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A Look at iPhone 4's Camera Quality
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I was just visiting some friends recently and captured a short video of their kid doing some funny thing. They are very impressed because whenever they go get their video camera, turn it on, etc, the kid would typically not be doing the thing any more.
They said it's the first time since their kid is born that they got such a candid video. =)
I got the 3Gs last year and I am going to think whether I want to do early upgrade to v4. Probably would...
I'm still getting great pics from my 6MP Nikon D70S. 5MP in the new iPhone will do me just fine if the software is good.
The bummer is trying to keep the lens protected. You really need a case to keep the lens recessed, otherwise the lens coating (if not the lens glass itself) starts to get damaged from daily handling and your pics start to look foggy.
That's only a problem with the 2007 iPhone, UNTIL the whole coating wears off.
Not sure about iPhone 3g but my iPhone 3Gs camera lens is recessed and still works like new.
Heh heh. I'm particularly interested in how he got his hands on original iPhone4 photos so that he could compare them to these photos. That's the only way he could know that these were "too saturated."
If he has them I'd love to see them.
The Megapixel myth
I used to have an Agfa digital camera 1Mega Pixel about 10 years ago and the texture was amazing surpassing later 5 Megapixels cameras.
More megapixels have little to do with better quality. But is easy to sell megapixels rather than quality to the standard customer.
I used to have an Agfa digital camera 1Mega Pixel about 10 years ago and the texture was amazing surpassing later 5 Megapixels cameras.
More megapixels have little to do with better quality. But is easy to sell megapixels rather than quality to the standard customer.
Dude I have a Nikon d40 with a sensor probably around 10x larger then the iphone 4g so I am aware when pictures are doctored.
This image is raw from the camera no editing at all.
This image below is edited which looks very simular to the iPhone pictures. over saturated.
Who agrees?
It doesn't seem like that long ago that I was buying a 4 MP camera for double the price of the iPhone, and the picture quality gap isn't that huge. The improved camera is a great selling point for the iPhone 4 IMO. Much rather have fewer MP than a huge, noisy picture.
The article DID mention that pics seemed to come out a little over saturated. Just the way their software is processing them to make them more attractive to average users. It's not like it's going to be giving us RAW files.
Show me some other iPhone4 photos that you know aren't doctored and then we'll talk.
Camera rocks
This a great camera for a phone. I just popped all full rez jpegs from the Apple website into CS5 to have a look.
Frist off 5 MP delivers roughly 8.5" x 6.5" at 300dpi so it is an excellent choice for snapshots. Anything more and you are just throwing away pixels.
The files are generally well exposed and the dew on the leaves and sunset road in particular are well exposed for a Phone camera.
Color is a bit hot and the pond and bridge shot is way over the top.
Sharpness, depth of filed is very good. The guy in glasses in front of the golden gate bridge shows very nice detail in the skin, shadows, and fabric. Again color is hot but when I popped it into Bridge and just did an auto white balance it looked great.
Bottom line this is a really impressive PS camera that just happens to live inside a phone.
This a great camera for a phone. I just popped all full rez jpegs from the Apple website into CS5 to have a look.
Frist off 5 MP delivers roughly 8.5" x 6.5" at 300dpi so it is an excellent choice for snapshots. Anything more and you are just throwing away pixels.
The files are generally well exposed and the dew on the leaves and sunset road in particular are well exposed for a Phone camera.
Color is a bit hot and the pond and bridge shot is way over the top.
Sharpness, depth of filed is very good. The guy in glasses in front of the golden gate bridge shows very nice detail in the skin, shadows, and fabric. Again color is hot but when I popped it into Bridge and just did an auto white balance it looked great.
Bottom line this is a really impressive PS camera that just happens to live inside a phone.
I learnt this the hard way. I lost a Canon 7.2MP camera, which was really fantastic. I decided to pay about $100 more to get the 8.1MP one, instead of the same camera, and the 8.1MP camera's quality was worse in every single way.
Turned out that the sensor size was the same, so they were just spreading the same information over more pixels, simply making the file sizes bigger, and nothing else.
