm lens approximates the “zoom” of the human eye. I’m using 24mm because my P900 has 83x /2000mm zoom.

This means that the above is approximately equivalent to a 50mm lens on an SLR camera. Here are the other zooms I tried, and you can judge for yourselves if they are worth using . . .

I didn’t try the 50x zoom because the quality would’ve been horrendous. Still, if you absolutely need to zoom in, at least you’ll get something that’s still much better than the UFO or Big Foot photos people try to pass as ‘proof’.

Who am I kidding!! . . . the squirrel jumped off the signpost, or I’d have shot the 50x zoom. Probably would have zoomed in on its eye. My guess is that it would have been a digital mess.

Three weeks later, I stopped to snap a photo of something I’d not seen in a long while. In fact, I couldn’t remember when I’d seen one last. I’m tempted to say in Italy, but having lived for a number of years, and driven in Illinois many more years, I must have seen one before this and just not remember. What is it, you ask?

Winter wheat . . . golden and swaying in the gentle breeze. Maybe it’s just that memories of golden wheat were purged from my memory banks to make room for all the memories of cornfields and soybeans fields.

Those two shots were both derived from the 108MP photos . . . not that you can tell from the regular photos. However, if you go to SmugMug and try to load them larger (or full) prepare to wait; one is 47MB and the other 29MB. And, here’s the deal . . . the extra resolution doesn’t gain you anything — or very little — when you zoom in.

Here are the “regular” photos . . .

Really, there’s no reason to shoot at the higher resolution for these types of shots (maybe for no shots).

All of these photos were processed the same; that is, lightly, and a minimalist dark frame added, per my preference.

Now, let me show you something I don’t like in phones . . . the panorama mode. This is a 180° panorama taken in portrait mode (the phone is held upright as I sweep from one side to the other).

This next shot is a panorama with the phone held horizontally as I sweep from one side to the other.

So, here’s the thing . . . had I merged a bunch of shots in Photoshop, I would’ve had more options to control the final “look” of the photo. I mean, to me, neither of those look like panoramas as I understand panoramas (LINK). 

Meaning, neither photo gives you the impression of a wide field of swaying wheat. More like a wedge of wheat.

Really, I should have changed to the 16:9 or Full photo ratio and get a single photo. That would probably have looked more like a panorama.

. . . I’ll probably have to do more panorama shooting to determine the best practice and what scenes are best suited for the panorama mode.

This next shot is for mvschulze . . . You were wondering what the trimmed river birch would look like once the leaves came in . . . not too bad.

Certainly better than our neighbor’s . . . which I forgot to photograph but will feature soon in comparison to ours.

Here’s a gallery of the above for them who want to peruse them in sequence.

That’s it. This post has ended . . . except for the stuff below.

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