Rubbish. He was pontificating in a manner which clearly suits your own propensity to sycophancy, which is why you've gotten yourself into such a state over it merely being called into question.
Grow up.
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iPhone 15 Pro Another year, another iPhone with near ZERO improvements to camera color rendering and white balance (everything is yellow)
- Thread starter zakarhino
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Grow up.
….and yet another Macrumors thread bites the dust in civility… 🤷♂️
I mean the tech is improving. You're complaining about year over year increments, which is a massive chunk of your problem. We have a whole new sensor this year, even though no one seems to have heard that, plus the new tetraprism in the 15PM. All the phones take better low light images (supposedly, I don't have one yet to compare). I can't wait to compare my 11PM shots with some from the 15PM that I'll get in November.
White balance is a hard limitation. You could arrive there computationally, maybe, if the phone is able to pick out and balance according to an 80% spot in the shot your composing, but subjectively a perfect balanced photo isn't going to look like it is to probably half the population at least, maybe more. So spending R&D time and money trying to get there really isn't worth it if half the population of users isn't going to see it perfectly balanced.
Hogwash, that's like sitting down at a canvas, flapping a brush around, and expecting a perfectly balanced painting. If you want the best result, you put the work in. You do what you can to compose the shot before and then you edit what you couldn't compose in post. That's how it's always been done with every camera system ever created, your cheap old Samsung included. How is your camera supposed to balance color correctly when it has no frame of reference in any general shot? You're supposed to set your balance before every shot with a 80% card to get the proper color range. Do you do that with your phone? Not likely. So then how is it supposed to gauge proper color balance? It can't. Not with the accuracy you want.
I find the camera better on the 15 pro. I could instantly tell he different colorscience and the higher resolution from my 14 pro. It looks much more natural.
Well no, that would be comparing arranging paint on canvas to create an image with using technology to capture one. Nothing like each other.
And if you don't want to "put the work in" painting, editing, or lugging a dedicated camera around, you rely on the world's best smartphone having the world's best smartphone camera and being able to capture the world's best unedited smartphone camera snaps. In the world.
Nothing "hogwash" about it.
Waiting for more comparison photos but it looks like some improvements may have been made in the color end of things. The jury is still out and I'm still seeing green photos but here's hoping. I cancelled my 15 PM but if more side by side photos come out showing more hits than misses with color reproduction (and if Pixel 8 Pro doesn't blow it out of the water) then I might visit the Apple Store in a couple weeks and pick up a 15 PM.
Both are capturing an image, so yes, like for like.
Sure it is. You're asking someone else to reproduce a scene for you and then complaining about how they see it. Maybe do it yourself instead and then you get a better image and the ability to make it look as you'd like. Because even if it is the best of the best of the best, it's never going to capture an image exactly as you think it should. Because not everyone's eyes work as yours do.
Artistic interpretation is only to be expected of an artist, not a camera. Expecting a good quality snap from an iPhone without further work is nothing like "flapping a brush around, and expecting a perfectly balanced painting".
No it isn't. Expecting colour fidelity from a camera marked as one of the outstanding selling features in an expensive flagship phone isn't expecting anyone to reproduce a scene how they see it, it's expecting them to get colour right - at least to the point of not duplicating inaccuracies from previous generations.
Color fidelity and default AWB behavior are two different things. Your issue is with the default AWB behavior, which as previously noted can be changed via photographic styles or by shooting RAW or using a third party app. Whether the default AWB should be a cooler temp is subjective, but certainly an opinion one is entitled to.
Yeah I did actually mean accuracy of colour rendered in different lighting/conditions. White balance is a hue setting that could and should be defaulted to neutral in order to preserve colour integrity rather than biased one way or the other by default.
A camera isn’t a paint brush, you and some others here clearly don’t understand the topic here at all (not surprising), or are just repeating some filler you read on a blog.
I’m sorry you don’t understand the topic, try reading it again without the Apple tinted glasses on. The iPhone is the only high end phone I’ve seen in recent years that gets colors so wrong, saying that these thing can be fixed in post is nothing but an excuse, and a total mis-understanding of the issue. Some of us have tried to explain it, yet for some reason we are unable to penetrate the Apple force field. Like holy cow, the overreactions and excuses made by some people here are so ridiculous.
We are talking about smartphones here, do you understand this? Now pay attention, no more knee jerk responses. Smartphones as we are always told are mostly meant for casual snapshots, not serious photography. When I’m out and about and see something of interest and whip my phone out I shouldn’t have to think about it, the phone does it all for me. That’s what we are constantly told anyways, Apple knows best right? So when I do so I expect at least some sort of accuracy in the colors of a given scene, which I get on my Samsung and I get using Googles camera. Much of the time I do not get that on an iPhone, instead I get the weird yellow/green tint which many times looks jaundiced (terrible).
