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The Red iPhone SE looks so good with the black front. I don’t know why Apple doesn’t make this color available for the Pro tier! So tasty.
 
It’s a shame there aren’t any 100% crops to show the differences in detail.

I’m on a well calibrated screen at the moment, and those SE photos definitely have the best looking color. I’m glad Apple didn’t go with the cooler blueish cast of the iPhone 11 Pro.

I really dig the contrast of the 8. The 11 is not my favorite image more times than not.
 
I can't tell which is better except in the dark outdoor plant photo. Typically these same-gen comparisons always seem like a tie to me except in low lighting. Sure the photos from the 11 sometimes look different, but I can't tell if it's better.
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"The ‌iPhone‌ SE is a passable camera of course that's going to take great every day shots, but those seriously interested in better ‌iPhone‌ photography..." That's quite a sentence! Those seriously interested in photography aren't going to be seriously into iPhone photography. For a phone, all 3 take great pics, but compared to DLSR's or mirrorless ILC cameras, there's no comparison, especially when the light, motion, and/or distance, gets challenging. I'm not saying anything new or non-obvious of course, just commenting on the absurdity of "..seriously interested in ‌iPhone‌ photography..."
Nearly every DLSR owner also has a phone. When you don't have the DSLR on you when there's an opportunity, you're gonna use the phone, says every pro photographer I know.
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The iPhone 8 and SE photos make me want to vomit
Because they're bad or because they make the 11 seem not worthwhile?
 
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This is the overall update I thought the iPhone 6-8 series should have ended up with to make it a really ultimate refinement to that design. I’m glad that design got one last chance to shine.

I actually like that it doesn’t have a night mode. I haven’t been able to get decent photos of Christmas lights at the county light show since my phones (Androids and iPhone) got these night modes. They make the camera slow and the lights are too bright and everything blurs even when I adjust it to the minimum. Or there’s just too much ambient light and the scene doesn’t look like what I see in front of me. lol, that’s kind of a specific use case, but that one time a year trying to take pics of winter lights from my moving car is not quite the same when my phone camera tries to turn night into day.

No it’s not going to compete at the same level as my 11 Pro, but it’s a really solid phone for the price.

This will be THE choice for the kids going forward and for myself if, God forbid, I break my 11 Pro.
 
Given that I take photos to remember the moments, and not fuss over the fine details like the camera/tech porn addicts do here, all three images look more than just fine.

If I was paying my own money for an iPhone (my company supplies my devices), the SE would be it, just because at that price point it does all I'd need, and does it well (well, aside from a few features I'd miss from my Android device, but I digress).
 
If you have Amazon Delivery Now available, search for Dramamine or an equivalent. It appears the elite bias bug is making you sick to your stomach.
😂 Yeah, I have an 11 Pro and I was impressed by the SE, especially the Portrait Mode shots. All of this press about the SE makes me really want to pick one up. Looks to be a really really good phone for the money. I’m blown away by what it offers at $400.
 
Lol I relearned a word! I used to do gardening and landscaping both as a hobby and as a volunteer for the area schools. I also worked in a college botany lab decades ago. I hadn’t heard or used the word “etiolated” in so long I forgot it existed, and when I saw it again, I knew that I used to know it, but couldn’t recall the definition off the top of my head and had to look it up again. Ah well, I’m at an age and stage in life where I forget just about anything interesting if I’m not dealing with it daily.

Getting back to the subject, I have looked at a lot of sample photos taken by the new SE and I find I like the hint of warmth in the photos. It’s charming. It’s funny because I used to be a bit picky about color accuracy and impatient with cameras that have too warm or cold of a cast.
 
At release the iPhone 8's pictures looked superb in the same kind of comparison! But now iPhone's pictures are significantly better again. There are notable differences - no dark shadows anywhere, colours are richer, but night mode is my favourite. I'm looking forward to my iPhone 12 non-Pro 5.4".
 
I’m guessing HDR didn’t turn on with the iPhone 8 in the watermelon picture. It hdr came on it would have look similar to the other phones.
 
It’s 1985. I’m 20. I take a Polaroid photo of a watermelon. I then go to the local library, which had a photocopier. I make 500 photocopies of my Polaroid photo of a watermelon. I then walk around for the next few weeks with the wedge of paper tucked under my arm, handing out the photocopies of my watermelon photo to all my friends. Who think I‘m bonkers!

It‘s 2020. I‘m 55, sharing photos of watermelons.
 
Maybe you need a better scanner?

