[jibbit]

A couple of things I noticed while teaching drawing to students (who were quite good) and i was a bit obsessed by Aphantasia..

It's always easy to distinguish a drawing done from life, a drawing done from a photograph, and a drawing done from imagination. i.e. drawings from photographs have an identifiable characteristic that isn’t present in drawings from imagination.

This distinction holds regardless of where students perceive themselves on the spectrum of ability to visualize. Students who describe themselves as having excellent visualization skills are often "better" at drawing from imagination (for a conventional idea of 'better'), but not any more able to draw like they could from life/photo than anyone else.

[generalizations]

Few cameras have the same focal length as the human eye. I wonder if your observation would hold if that were accounted for. Same as the difference between 'attractive' faces and 'photogenic'.