I had the pleasure of visiting Highbanks Metro Park (my favorite park where I live) multiple times in the fall of ’25! It’s hard to pick an absolute favorite shot from those trips.

One of my occasional goals during my visits to Highbanks has been to replicate my favorite smartphone pictures taken there. My Motorola smartphone was, in a way, my beloved first camera. It took great photos, especially at Highbanks!

These days, I use a Canon DSLR (Canon EOS REBEL T3i, to be precise) for my landscape photos. I used my camera to retake one of my absolute favorite smartphone shots and enjoyed comparing them side by side afterwards!

October ’25 vs. October ’22

There are many trails in Highbanks; the Dripping Rock Trail is one of the longer ones you can choose to walk. It starts near the nature center at the park’s first entrance and aligns perfectly with the setting sun during the golden hour.

I had the good fortune to be at this spot on the Trail during my trip to Highbanks on 10/20/2025, right as the sunlight started pouring through these trees. It was radiant!

After coming home from taking this shot, I realized that it was incredibly similar to this picture I’d taken on my Motorola smartphone during my trip to Highbanks on 10/21/2022.

It looks like it was roughly the same spot in each picture, just at a different angle. I remember that I’d been standing when I took this photo in ’22, but chose to kneel for the ’25 version. I wondered if taking a landscape picture while kneeling would create a more immersive experience for my viewers.

Honestly, they’re both great pictures, and are beautiful in different ways! This smartphone shot is one of the best ones my Motorola phone ever took, and it holds up quite well compared to this more recent version.

After looking at these pictures together, I think the smartphone one is more colorful, while the camera version is more golden. That drought we had earlier in the season really threw off the natural progression of autumn in Highbanks, and elsewhere, too, I’m sure.

Smartphone Memories

I remember that when I only used my smartphone for photography (until the end of 2023), I was hesitant to consider trying landscape photography with a camera. Modern smartphones make it incredibly easy to take landscape shots.

However, as I’ve learned, smartphones offer less control over settings than cameras. This is especially true given the differences in aperture between those devices. Smartphones have a fixed aperture, meaning you can’t control the depth of field like you can with a camera.

I’m forever grateful for the pictures I took with my various smartphones. They helped me learn about nature photography quickly, and some look like they were taken with a camera. But I would never return to using a smartphone exclusively for my shots, not after getting some fantastic landscape pictures with this DSLR.

All Images by Connor Brennan

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