So at the end of the day, I go home and I have 200 photos taken with both my iPhone and my Samsung. If they were all night shots they look so good I can immediately share them to social media or to friends/family, like intended. My iPhone shots need to be edited now, most all of them, consuming a lot of time.
So the moral of the story is, if I need to sit down and spend hours editing pictures every time I use my phone, I might as well just carry a camera around with me since the results will be much better than any smartphone. My Fuji was great for that until it was stolen, I love the whole process, I just shouldn’t be expected to stage a photo shoot and spend hours editing smartphone pictures as it’s not worth my time. If you can’t understand this then I don’t know what to tell you.
Except white balance is accomplished literally shot by shot on every camera system ever created, including film. Which is the point. Unless you have something in the shot that is perfectly 18% white that the camera can see and average everything else against, then all it can do is make an educated guess. Doesn't matter how advanced or awesome or cutting edge the system is, it's always going to be a guess unless or until they allow you to expose for white balance before shooting.
Yes. You are the artist. Your job is to compose the shot and get it as close as you wish it before hitting the shutter. And unless, as mentioned, you can expose an 18% white card prior to the shot, you're not going to get a perfectly exposed shot. If you're shooting for an artistically expressive shot, then post processing has to be part of the equation. Even if it's just to get the color closer to how you saw it.
I've been saying 80% this whole time and it's 18%. The reverse side is 90% white. Been a while since I actually used one.
Oh ok, so now you're jumping on the white balance argument. Shot by shot is also how autofocus works and, even when it does get it wrong, it doesn't do it in the same way every time. The green, otoh, is persistent.
No, I'm not. I'm the guy who wants to take spontaneous snaps with his phone that are as good as those captured on phones he views as less appealing for other reasons.
So wait you think it's not a white balance issue? Tell me you know nothing about photography without telling me. Autofocus works because it has an object to focus on. Duh. Unless there's an object in frame that is 18% white that the camera can white balance off of before shooting, you're never going to get a perfectly balanced image. This is literally taught in Photography 1001 in college. Yes the color space skews warm when it balances. Because the majority of people prefer that.
You literally are. You are the photographer and photography is an art. You shouldn't be complaining about a spontaneous shot when you probably didn't even give your camera a chance to adjust settings to the scene before shooting. And again they set the camera up to where it's pleasing to the majority, not you. Because if they set the camera up to make you happy, then the majority are going to be complaining and that costs more than making you unhappy.
You think that's what I said Mr "I've been saying 80% this whole time and it's 18%"? Tell me you don't know what you're talking about without telling me. It's the white balance that affects the hue that affects the colour integrity. Duh. It has already been shown that the balance is still off, with that same green hue, with enough white in shot for it to calibrate.
I've had arguments with people who like to call themselves artists because they've figured out how to use a camera and make adjustments to compensate for different conditions before.
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Yes. Because it is. What is the "color integrity"? "Color integrity" isn't a photographic term. It means nothing. But you did admit that it all spawns from the white balance, so that's something. The cool thing is everyone keeps complaining about the green/yellow shift but with the 4s, 6s, 8+, and now the 11PM, I've never seen this green/yellow shift. Not in a single image. I don't doubt you see it, my point is your eyes work differently than mine and mine work differently than the next guy. So even if you had a perfectly balanced photo, you're still going to see it skewed in some manner. That's photography.
Well to be fair I wasn't meaning artist in any kind of hoity toity manner. If you draw a picture, you're an artist. If you take a photograph as something more than just a reference shot for remembering later, you're an artist. If you're taking an image that you care about the color quality of, then you are creating art, however minimal or ephemeral it may be. Therefore you are an artist.
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Colour integrity means nothing because it wasn't mentioned on the photography course you attended or in the few paragraphs you've read on the subject?
Utter rubbish. Photographers use a tool called a camera to capture images, not create them.
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Couldn't agree more with the original point, that iPhone camera colours can look awful, especially in the highlights.
That said, I don't know if others have mentioned this, but if you take raw photos, and then change the colour profile to be something other than the apple one (so e.g. in adobe Lightroom, change it to adobe colour) then it helps a lot with this. So e.g. in the attached double-photo, the left one is from a dslr and the right one is from an iPhone (with the problems mentioned of horrible highlights). But if you change the colour profile and edit the iPhone dng a little, you get the other attachment, which looks a lot better. You can also of course change the colour temperature etc.
Incidentally, the double-image is from this YouTube video:
and you can download the iPhone dng to play around with from https://itstomrich.gumroad.com/l/iphone-14-proraw-photos?layout=profile.
