iPhone X Camera Overview: Portrait Lighting, Video Improvements, Front-Facing Portraits and More

[840quadra]

Because the two cameras use drastically different sensors. You mentioned one of the prime differences between a dSLR and a camera...the ability for the dSLR to gather more light for a given exposure setting. All else being equal the dSLR sensor is going to capture more light than the sensor in a phone thus over exposing the shot.

Older dSLRs take very good pictures. I have a 40D which, 10 years later, continues to take excellent pictures. Being old doesn't mean bad.

You are putting words or intention into my posts that conflict with my original intent. I am simply saying (for what they are) these camera phones take really good pictures, and should have added to my original post, they are starting to take decent shots in low light situations.

More directly, the phones take really good shots within their limitations, that older SLR systems will struggle to do at similar settings when handheld. Clearly it isn’t an Apple’s to Apple’s (no pun intended) comparison.

What the SLR CAN do, is jack the ISO far higher, and take these shots handheld with zero OIS involved and still have less noise, and artifacts from the noise reduction system within it. The SLR (depending on lens) will have far better DOF, sharpness, clarity and overall detail as well.

I also still have a 40D in my fleet, still a great camera and I agree that it being old doesn’t make it a bad device. However, it doesn’t change that phones are starting to approach it’s signal to noise ratio, and feature technology that wasn’t included in that Canon Camera. The 40D is 10 years old, and Image sensor technology has improved in many ways since then, something these phones take advantage of.

 

[anticipate]

i have been happy so far with the x camera. i'm coming from a 6.

my wife has a 7plus and i can see the difference in our 2 phones.

what i have never liked and still don't like is the amount of noise reduction. it ruins alot of pics in lower light that i could have improved by simply taking them into lightroom. i wish we could shoot raw on phones one day. i would jsut tend to use it more in lower light conditions.

There are many camera apps that let you shoot RAW. Like Halide. And lightroom (and other apps like Polarr) exist on iPhone to process them.

 

[pl1984]

i have been happy so far with the x camera. i'm coming from a 6.

my wife has a 7plus and i can see the difference in our 2 phones.

what i have never liked and still don't like is the amount of noise reduction. it ruins alot of pics in lower light that i could have improved by simply taking them into lightroom. i wish we could shoot raw on phones one day. i would jsut tend to use it more in lower light conditions.

it is deff a better camera i feel. we were at a wedding this weekend and the pics i took without the flash were better and i know i will be avle to clean them up easier in lightroom. i can see myself using the camera more now.

it's flash in low light is still crazy bright. i'm so used to having a bounce on my external flash of my camera. idon't even like the internal flash on my DSLR's. its just what i'm used to.

but i do like this camera better. once i get more used to it. i didn't know anything about the live mode and the changes you can make by swiping up so thanks for that tip.

is there anyway to control noise reduction on the camera?

My Galaxy S7 Edge permits me to shoot in RAW with its default camera app.
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You are putting words or intention into my posts that conflict with my original intent. I am simply saying (for what they are) these camera phones take really good pictures, and should have added to my original post, they are starting to take decent shots in low light situations.

More directly, the phones take really good shots within their limitations, that older SLR systems will struggle to do at similar settings when handheld. Clearly it isn’t an Apple’s to Apple’s (no pun intended) comparison.

What the SLR CAN do, is jack the ISO far higher, and take these shots handheld with zero OIS involved and still have less noise, and artifacts from the noise reduction system within it. The SLR (depending on lens) will have far better DOF, sharpness, clarity and overall detail as well.

I also still have a 40D in my fleet, still a great camera and I agree that it being old doesn’t make it a bad device. However, it doesn’t change that phones are starting to approach it’s signal to noise ratio, and feature technology that wasn’t included in that Canon Camera. The 40D is 10 years old, and Image sensor technology has improved in many ways since then, something these phones take advantage of.

What words do you allege I am putting in your mouth? Did you not say the same ISO / shutter speed in the post I had responded to?

Yes, smart phone cameras take really good pictures. No question about it. But to say seven year old dSLRs, even ignoring the suboptimal exposure settings, struggle to take comparable pictures I think is a stretch. If my goal is to take the best quality pictures possible a 7D Mark I or 60D would, in almost every situation, be my preferred camera over a smart phone camera. While the picture quality of smart phones has improved considerably in the past 10 years it's my opinion they still don't match the quality of 10 year old dSLRs.
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TL;DR, is the iPhone X designed to replace a DSLR? Nope. Can it in some cases? Yep. Machine learning and dedicated processing hardware is leading the way in getting decent, sharp, well balanced photos from tiny **** sensors.

