A winning photo from a contest highlighting the best iPhone photography was taken on an iPhone 4 — a phone that's more than 10 years old (AAPL)

One winning photo in the 2020 iPhone Photography Awards was captured using the iPhone 4, a phone that launched 10 years ago.
The winning photo was taken by photographer Omar Lucas, who captured the first place prize in the awards' "People" category.
The iPhone 4 had a single 5-megapixel camera and was the first iPhone to come with FaceTime.
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You don't have to upgrade to the latest iPhone to take prize-winning photos, it turns out.

The winners of the 2020 iPhone Photography Awards were announced on July 22, and among the winning photographs was an image taken on the iPhone 4, as Input reported. The photo was taken by photographer Omar Lucas from Peru, the recipient of the contest's first place prize for the "People" category.

Here's a look at Lucas' winning photo taken on the iPhone 4:

Tres mujeres tejedoras de la zona sur de la región de Ayacucho ( Perú) visten orgullosas las llicllas (mantas, en quechua) elaboradas por ellas. . . . #ayacucho #perù #mujeres #instagram #latinamerica #work #women #omarlucas #fábricadeideas #portraitphotography #portraitofhumanity

A post shared by Omar Lucas (@omar.lucas) on Mar 29, 2020 at 2:39pm PDT on Mar 29, 2020 at 2:39pm PDT

The grand prize, which went to Dimpy Bhalotia from the United Kingdom, was shot on an iPhone X from 2017. But the first place prize-winning photo, taken by Artyom Baryshau of India, was also shot on a much older model: the iPhone 6, which launched in 2014.

The iPhone 4 came with a 5-megapixel camera and an LED flash, making it the first iPhone that had the potential to serve as a digital camera replacement, as CNET noted in its camera review of the device from 2010. It was also the first iPhone to support FaceTime.

It's a far cry from the sophisticated cameras found on today's smartphones, but it represented a big leap forward from its predecessor, the iPhone 3GS, which had a 3-megapixel camera.

Today's smartphone cameras have come a long way, as multi-lens setups have become the standard. The iPhone 11 Pro and Samsung Galaxy S20, for example, both have triple-lens cameras that include wide-angle, ultra-wide-angle, and telephoto lenses. The rumored iPhone 12 that Apple is expected to launch later this year is also anticipated to come with some camera upgrades, such as a depth sensor similar to the Lidar sensor on the latest iPad Pro.

The iPhone Photography Awards is an independent annual competition that began in 2007, not to be confused with Apple's own Shot on iPhone Challenge.

It's also not the only photography contest to feature older iPhone models. Two winning photos from Apple's 2019 Shot on iPhone Challenge were taken using an iPhone 7— a model that's now more than three years old.

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