That said, I don't know if others have mentioned this, but if you take raw photos, and then change the colour profile to be something other than the apple one (so e.g. in adobe Lightroom, change it to adobe colour) then it helps a lot with this. So e.g. in the attached double-photo, the left one is from a dslr and the right one is from an iPhone (with the problems mentioned of horrible highlights). But if you change the colour profile and edit the iPhone dng a little, you get the other attachment, which looks a lot better. You can also of course change the colour temperature etc.
Incidentally, the double-image is from this YouTube video:
and you can download the iPhone dng to play around with from https://itstomrich.gumroad.com/l/iphone-14-proraw-photos?layout=profile.
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I find the color balance of my 15 pro pretty spot on however my indoor shots are garbage compared to my 14 pro. My 14 pro was much sharper and clearer under the same indoor lighting than my 15 pro is.
I have the complete opposite. Well, the color I think is great for sure. However resolution wise, I find my indoor pics muddled with less detail than my 14 pro.
INTEG'RITY, n. The entire, unimpaired state of any thing, particularly of the mind; moral soundness or purity; incorruptness; uprightness; honesty.
It means nothing because we're not having a moral argument here. There is no moral basis for there to be "color integrity". That was the second definition. The first is wholeness; entireness; unbroken state. There is nothing broken, incomplete, or missing from the photos or the camera. Therefore it still means nothing.
"Few paragraphs"? I've read many many paragraphs in many many papers on photographic theory, why the eye works as it does, and why complaining about how a camera renders an image is a moot argument because your eye operates differently from everyone else's. If you're looking to faithfully reproduce a scene with a camera, you should always expect to post process, even if it's not for an artistic purpose. Absolutely no camera ever created perfectly reproduces what you see, because it's not using your eye to capture the image.
And sculptors use a hammer and chisel to capture an image. And painters use a brush and paint to capture an image. If you all three use your tools to capture an image and you call the painting and sculpture art, then the photo is art as well.
'ART, n. A system of rules, serving to facilitate the performance of certain actions; opposed to science, or to speculative principles; as the art of building or engraving. Arts are divided into useful or mechanic, and liberal or polite. The mechanic arts are those in which the hands and body are more concerned then the mind; as in making clothes and utensils. These art are called trades. The liberal or polite arts are those in which the mind or imagination is chiefly concerned; as poetry, music, and painting.
Skill, dexterity, or the power of performing certain actions, acquired by experience, study, or observation; as, a man has the art of managing his business to advantage.
So, yes, according to the definitions, photography is an art, rendering the photographer an artist, regardless of your opinion. Which is confusing because you complain about the color which is only an argument an artist would be concerned with. The majority of people snapping selfies aren't concerned about the color. So you defeat yourself with your own argument.
integrity
noun
in·teg·ri·ty in-ˈte-grə-tēSynonyms of integrity
1
: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : INCORRUPTIBILITY
2
: an unimpaired condition : SOUNDNESS
3
: the quality or state of being complete or undivided : COMPLETENESS
The rest of it's just more irrelavent convolution. Of course a camera can't reproduce what I see, I see in three dimensions whereas images are captured in two. The point is, colour inaccuracy and hue imbalance should have been sorted by now in iPhone cameras this many generations down the line.
In this context, you might as well say anyone who opens a packet of crisps (potato chips) is a chef.
Still, must be confusing for you arguing photography is an art and I'm an artist while presuming other photographers aren't artists because they, like you, aren't concerned with or can't perceive colour inaccuracies. Clearly not all photographers are artists then, just snappers like me who don't want to look seasick in their selfies.
Some might even be under the impression you'd contradicted yourself.
I mean we're at the point where cameras are seeing in three dimensions. That's beside the point. The point, as you said, is color accuracy. Accurate according to what or whom? You seem to not understand that even if the image is perfectly color balanced, you won't see it as such. There's a solid population of people in here, the majority of which seem to be male, that see this green/yellow cast to images. But the female population, who in general have a wider range of color they can see, aren't complaining as much. Me, as a migrainer who has increased nerve endings in my eyes letting me see increased color range, also do not see this green/yellow cast. I tell you what, at lunch I will go out and shoot our parking lot with my 11PM and post the image here and we'll see what you say. I won't shoot RAW or edit it in any fashion, just point and shoot and post. If the problem is all iphones and all images then you'll see the green/yellow cast. We'll see whether I do or not.
You aren't making the doritos. The comparison here would be me shooting a photo and sending it to you and you opening it. You didn't even shoot the photo in your comparison.
Some might be under the impression that this didn't make any sense. I never said someone wasn't an artist because they saw color differently. I also never said someone wasn't an artist because they didn't care about color accuracy. I said if you're going to complain about color accuracy, then you should act like an artist and take a little more care in your art production. Right now the only way I can think of accomplishing a good white balance would be to carry a gray card, shoot it in the light available, shoot your subject, and then process them together in a batch adjusting for the gray card. Otherwise there's not a really easy way to get a perfectly balanced image off a general shot.