Which cases do you believe the iPhone X can replace a dSLR when it comes to IQ? Image processing helps but it's no substitute for capturing the image correctly to begin with.

 

[840quadra]

What words do you allege I am putting in your mouth? Did you not say the same ISO / shutter speed in the post I had responded to?

Yes, smart phone cameras take really good pictures. No question about it. But to say seven year old dSLRs, even ignoring the suboptimal exposure settings, struggle to take comparable pictures I think is a stretch. If my goal is to take the best quality pictures possible a 7D Mark I or 60D would, in almost every situation, be my preferred camera over a smart phone camera. While the picture quality of smart phones has improved considerably in the past 10 years it's my opinion they still don't match the quality of 10 year old dSLRs.

Let me again clairify That I am testing the cameras and sensors to see how the phones hold up with an SLR under similar constraints.

Let’s take a trip back to what I said, that you appear to have taken issue with.

I have 7yo Canon cameras with OIS L lenses that struggle to get shots like this, handheld, in low light, at the same ISO / shutter speed. IMO, the shots are quite good considering the conditions I did my test.

From which your original response to me was this.

What models are the Canon cameras and why would you be using the same ISO / shutter speed with them as you would (wood?) the iPhone camera?

I answered your question with the following.

My two oldest cameras I still run are a 7D MK1 and a 60d. The reason? Because I enjoy and want to compare the devices and sensors.

And your follow up.

I think it's unreasonable to say the dSLR's struggle to get shots comparable to a phone camera if you're going to use sub optimal settings for the dSLR's.

You appear to be target fixated on an opinion that it is unfair to test an SLR at similar settings to see how does. Fair enough, I get that, but the point of my test was to see how the SLR did when being handheld at the same settings, not if it can take better pictures overall (which it clearly can).

I strongly disagree with your opinion that it is unfair to test and see how an SLR works within these contstraints. The SLR has a superior sensor, and optics, and potentially, OIS, so limiting it to a medium ISO isn’t asking too much from it.

For the record the Phones chose the below settings.

F1.8 (f2.4 on the iPhone)1/40 at ISO ~500.

That is well within the scope of an OIS lens equipped SLR from 7 - 10 years ago. The only issue it would (did) have, is image stabilization at 1/40 of a second. Without a tripod it is hard to take shots that clear with that slow of a shutter even with OIS.

The entire point of my original post you quoted is to say that I personally think it is amazing that Phones are able to take handheld shots as clear as they did in that low of light. At 1/40 of a second at ISO 500, the phones do something that is hard to duplicate with an SLR at those settings. Jack up the ISO (since the sensors offer much less noise), speed up the shutter on an SLR, and BAM, you have a better picture than the phones can produce. But again, that wasn’t what I was testing.

 

[fourthtunz]

Camera snobs... Audiophiles... Both people are just a headache.

Exactly! And you can appreciate the difference between the capture of photos and audio on low and high end gear without calling people out and claiming that they don't know what they are talking about.
People like what they like and for 95% of us Iphone pictures are great!

 

[newyorksole]

Exactly! And you can appreciate the difference between the capture of photos and audio on low and high end gear without calling people out and claiming that they don't know what they are talking about.
People like what they like and for 95% of us Iphone pictures are great!

Exactly. Just let it be. Point blank.

 

[redman042]

But you're limiting yourself to one style of photography and trying to pretend it's all anyone needs. Street photography, life journalling, etc work that way.

I will say, for me, if the photo cannot be perfectly exposed and printed razor-sharp at 20x30 inches, it may as well not exist. Of course you need a skilled photographers eye *and* a lot of purely technical skills to make it happen. But without the gear all you're going to get at 20x30 is a blurry, grainy mess. No amount of curiosity or imagination is going to make up for the shoddy gear.

You can say it's the photographer more than the gear as much as you want. Nothing changes the fact that a half-kilogram of glass gets me a razor-sharp image and a half-gram of glass gets me a blurry mess (at decent print size).

I have sold prints in that size which are hanging right now in client sites. I love taking beautiful pictures. I have zero interest in documenting little life details on instagram, I am way to busy actually enjoying my life for that. So an iPhone camera literally has zero usefulness *in my opinion* beyond a note-taking device (like photographing price stickers in stores)

People like you are so insistent that the iPhone is basically on par with the DSLR for all practical purposes, that's absurdly false. It's only on par for jobs where quality doesn't matter.

