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iPhone 13 Pro iPhone 13 Pro main camera softness, less sharp than older iPhones
- Thread starter coso
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This is my theory as well (well, not brighter, just with faster shutter speeds thus allowing for better low light photos).
Probably this phenomenon started when Apple increased sensor size. With the XS? Or 11, around that time maybe. But I took a big leap from 8 to 13P so missed all the steps in between
Here's a comparison between the 8 and the 13 Pro. Apple does a terrible job with the 13 Pro SOOC HEIC, as you can see here. It's horribly overprocessed. The edited ProRaw on the other hand looks pretty ok and seems to resolve more detail than the 8. If you check the label on the jar, some parts looks almost smooth on the 8, while you can see the paper texture on the 13. Check the Sony JPEG for what it actually looks like.
Download the full size file here, as the forum version is very compressed.
Download the full size file here, as the forum version is very compressed.
Same picture, but a different crop.
From left to right: iPhone 8, iPhone 13 Pro HEIC, iPhone 13 Pro ProRaw, Sony 24mm GM
There's some weird sh** going on on the 13 Pro HEIC that is even messing with the bokeh. Check the painting in the background in the HEIC vs ProRaw.
iPhone 8 - ISO 40 1/24s
iPhone 13 Pro - ISO 80 1/62s
Full size link
From left to right: iPhone 8, iPhone 13 Pro HEIC, iPhone 13 Pro ProRaw, Sony 24mm GM
There's some weird sh** going on on the 13 Pro HEIC that is even messing with the bokeh. Check the painting in the background in the HEIC vs ProRaw.
iPhone 8 - ISO 40 1/24s
iPhone 13 Pro - ISO 80 1/62s
Full size link
Thanks for these. The 13 seems a little better here. But my 8 looks sharper than yours, if you check my samples. Probably I had an excellent unit of the 8. Your 13 quality seems similar to mine, as the samples posted by others and the demo units I tried in store, so even if maybe have a just okay copy I wouldn’t say that mine is defective
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Also, can you try a closer range picture? Almost at the limit of where the 13 switches to macro mode. Maybe the 8 is way sharper at that range. Mine is also a little sharper with far subjects, but in close range there’s the most difference. No need to a detailed comparison like this, I can see the difference just looking at pictures in both screens
There's nothing to discuss here.
It's exactly what other people said, it's clearly the aperture. Anyone with basic knowledge on how lenses works knows that bigger the aperture more difficult is to maintain details. it's just physics.
There are professional lenses of thousands of dollars that can't maintain the same details under f/1.8. It's possibile but it became more expensive every time you open more.
I thought f/1.5 was too much when I saw the presentation and apparently I was right.
A lot of people reported brutal sharpness filters on the photos, also compatible with this situation (trying to mitigate the problem with software).
There's no solution to that. From f/1.6/7 to 1.5 the advantage is minimum but apple this year needed to to something with the cameras and they did this. Also the choice to use a 3x instead of the 2.5x but with a 2.8 aperture is another choice with no sense.
My opinion is that this year Apple clearly could't find anything valuable to add and they just change settings to sell a different thing.
You have to understand that a 65mm at 2.2 aperture it's literally the same that a 77mm with 2.8 aperture, probably the last one is even a little bit worse in terms of advantage. Same thing on the main camera, an f/1.5 without a serious upgrade on the lenses quality it's the same thing that a f/1.7 with a better lens quality.
They didn't upgrade anything, they just changed things and used software to cover it. The only camera that in my opinion was technically upgraded is the ultra-wide. And of course the sensor stabilization is good too.
It's exactly what other people said, it's clearly the aperture. Anyone with basic knowledge on how lenses works knows that bigger the aperture more difficult is to maintain details. it's just physics.
There are professional lenses of thousands of dollars that can't maintain the same details under f/1.8. It's possibile but it became more expensive every time you open more.
I thought f/1.5 was too much when I saw the presentation and apparently I was right.
A lot of people reported brutal sharpness filters on the photos, also compatible with this situation (trying to mitigate the problem with software).
There's no solution to that. From f/1.6/7 to 1.5 the advantage is minimum but apple this year needed to to something with the cameras and they did this. Also the choice to use a 3x instead of the 2.5x but with a 2.8 aperture is another choice with no sense.
My opinion is that this year Apple clearly could't find anything valuable to add and they just change settings to sell a different thing.
