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iPhone 6 plus: photos look...grainy

dryice589 said:
Image

I'm sorry, but these are terrible.
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I'm not really sure what you were expecting. It looks like a photo of a car in a driveway in mediocre light. You have to give a camera (any camera) something to work with.

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Meister said:
You obviously are not familiar with DSLRs. Professional cameras shoot almost noise free in the dark.
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Uh, no they don't. They give you more to process with (shooting RAW, and with more dynamic range to pull details from), but I wouldn't say noise-free. Better than a cel phone camera, yes, obviously. But even DSLRs like more light.
 
impulse462 said:
Is this something that can be overcome with the iphone camera eventually? Or is it due to some physical manifestation that DSLRs have over phone cameras in general?
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Pro level cameras have much, much larger sensors and lenses.
The much, much larger lenses let in much, much more light to a much, much larger sensor. It's just physics.

The sensor inside phone cameras is so tiny that they don't even tell us its size. And so are the lenses. They only have a tiny amount of light to work with, even in normally lit scenes.

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HiRez said:
But even DSLRs like more light.
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Of course they like more light, but I can get noise free photos at night with my D610 and a 1.4 lens.
A D4s or Df take clean images in candle light. With one candle ;)

There is absolutely no comparsion to an iPhone.
 
Same light same position 2 different phones, zoomed in under low light conditions :


iPhone 5S
IMG_0256.PNG



iPhone 6 Plus
IMG_0257.PNG
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Meister said:
Pro level cameras have much, much larger sensors and lenses.
The much, much larger lenses let in much, much more light to a much, much larger sensor. It's just physics.

The sensor inside phone cameras is so tiny that they don't even tell us its size. And so are the lenses.
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Yes, but you're forgetting that the iPhone has a backlight sensor for low light. I can take blur-free pics with my iPhone in much lower light than I can my DSLR. Remember it also greatly depends on the lens.
 
Vertigo50 said:
Yes, but you're forgetting that the iPhone has a backlight sensor for low light. I can take blur-free pics with my iPhone in much lower light than I can my DSLR. Remember it also greatly depends on the lens.
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A backlight sensor doesn't give the sensor more light to work with. The lenses in the iPhone are tiny. They only let a small amount of photons through. There is no way to compensate for that.

Lenses indeed make a huge difference. The lens in the iPhone 6 is listed as "f/2", since the iPhone sensor has an approx. crop factor of 14!!! the full frame equivalent would be f/28!

Nevertheless the sensors inside the iPhone are top notch and they try their best to compensate for the missing photons hitting the sensor. Old dslrs used to have bad low light performance and the new phone cameras could indeed have better noise performance. They are still no comparison to current pro-level dslrs.

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Vertigo50 said:
Exactly. I'd like to know what DSLR he's using if he can just get noise-free photos without any work whatsoever. :D
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I already posted this above, a D610, but the D4s and Df perform even better.

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cdesigns said:
lol my Nikon doesn't unless I apply the high ISO and long exposure filters.
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A long exposure filter is used to achive the opposite of good low life performance.
It's used to be able to achieve long exposures during daylight. ISO is camera/manufacturer specific. It's not a fixed value, as some people might believe. What dslr and lens are you using?
 
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Vertigo50 said:
Exactly. I'd like to know what DSLR he's using if he can just get noise-free photos without any work whatsoever. :D
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He already said that. The mentioned Nikon Df, D4s, D610, D810, D750 and Canon 6d have amazing low light performance!
 
I'm not seeing the problem either and I'm a photography addict with some serious gear.
This is pretty much what I'd expect from this device in those lighting conditions.
 
Vertigo50 said:
Exactly. I'd like to know what DSLR he's using if he can just get noise-free photos without any work whatsoever. :D
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The give away is in the lens he mentioned. 1.4

A DSLR without fast glass is not going to go far for low light shooting ;)

Looking at the OPs pics, a DSLR with the right lens could take stunning pics in the same situation.

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Sakura Squirrel said:
I'm not seeing the problem either and I'm a photography addict with some serious gear.
This is pretty much what I'd expect from this device in those lighting conditions.
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+1 expected result for a mobile phone, as per conditions.

OP might have got bought into the markerting on how amazing the camera is a suppose to be on the phone. Its cannot cheat physics.
 
MH01 said:
The give away is in the lens he mentioned. 1.4

A DSLR without fast glass is not going to go far for low light shooting ;)

Looking at the OPs pics, a DSLR with the right lens could take stunning pics in the same situation.

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+1 expected result for a mobile phone, as per conditions.

OP might have got bought into the markerting on how amazing the camera is a suppose to be on the phone. Its cannot cheat physics.
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I agree.
Also, I'd probably be using a tripod in those sort of conditions for the driveway pictures.
 