Now, Apple and it's fans really want to pretend the iPhone is on par with a modern DSLR in non-ideal lighting doing massing enlargements.

Let me say first, you are right in that the iPhone 8/8+/X, and probably the next five models that follow, are no match for a modern DSLR with good glass operated by a skilled photographer, especially when shooting conditions are challenging and when the resulting shots are blown up to 20x30 and compared side-by-side. The laws of physics simply prevent a sensor and lens on a smartphone from duplicating what the large sensor and quality glass on a DSLR can do. At least for now...

But this assumes the shooter is aiming for a tack-sharp image at 20x30 that could be sold to an art customer. That is often not the case.

When you read someone posting that "the new iPhones seem to be as good as a DSLR", don't take it so literally. What they mean is, at the iPhone display size or when printed at 4x6, it can be hard now to tell a DSLR and an iPhone image apart. I can vouch for that. I know my way around a camera and shot a lot of photos on a recent Europe vacation with both my iPhone 7 and with a Canon 80D (mostly with the Canon, but sometimes I didn't lug it with me). Blown up or zoomed in, I can certainly tell the difference. But at 4x6 in outdoor conditions, it's often damn close, especially from the standpoint of color, contrast, and dynamic range. Just flipping through the images on my phone (I loaded everything into iCloud at full resolution so I have a mix of DSLR and iPhone images in the same place), it's not always obvious what gear I used without closer examination.

For many people, 4x6 is good enough. Even at 8x10, an iPhone shot can look pretty darn good.

One can certainly do more with an iPhone image than just Instagram and Facebook. They look great printed out at smaller sizes.

 

[pl1984]

Let me again clairify That I am testing the cameras and sensors to see how the phones hold up with an SLR under similar constraints.

< content removed to allow for easier reading >

You appear to be target fixated on an opinion that it is unfair to test an SLR at similar settings to see how does. Fair enough, I get that, but the point of my test was to see how the SLR did when being handheld at the same settings, not if it can take better pictures overall (which it clearly can).

< content removed to allow for easier reading >

You did not say similar. You said the same. It's my opinion the exposure settings from one type of device might not be optimal for another device and therefore such a test has little value. I also feel it's invalid to use such a comparison to state one device struggles compared to another device. If you want the best possible results use the settings which provide the best possible results.

The entire point of my original post you quoted is to say that I personally think it is amazing that Phones are able to take handheld shots as clear as they did in that low of light. At 1/40 of a second at ISO 500, the phones do something that is hard to duplicate with an SLR at those settings. Jack up the ISO (since the sensors offer much less noise), speed up the shutter on an SLR, and BAM, you have a better picture than the phones can produce. But again, that wasn’t what I was testing.

I don't disagree with the premise smart phone camera technology provides amazing results given the compact size. However I do take issue when you apply what may be suboptimal settings in your comparison. Given the same settings the dSLR may or may not take a better picture. Given its better light sensitivity usage of the same settings as a phone could result in an overexposed picture which might look worse than the phone picture.

Here is an example of what I mean:

​

These are pictures taken of my downstairs bathroom cabinet (decided to use this as your source was wood). I chose this location because it was very low light. The top picture is from my Galaxy S7 Edge, the lower from my 40D. Settings were as follows: Av 1.7 (GS7), 1.8(40D), Tv 1/10th, ISO 1250. 40D was using the nifty 50 lens. As you can see there is considerable difference in the exposure using almost the same settings.

One thing to note...the purpose of this is not to say one is / is not better than the other. Merely to show the same (or almost the same) settings result in drastically different exposures.

 

[DevNull0]

Let me say first, you are right in that the iPhone 8/8+/X, and probably the next five models that follow, are no match for a modern DSLR with good glass operated by a skilled photographer, especially when shooting conditions are challenging and when the resulting shots are blown up to 20x30 and compared side-by-side. The laws of physics simply prevent a sensor and lens on a smartphone from duplicating what the large sensor and quality glass on a DSLR can do. At least for now...

This exactly. The smaller sensor means the lens will have to much more resolving capability to give the iPhone the same image quality as the DSLR. The optical resolution of the lens needs to be much better for a smaller sensor, all other factors being equal. The same lens will give a more blurry picture on a smaller sensor. Add to that the fact that the lenses aren't equal and you exacerbate the problem.

For many people, 4x6 is good enough. Even at 8x10, an iPhone shot can look pretty darn good.

Agreed, but then how many people on this thread are saying the iPhone is just as good as a DSLR full stop.

