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iPhone 7 Sample pics are brutal!???

ChinkyBob

ChinkyBob

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 10, 2014
197
98
Is it just me?
The following sample showing low light performance are laughable.
there are 2 pictures of women in dark shadows, and they are unrecognisable.

EG
1. Woman looking left in front of neon sign (S7 would do so much better).
2. The Diner neon sign Pic, there is all black in half that picture - no detail at all visible.
3. Man jumping in air - again very dark pic.
4. Closeup of woman in front of yet another neon sign (really??? I wouldn't recognise her if she was my sister).
5. Guy in alley - I'm mean that pic is joke, its 90% black - no perceivable details.

Also, overall they are all just a bit, well, dull.
Where are the bright colour pics?

I don't want a samsung - I would like an apple, but my initial impressions of apple iPhone 7 camera are not great judging by samples, and word of camera software update coming soon (what already??) is not very convincing.
 
ChinkyBob said:
Is it just me?
The following sample showing low light performance are laughable.
there are 2 pictures of women in dark shadows, and they are unrecognisable.

EG
1. Woman looking left in front of neon sign (S7 would do so much better).
2. The Diner neon sign Pic, there is all black in half that picture - no detail at all visible.
3. Man jumping in air - again very dark pic.
4. Closeup of woman in front of yet another neon sign (really??? I wouldn't recognise her if she was my sister).
5. Guy in alley - I'm mean that pic is joke, its 90% black - no perceivable details.

Also, overall they are all just a bit, well, dull.
Where are the bright colour pics?

I don't want a samsung - I would like an apple, but my initial impressions of apple iPhone 7 camera are not great judging by samples, and word of camera software update coming soon (what already??) is not very convincing.
Click to expand...

You are looking at photos in which the darkness is emphasized for creative effect, especially the neon sign. I agree that as a whole, they should have had a more varied mix of photos. I actually really like the photo of the woman and neon sign.

In all smartphones of course, you tap on where you want to not only focus on, but adjust exposure for. So in the neon sign photo, you might want to expose for the sign and have the woman in shadow. Or expose for the lady's face if that's what you want in the photo. All smartphone sensors are small and don't have much dynamic range, you could also use HDR to capture both light and dark areas well.

In almost every digital camera I've used, I use - 1/3 exposure compensation by default because most cameras expose too much for my preference by default, but that's to meet expectations of most users.
 
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I'll wait for samples the public has pushed out to judge. Low light has long been a sore spot with the iPhone for me. I guess zoom is nice but I barely care about that; this year I really feel the 7 is as good as the 7 plus (in terms of my usage; I do take videos a good bit so the stabilization was quite nice for that, which was previous a plus exclusive).
 
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lordofthereef said:
I'll wait for samples the public has pushed out to judge. Low light has long been a sore spot with the iPhone for me. I guess zoom is nice but I barely care about that; this year I really feel the 7 is as good as the 7 plus (in terms of my usage; I do take videos a good bit so the stabilization was quite nice for that, which was previous a plus exclusive).
Click to expand...

If you don't care about optical zoom and the bokeh effect coming later this year, the cameras on the two phones should actually be equivalent, no?
 
ChinkyBob said:
Is it just me?
The following sample showing low light performance are laughable.
there are 2 pictures of women in dark shadows, and they are unrecognisable.

EG
1. Woman looking left in front of neon sign (S7 would do so much better).
2. The Diner neon sign Pic, there is all black in half that picture - no detail at all visible.
3. Man jumping in air - again very dark pic.
4. Closeup of woman in front of yet another neon sign (really??? I wouldn't recognise her if she was my sister).
5. Guy in alley - I'm mean that pic is joke, its 90% black - no perceivable details.

Also, overall they are all just a bit, well, dull.
Where are the bright colour pics?

I don't want a samsung - I would like an apple, but my initial impressions of apple iPhone 7 camera are not great judging by samples, and word of camera software update coming soon (what already??) is not very convincing.
Click to expand...

It really seems like you don't have much of a clue about how cameras or exposures work or what low light performance means. Sounds like you're expecting shadows to be perfectly and brightly exposed along side the rest of the image.
 
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Every year the cameras upgrade and take better and better pictures in less than ideal conditions - and every year people pick them apart like they're all professional photographers being let down by a sensor a fraction of the size of a DSLR. The pictures look fantastic to me and I'd imagine in real world use, will be amazing. Hell, I'm still taking photos on my 6 Plus that my friends see framed in my house and they're floored that it was taken on a phone and not my DSLR.
 
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I made sure to view them on an iOS device which I know has a properly calibrated screen. I used my iPad Pro 9.7 so that I could also see them in deep color. They looked great to me, and clearly the scenes were chosen to demonstrate low-light capability. Some parts of some photos were very dark, but I think that was intentional to show the gradation of lighting and contrast with the bright neon signs.
 

Wow.
So turning up the brightness on my screen is the answer to the lack of any detail in the dark areas ? Granted the pics are not that bad per se, but they are lacking any detail in the shadows and generally lacklustre.
As an advertisement by Apple to the low light performance of the new camera and it's 1.8 aperture the close up pic of a woman where she is so dark to be unrecognizable is a poor choice.
 