I can vouch for 70s and 80s Instamatic shots being terrible. While they were colour, they were a step back from the cameras my family used in the 50s and 60s!

And I say that as someone who is using a high end Epson Perfection V850 Pro, scanning the negatives (the prints are even worse printed on textured paper).
 
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The thing is, the photos are all very good (Certainly good enough) and when you sit back and realise that, you then start to grasp the fact that these companies have that “hook“ in which to keep making your phone appear inferior to try and create that insatiable need for a new phone. These tiny incremental “improvements“ are ridiculous and are contributing to consumerism that has gone mad.
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When you go around to
Similar, not identical. At least to my eyes.

That‘s the thing though, according to your eyes...this is the insanity of it. Would you go around to a friends or relatives house and take the pictures off the wall and debate which phone camera they were taken with or perhaps whip out a magnifying glass and start to discuss the edge detail around “those trees,“ I doubt it.

99% of these photos are never seen again, sitting in memory on a phone. If they happened to be shared, it is on social media in a compressed format, where those who see them, see them via their (various aged eyes), on any old screen, with their random contrast, brightness and resolution for a few seconds.

These phone cameras, like most cameras are for capturing memories, not some forensic record of the subject. You don’t look back on a photo and say we enjoyed that day, but they were bad times and feel so embarrassed that I wasted the moment because I used an iPhone SE; I’m so sorry.
 
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The thing is, the photos are all very good (Certainly good enough) and when you sit back and realise that, you then start to grasp the fact that these companies have that “hook“ in which to keep making your phone appear inferior to try and create that insatiable need for a new phone. These tiny incremental “improvements“ are ridiculous and are contributing to consumerism that has gone mad.
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When you go around to


That‘s the thing though, according to your eyes...this is the insanity of it. Would you go around to a friends or relatives house and take the pictures off the wall and debate which phone camera they were taken with or perhaps whip out a magnifying glass and start to discuss the edge detail around “those trees,“ I doubt it.

99% of these photos are never seen again, sitting in memory on a phone. If they happened to be shared, it is on social media in a compressed format, where those who see them, see them via their (various aged eyes), on any old screen, with their random contrast, brightness and resolution for a few seconds.

These phone cameras, like most cameras are for capturing memories, not some forensic record of the subject. You don’t look back on a photo and say we enjoyed that day, but they were bad times and feel so embarrassed that I wasted the moment because I used an iPhone SE; I’m so sorry.
You’re alluding to the that the photos have to be good enough. Cameras are a hot turf war and manufacturers are tripping over themselves to up their camera game. The raw format of these photos can be accessed and to those interested can post process the way they want. People presumably pay money for the pro features of the 11 pro, one of which is a better camera.
 
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The iPhone SE is not the only iPhone to rely on software only for portrait mode. The XR does the same.
Yep. Would be interesting a detailed comparison between XR and SE.
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"iphone photography" is such a hilarious sounding thing.
But it’s true, since most of the photos nowadays are taken with a phone, and a relevant percentage of those photos are taken with an iPhone.

I’m so tired of the silly comments like “if you care about photography you would use a DSLR” ... that’s simply false today.
I’m a non professional photographer and I’m using a Reflex since late ‘90, well before digital photography. And I have a DSLR.
But you are not taking your DSLR with its set of lens with you every day, while you are taking your phone with you every moment, so most of your photos are taken by a phone. I care about the quality of those photos.
 
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Very impressive. I've always wondered how Apple's most recent ISP would fare with an older lens

I think this is impressive how the same lens can take better pictures thanks to the ISP

Just goes to show this is the way of the future with smart phones cameras. Only so much you can do with the physical lenses - only so many combinations of size, aperture and focal lengths that can fit in a smart phone camera

Apple and Google have the right idea by focusing on the ISP and less on the hardware side - the hardware is "pretty damn good" already

I'm impressed because in this price range, nothing but the Pixel 3a (and soon to be 4a) comes close.

I have looked and I have not found anything else.


Its not for me, but if I am recommending a phone, it makes the SE (and even the 8 depending on budget!) an attractive recommendation.

The iPhone 8 can be had for 250$ CAD all in used (but mint!) or less than 500 brand new (I have seen 450 for factory sealed models), and for some people that is much more attractive than the 670$ CAD all in of the SE up here, so depending on the budget and user needs, I feel confident in recommending both devices.
An ISP is hardware. There seems to be some sort of strange wording trend here in recent articles because of a few articles they published which referenced other sites which made this mistake. There is little if any software improvement specific to the SE, it's all hardware.
 
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