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Just hope Apple will come up with somthing that could match the night sight on the pixel phones soon.
 
Ah, the photography debate. I'm reminded of people who spend lots of money on golf clubs. Doesn't mean they can hit the ball straight, but they are confident in their equipment. Likewise, straight hitters could benefit from even better clubs...

If you're a pro, you're most likely not using an iPhone for professional work. If you're a consumer, the iPhone is probably the best camera you've ever owned. Use the right tool for the job -- and learn how to use that tool -- and you'll get great results.
 
I totally agree with all that, however... I believe for anyone who takes photography seriously, phone cameras do have a lot of limitations. Their tiny image sensor can only do so much (not to mention the lens) and most serious photographers would want to work on proper RAW files. But yeah, on great lighting conditions, on the hands of someone who knows what is doing, phone cameras can do a great photos.

As someone who takes photography seriously, I have found that all camera's I've owned have limitations - even my Arca-Swiss 4x5. It's just a matter of understanding what they are. At the end of the day, any so-called "best" cameras do not compensate for poor technique, lack of imagination, lack of understanding of light, etc. when trying to make good photographs.

My various iPhone cams have worked well for me over the years and have used them in several projects.


Dog at Ocean Beach.jpg
 
Yet, the Pixel 3 is even better.

Whoa. Steady on there, cowboy!

-The Portrait mode for humans for the XR is better than both the Pixel and XS.
Personally, I find the human portraits of the Pixel for daytime a bit too sharp and contrasty. While the XS a little soft. The XR sits in the middle and is the best with its wider angle in my opinion.
-AND don't forget that Pixel doesn't do bokeh in real time. Only after the fact. Unlike the XR and XS.
-the XR can't do objects in portrait and while the XS is good with objects, the Pixel is better.
-Pixel front facing camera is def better. It's wide angle selfie lens is a winner.
-Zoom on the XS is better than Pixel which does a good job with digi zoom but still not as good. XR doesn't compete.
-Night time shots on the pixel can be better, but in some comparisons the XR/XS comes out on top in side by side photos.
-Day time the XR/XS is better by a little over the Pixel.
-Pixel has that new night mode thingy which under the right conditions works well.
- As for video. Don't even bother with the Pixel. It's bloody awful. The XS is amazing and the XR is identical save for a missing 4k 60fps setting and zoom IIRC.
-Sound recording is far superior on the iPhones as well.
 
Still a generation or two behind the Pixel camera. I mean night shot is amazing, nothing even comes close to touching a Pixel 3 in the dark! let alone standard photos.

You can already take similar low light pics using apps like Hydra (other work too). Not need to wait a few generations. I think Google's implementation is better than Hydra (but you'd expect that). But yes I would like the feature baked into the stock camera.

Hydra dev: https://twitter.com/rsebbe/status/1054666630511411200?s=21


https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/hydra-amazing-photography/id947824428?mt=8
 
Would be nice if macrumors would write articles that read more like independent journalism and less like Apple PR.

When you read the article it feels like we are all inside an Apple bubble, pointing out features like TrueDepth and low light improvements yadayada.

Why not make at least a reference that the iPhone is behind by a LOT in low light scenarios since it lacks Night Sight like the Pixel phones have now?
At the end of the day I prefer articles that show the entire story aka. reality thus being a thorn in the flesh of Apple. So they can feel some pressure and work on these features that iPhone users are lacking at the moment. Because in the end the customer will benefit from this.
I prefer this over articles which are eyecandy for Apples PR department. Because what they want to see is the repeat of their own words.

But I have a bad feeling that we will read about such a lowlight feature in a year, when everyone will repeat what is going to be told in next year's iPhone event by Tim Cook & Co: "we are bringing a completely new lowlight feature which has never been seen before (to the new iphone)"

So please macrumors. You are our voice. Lets not meet in a year with the same article, with the only difference being advertising the lowlight shots (on the new iphone).
Agree, and when publishing an article like this, at least compare this XR software Bokeh to the “real” thing in the XS(Max). Now it seems Apple selectively informed its premium customers, at the time the new XS features got advertised (that were mainly camera-oriented) while they held the XR up their sleeves
 
How come Apple always highlights these amazing photos "shot on iPhone" for at least the past few generations and they all look equally as good. Seriously. Shouldn't they look better with each generation? I sure don't see a difference.

Also, why is it that every time I try to take a picture that is not outdoors in ideal lighting conditions, the photos are 90% of the time blurry?
 
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How come Apple always highlights these amazing photos "shot on iPhone" for at least the past few generations and they all look equally as good. Seriously. Shouldn't they look better with each generation? I sure don't see a difference.

Also, why is it that every time I try to take a picture that is not outdoors in ideal lighting conditions, the photos are 90% of the time blurry?

Might be your technique. Try holding your phone more steady. Or prop it against an immovable object, such as a chair, while making the picture.
 
Personally I think smartphone cameras are all so close now its trivial, they all take a decent pic. I'll just leave this here, S9+ ftw! ;)~
 
Good for a phone camera but please do not compare the images to my Nikon and the lenses I use.... it is night and day. But recently everyone is trying to be a professional... with inferior equipment.

The photos look, at least to me, like amateur over processing.
 
If you're a pro, you're most likely not using an iPhone for professional work. If you're a consumer, the iPhone is probably the best camera you've ever owned. Use the right tool for the job -- and learn how to use that tool -- and you'll get great results.

Well said. It's awesome for photography in general that we are now nitpicking photos that come off a small slab you keep in your pocket. It wasn't that long ago that phone cameras or even quality point and shoots were just not very good. Now we have people arguing about saturation or hard to see artifacts. This is a huge win in my book.

I do wonder sometimes if 'pros' are annoyed that an average Joe can pull out their phone and get 80%+ of the way there now. Until recently bokeh was reserved for those with a DSLR for example. A good photographer is a good photographer regardless of the camera. It's no longer easy to fake it by just having some expensive gear.
 
How come it blurs the edge of her face near her lips? Also, the beanie at the back is a bit blurry.

Because it does some kind of post blur of a flat image.
There is no background visible behind the girl, so it is blurring her face
and pasting a layer of her sharp over itself. A very typical post-blur effect.
 
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I'm hard pressed to get shots like this on my Nikon. OK, let's face it: I can't even get shots this good on my Nikon. :(
 
It’s amazing what images smartphones are capable of capturing, especially considering the less-than-ideal way they are putting relatively small lenses into the back of ever-thinner devices. But personally I’m not really a fan of these artificial blurs, they can just look a bit... ‘off’ to me. But I’m sure they’ll keep getting better.

Same here. If there were an option to remove the noise reduction that seems to aggressively happen in current iPhone shots, I’d be really really happy.
 
Sounds trivial, but if the XR has 3D Touch, it would have been a done deal for me. I use that feature for so many things on a daily basis on my 7 Plus, I'm not ready to give it up. And the Haptic Touch is barely implemented at this point.
 
It’s amazing what images smartphones are capable of capturing, especially considering the less-than-ideal way they are putting relatively small lenses into the back of ever-thinner devices. But personally I’m not really a fan of these artificial blurs, they can just look a bit... ‘off’ to me. But I’m sure they’ll keep getting better.
Yeah, sometimes the fake bokeh affect is very obvious, but sometimes it works well and it becomes clear how good smartphone cameras are for point and shoot scenarios. I shot these with my 2 years old 7 Plus with no editing. The top one is the State Capital in Sacramento, CA shot early in the morning, and the second is using the Portrait Mode out in Lake Tahoe.
IMG_2082.jpg
IMG_2024.jpg
 
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