I have read the post here and find it interesting that some people have amazing quality and some have grainy (op)/ smudgy. I just took two random pictures and was happy with quality no smudge. I'm wondering if it certain makes that have this "problem".


*--- the photos were by a mall and had a license plate unintentionally in it so don't want to post someone's license. (any apps to block that I can download?)
 
Sakura Squirrel said:
I agree.
Also, I'd probably be using a tripod in those sort of conditions for the driveway pictures.
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That driveway looks moderatly well illuminated.
I think a lot of posters in this thread are not familiar with photography.
It is well known that current full frame dslrs and a fast lens (<2.8) will produce noise free images in very badly light situations, even hand held.

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MH01 said:
The give away is in the lens he mentioned. 1.4

A DSLR without fast glass is not going to go far for low light shooting ;)

OP might have got bought into the markerting on how amazing the camera is a suppose to be on the phone. Its cannot cheat physics.
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thank you!

Tiny iPhone camera just can't cheat physics. A full frame sensor and fast glass will blow you away!
 
Meister said:
That driveway looks moderatly well illuminated.
I think a lot of posters in this thread are not familiar with photography.
It is well known that current full frame dslrs and a fast lens (<2.8) will produce noise free images in very badly light situations, even hand held.

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thank you!

Tiny iPhone camera just can't cheat physics. A full frame sensor and fast glass will blow you away!
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Agreed.

Seriously OP, on my desk right now I've got a full frame Canon camera with a lens on it that amounts to about $6K. If I were to put the camera on automatic everything, that's about the result I'd expect.
Obviously it would look different enlarged, but using the most basic exposure metering on automatic exposure, like the iPhone, without further software processing, would produce that kind of picture in those lighting conditions.

You could try again with the iPhone in these conditions in HDR mode. You'd need to prop it up on something/use a mini tripod because you don't want to move the camera at all in HDR mode.
 
This pic was taken under semi-mild lighting conditions and the contrast was increased a hair to brighten it up. I was focused on the 'Crosby Coal.' I think it looks better than any of my previous generation iPhone cameras.

image1.jpg
 
Meister said:
You obviously are not familiar with DSLRs. Professional cameras shoot almost noise free in the dark.
Click to expand...

No camera shoots noise free... Its about how wide the aperture can open up to. When it cant open up wide enough, (or decrease the shutter speed) to let enough light in the iso has to be raised to compensate. ISO is what adjusts the cameras sensitivity to the light you do have, but at the cost of added noise.

DSLRs are capable of shooting images with higher acceptable ISO's but low light shots will still have it.
 
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Need to do some testing but my initials pictures have me worrying if camera is ok too, will take some comparison with 5s tomorrow to see if I'm just being paranoid or have now been too spoilt by having a 'proper' camera.
 
CKtoph said:
This pic was taken under semi-mild lighting conditions and the contrast was increased a hair to brighten it up. I was focused on the 'Crosby Coal.' I think it looks better than any of my previous generation iPhone cameras.

Image
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That looks really good
 
So here's the thing, everyone's camera is working fine. The issue is that we are viewing the images and camera through a MUCH larger screen at a higher resolution. Because of this and the fact that the images are still 8mp (same size as 5/5s) we are seeing a blown up version that is easier to spot the fuzziness without having to zoom much.
 
Gmcube said:
No camera shoots noise free... Its about how wide the aperture can open up to. When it cant open up wide enough, (or decrease the shutter speed) to let enough light in the iso has to be raised to compensate. iso is what adjusts the cameras sensitivity to the light you do have, but at the cost of added noise.
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I am familiar with this concept. The total amount of photons connected depends on sensor size and lens aperture. My photos are completely noise free up to iso 800.


What a lot of people do not know is, that (taking 35mm as the sensor standard) the crop factor needs to be applied to the aperture, focal length and even the iso. The iso (light sensitivity of the sensor/film) is not equal in all sensors as it used to be in film days! What I mean is that "iso 100" on an iPhone is in fact the equivalent of iso 1400 on 35mm. This is why the amount of noise found in an iPhone image at iso100 is about the same as the amount of noise on my ff dslr at iso1400.
 
impulse462 said:
Is this something that can be overcome with the iphone camera eventually? Or is it due to some physical manifestation that DSLRs have over phone cameras in general?
Click to expand...



Lol well for starters a DSLR has an imaging sensor about 20 times larger than that of an iPhone.
 
well, just took comparative shots in good daylight and got better shots than on 5s so I think I am indeed just spoilt by having a larger sensor (m43) camera nowadays.
 
I'm finding that a little zooming/cropping on my iphone 6 shows very aggressive noise reduction. That's what's causing the "smudgy" look ppl are seeing. It def cuts details and results in images that sometimes look worse than my 5s. Well lit or not /: it's not letting my upload from my phone so proof later!
 
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