You have to understand that a 65mm at 2.2 aperture it's literally the same that a 77mm with 2.8 aperture, probably the last one is even a little bit worse in terms of advantage. Same thing on the main camera, an f/1.5 without a serious upgrade on the lenses quality it's the same thing that a f/1.7 with a better lens quality.
They didn't upgrade anything, they just changed things and used software to cover it. The only camera that in my opinion was technically upgraded is the ultra-wide. And of course the sensor stabilization is good too.
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man thats actually so annoying. i wish apple wouldve kept the old approach, and tone down the deep fusion sharpening effect.
great comparison well done
the industry obviously has a ways to go in computational photography
Yes and no.
It's obviously a big point in terms of low light. Same condition, less noise and more light on the bigger sensor. No doubt.
But it's worse on the specific case that we are discussing, the sharpness (the reason why apple is applying this bad sharpness filter to compensate).
Bigger sensors with lenses at same aperture means less depth of field. So this year they used one of the most difficult situation possible for the sharpness (the f/1.5 lens) and on that they added the bigger sensor, reducing drastically the dof.
Like I said, all good if you are looking for more light but really a bad combination for details. Ask to a photographer, when they take a photo of a landscape with a full frame (very big sensor) they close the aperture, not open it more. Exactly for this reason. With the difference that those lenses have variable aperture so they can close it in the day (and having the details) and opening it in the night (less details but having more light).
If you remember samsung used a variable aperture lens on the main camera for a couple of years. Guess why? Because the main camera was too open ( exactly 1.5 if I remember correctly).
And let me say that I have no problem with less details but more light, It's a smartphone I'm not looking to print a 500x500 inches photo with it, I'm totally fine to prioritize the light and have more usable photo in the night. So in theory I'm even more than good with the decision.
But I'm not good at all with trying to cover an obvious side effect of that decision with something that literally destroy every single image (the very bad post processing) and with zero possibilities for the user to change that.
Really, all the photos I did until now are barely usable. I have a photo of a friend where the software basically totally changed the shirt with different textures and colors and seems a totally different thing.
Honestly I'm really thinking to change to another smartphone. The whole idea of "cheating" using large aperture and than putting the sharpness filter on +100 is something that I can't simply accept from apple and from one of the most expensive phone on the market.
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Really it's clearly a simple sharpness filter. Is possibile to check that simply doing this.
Take a photo with the heic and the proraw. On the proraw photo put the details on +100 (or something around there). You'll end up with the same result of the heic.
Does this mean the UW camera still can't shoot at 4k60? That's very bad news - 60fps is so nice for run-and-gun type of shootings with lots of panning where one wanted to frequently switch back to the UW lens. An example of these videos shot on the 11 obviously in 4k30 only (as, in 4k60, you just can't use the UW lens when needed) is HERE. It would have been MUCH better at 4k60.
I assume so as it has the same camera module as the 13P.
Completely disagree with you. You're injecting some truisms. Modern optics can handle 12mp, the DOF is still large at this sensor size, and what I'm seeing with my 13p raw shots doesn't really scream optical limitation. My benchmark is Sony GM lenses including the 135GM, so I know what good resolution performance looks like. Some of these examples show pretty noticeable issues, but I haven't seen that in my use. There is maybe a very slight resolution penalty vs previous sensors/optics, but it's slight enough that it's likely a change in the baked in 'raw' interpretation. Idk...I shoot with some damn sharp lenses, I've been shooting with the 13 pro, and to me the sky is not falling. It looks just fine to me so far.
There may be some actual issue here, but this chicken little rambling about literally destroying every single image is absolutely laughable.
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I came here from the other thread @coso directed me to. I've been looking at comparison photos and videos, and this screen grab I took from a youtube video is a great example of the kind of thing I was seeing on my 13. Video here for anyone interested.
The area around the background, eyes and whiskers on the cat just look so over processed to me. I don't mind the camera having the ability to do that kind of stuff, but I'd like the option turn it on and off. Like I said in the other thread, it looks like a Photoshop median noise filter effect. I might just hang on to my X for another year.
The area around the background, eyes and whiskers on the cat just look so over processed to me. I don't mind the camera having the ability to do that kind of stuff, but I'd like the option turn it on and off. Like I said in the other thread, it looks like a Photoshop median noise filter effect. I might just hang on to my X for another year.
10x digital zoom isn’t really a good way to compare.
This can be fixed in software though, if Apple decides to do so