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ChinkyBob said:
Wow.
So turning up the brightness on my screen is the answer to the lack of any detail in the dark areas ? Granted the pics are not that bad per se, but they are lacking any detail in the shadows and generally lacklustre.
As an advertisement by Apple to the low light performance of the new camera and it's 1.8 aperture the close up pic of a woman where she is so dark to be unrecognizable is a poor choice.
Click to expand...

apple fanboys would be happy even if apple created a new Tube phone with 640x480 resolution and call an upgrade.
 
Its kind of impossible to judge without comparison shots in the same lighting situations. You don't know how much light these shots had to work with in the first place.
 
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buster84 said:
apple fanboys would be happy even if apple created a new Tube phone with 640x480 resolution and call an upgrade.
Click to expand...
Apparently so. Though I expected better responses from this site. Only 1 reply was reasonable.
 
Gmcube said:
Its kind of impossible to judge without comparison shots in the same lighting situations. You don't know how much light these shots had to work with in the first place.
Click to expand...
You're correct, but Look at Samsung's S7 website and samples there. Then compare to Apple's low light performance, it's in 2nd place.
However, I'm guessing it's a very good camera and will be better in the dark after the much discussed camera software update.
I'm in the market for a new phone, my 3.5 yr old phone excellent at all except photos where the game has moved on now. So it's either S7, Note7, HTC 10, or IPhone7 for me.
I await the group tests
 
ChinkyBob said:
Is it just me?
The following sample showing low light performance are laughable.
there are 2 pictures of women in dark shadows, and they are unrecognisable.

EG
1. Woman looking left in front of neon sign (S7 would do so much better).
2. The Diner neon sign Pic, there is all black in half that picture - no detail at all visible.
3. Man jumping in air - again very dark pic.
4. Closeup of woman in front of yet another neon sign (really??? I wouldn't recognise her if she was my sister).
5. Guy in alley - I'm mean that pic is joke, its 90% black - no perceivable details.

Also, overall they are all just a bit, well, dull.
Where are the bright colour pics?

I don't want a samsung - I would like an apple, but my initial impressions of apple iPhone 7 camera are not great judging by samples, and word of camera software update coming soon (what already??) is not very convincing.
Click to expand...

The images are artistically processed and not meant to be a scientific representation of the sensors potential.

As a professional photographer I can tell you that I am extremely impressed by what I see. There appears to be a lot of detail in these images, and am particularly impressed by detail maintained in the the extreme highlights presented by the neon lights.

Another impressive feature coming with the iPhone 7 is raw support, this allows users to manipulate image data prior to any compression methods. This will allow greater latitude in post processing, particularly when manipulating colour and tone. This will ultimately present vastly superior output than any non raw alternatives.

I am viewing these images on a professionally calibrated display and while I can see where you're coming from with your observations, the images are actually extremely well processed in line with their artistic intentions. You obviously have poor artistic sense, and that's fine—stick to sports or something.
 
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Brenton Edwards said:
The images are artistically processed and not meant to be a scientific representation of the sensors potential.

As a professional photographer I can tell you that I am extremely impressed by what I see. There appears to be a lot of detail in these images, and am particularly impressed by detail maintained in the the extreme highlights presented by the neon lights.

Another impressive feature coming with the iPhone 7 is raw support, this allows users to manipulate image data prior to any compression methods. This will allow greater latitude in post processing, particularly when manipulating colour and tone. This will ultimately present vastly superior output than any non raw alternatives.

I am viewing these images on a professionally calibrated display and while I can see where you're coming from with your observations, the images are actually extremely well processed in line with their artistic intentions. You obviously have poor artistic sense, and that's fine—stick to sports or something.
Click to expand...

Ditto. Professional photographer/cinematographer here. They're showing off the low light capabilities. Showing that noise is minimized in the shadows. I'm very impressed. iPhone cameras never had a problem looking good in a ton of light. My guess is that they're showing examples of what's new with the lowlight capabilities first and foremost.
 
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ChinkyBob said:
Is it just me?
The following sample showing low light performance are laughable.
there are 2 pictures of women in dark shadows, and they are unrecognisable.

EG
1. Woman looking left in front of neon sign (S7 would do so much better).
2. The Diner neon sign Pic, there is all black in half that picture - no detail at all visible.
3. Man jumping in air - again very dark pic.
4. Closeup of woman in front of yet another neon sign (really??? I wouldn't recognise her if she was my sister).
5. Guy in alley - I'm mean that pic is joke, its 90% black - no perceivable details.

Also, overall they are all just a bit, well, dull.
Where are the bright colour pics?

I don't want a samsung - I would like an apple, but my initial impressions of apple iPhone 7 camera are not great judging by samples, and word of camera software update coming soon (what already??) is not very convincing.
Click to expand...


Just a quick thought. With the higher dynamic range provided by the new sensor, have you thought that it's quite possible they're trying to show off low light clairty (read as: low noise in the shadows) now offered by the 7? A pro dslr would produce the same results when exposed for the highlights in the image as opposed to the blacks. Pair the RAW capability on the new iPhone 7 with some nice software like Lightroom and photoshop, and you've got yourself a lot of artistic power with the 7 as opposed to prior models.
 
Dynamic range is huge in professional camera sensor technology (SONY being on the top in my opinion). The images Apple posted are quite spectacular from a DR point of view (artistic as well). The pops of color are also some of the post realistic I've seen from a smart phone.
 
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