Yeah, I've always been a loaded-for-bear-to-record-family-memories type of guy... I carry around an HD camcorder and DSLR a lot of the time. That's gotten to be a bit less since having a kid. I'm tired of carrying around a camcorder in my hand, a camera around my neck, and a 2 year old on my arm. I love the idea of having a single, compact device to do all of it for casual situations, assuming the quality is pretty acceptable.
I'm going to upgrade from my 3G regardless, but I'm cautiously very optimistic that the video recording and still camera is good enough for casual needs.
Really excited that one of the neatest things, geotagging is not only built in for photos but for *videos* too!
I'm going to upgrade from my 3G regardless, but I'm cautiously very optimistic that the video recording and still camera is good enough for casual needs.
Really excited that one of the neatest things, geotagging is not only built in for photos but for *videos* too!
You can tell that most people know nothing about photography if they think having a 8-12 MP camera is far more desirable than a 5MP camera. A 8-12MP camera with a senor that small would yield an incredible amount of noise even if it was at ISO 100 if you blew it up even to 4x6. You cant cram that many MP's into such a small senor and expect any kind of good quality. High MP's does not always mean high quality. Although most people nowadays through quality out the window as they feel the camera will enable them to take great pictures.
First picture looks nice but it is very bright and theres no shiny stuff like metal or windows to create camera phone bloom. It looks as good as a real camera with no weird haze or distortion like the current iphone.
2nd picture looks terrible and isnt even impressive for a phone, the saturation is ridiculous and not even photoshop could save it. The 2mp camera on my free phone could do that. Is that actually a picture from Apple?
2nd picture looks terrible and isnt even impressive for a phone, the saturation is ridiculous and not even photoshop could save it. The 2mp camera on my free phone could do that. Is that actually a picture from Apple?
What I REALLY want to know about the new phone is the flash. Is it an automatic flash? Can it be turned off? I've gotten so used to taking certain kinds of photos with my non-flash iPhone, that I wouldn't want the sudden introduction of a flash to ruin new pics. It's fine to have it there as an option, but I hope it's something that can be controlled. Does anyone who might have gotten theirs hands on the phone yesterday happen to know how the flash works??
More likely that the camera software has been set up to produce the candy colored 70s postcard look because someone thinks it looks good.
Go to the Apple website pull the files off, and pop them into bridge. It really is short work to make them look at least nice.
I can't see any reason to store 12mb raw files on an iphone. Compressed jpegs makes more sense and I think the crappy look comes from the jpeg conversion.
You should read the article more carefully.
It says specifically that the images raw from the camera tend to be slightly over-saturated and over-exposed. That is not necessarily a bad thing and can easily be corrected.
It doesn't surprise me at all, after all that's how the majority of people are fed ads. The average consumer doesn't know what makes a camera work, but they know what pixels are (for the most part), and they assume more pixels = better picture. And companies advertise to that. It's really no different than back in the GHz wars, where people assumed more GHz = better processor.
I used to always make fun of people for caring about and using a camera on a phone... but now I kinda take it serious. Of course, when I PLAN on taking pics for something with any importance, I use a "real" camera. But with Twitter, Facebook, texting, etc... it's nice to have decent quality on the phone.
The files that Gizmodo put up are far more contrasty and hot colorwise then the large jpegs on the Apple website. They must have resaved and added more compression.
I agree the garden shot looks terrible but in fairness that is a really contrasty scene and I would say the exposure though plugged at the bottom and blown out at the top is about as good as any point and shoot could do in that situation.
Its a phone, now is it going to compete to a dedicated camera? I can't see how anyone cares as long as it allows a quick shot when you don't actually have a camera.
What I like to know is now stable the lens is to movement, for video conferencing now that is cool, taking picture I leave to my Canon for that.
Both pictures are completely over saturated and over sharpened.
Especially the second one lacks most details because of too much contrast. Have a look at the trees and at the bridge and the stones. There is just a plain grey area without any details at all. The problem is that you can't even safe the details with image processing there. Not good.
Especially the second one lacks most details because of too much contrast. Have a look at the trees and at the bridge and the stones. There is just a plain grey area without any details at all. The problem is that you can't even safe the details with image processing there. Not good.