When you you say for many people; that is the same segment of the population that never cared; they're the kind of person who would have owned a cheap 35mm point and shoot or even a 110 camera back in the day. They want quick and dirty 'memories' and not high quality photos. And there's nothing wrong with that. Most people didn't want an SLR in 1980 and most people don't want a DSLR in 2017.

What is new to this decade is the attitude of "my way is the only way". So if thy don't see the benefits of a DSLR for them, then those benefits don't exist. People today seem to have inferiority complexes and need to convince themselves and others that the way they do things is the only possible way and anyone with a different idea is wrong and needs to be put down.

When you read someone posting that "the new iPhones seem to be as good as a DSLR", don't take it so literally. What they mean is, at the iPhone display size or when printed at 4x6, it can be hard now to tell a DSLR and an iPhone image apart.

And this is precisely the point. I'm saying the DSLR gives a better quality image and you're saying that if you look at it on a tiny, low resolution display you'e got the same image quality.

It would just be just as meaningful to say 8k video is no better than old fashioned NTSC at 486 lines. As long as you're viewing it on a 10 inch standard def screen from 10 feet away. While that is perfectly true, nobody is going to say NTSC is on par with 8k video. Just as nobody in their right mind would say an iPhone is on par with an SLR because when you view in tiny low res you can't tell the difference.

Think you can spot the difference between an Apple QuickTake picture and a Nikon D5 picture when you're viewing them on an Apple ][? I guess that 1994 Apple point and shoot can compete with the best DSLRs pretty well after all. Makes you wonder why the QuickTake flopped so badly, it was a heck of a lot cheaper back then than the D5 is today.

And if you want to limit yourself to iPhone displays or 4x6 prints, the difference between an iPhone 5 and iPhone X is meaningless. It's like arguing which of two snails is faster when there's a Ferrari in the race.

Also, I can run faster than any Ferrari sports car every built can drive. Up a flight of 12" tall stairs.

Blown up or zoomed in, I can certainly tell the difference. But at 4x6 in outdoor conditions, it's often damn closee

And at 4x6 you can tell which generation of iPhone shot the picture so easily? Then why do people talk about each new iPhone camera like it's some major miracle. It's a 2-edged sword. If the viewing condition is so poor you can barely tell an iPhone from a DSLR, how different do two iPhones look at 4x6? Or the iPhone X vs any Android flagship?. They're all basically the same thing, and yet people spend hours pretending it's a major distinguishing feature.

Especially from the standpoint of color, contrast, and dynamic range.

Contrast is more a function of cooking the raw file, raws are very flat before ACR or some equivalent gives you a starting preview. You can get good contrast from any camera, its just up to you or the software to process it correctly. Dynamic range on the best DSLRs has only recently caught up to film and the iPhones are still years behind on that.

 

[Rocko99991]

What about the massive lens flare issue? https://i.imgur.com/gtbMB3j.jpg

 

[pl1984]

Agreed, but then how many people on this thread are saying the iPhone is just as good as a DSLR full stop.

The author of the article came pretty close:

"on par with dedicated point and shoot devices and even DSLRs in some modes"

Though maybe he was referring to features and not IQ.

 

[davidb8]

Is portrait mode still in beta? Because it's still pretty bad. Front portrait mode might as well not even be on there it's that bad

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

However, it's a lot, and I mean a LOT closer than you think with the 8/X for well lit shots.

This is key to success when using the 8 Plus.

I just tried catching an intense lowlight sunrise scene with the 8 Plus using the wide-angle lens and it crapped itself in full auto mode where it makes an HDR image using the inbuilt camera app and even when using a third party app shooting in RAW!

In the images taken with the inbuilt camera app set to HDR, all of the highlights are blown to smithereens leaving them with zero details, even though I chose to lock exposure on the highlights of the image, and the shadows are unbearably noisy, and this was using the new HEIF format image type, which is then exported as a jpeg.

The shadows of the RAW file are so noisy when opened up, it's unusable, the highlights were golden though! But, I did spot meter off of the hottest part of the image, so the highlights should have been safe using a third party app.

When viewed on my iPhone 8 Plus, both images present nicely, until you start looking larger, or zooming in, and you notice the level of noise in the sky! On my 27" iMac, it's noticeable from the moment you open the images up, without any zooming in!

It's still a long ways off of being a DSLR replacement, but jeez! Haven't these tiny phone sensors come a heck of a long way over the last ten years!?

 

[citysnaps]

This exactly. The smaller sensor means the lens will have to much more resolving capability to give the iPhone the same image quality as the DSLR. The optical resolution of the lens needs to be much better for a smaller sensor, all other factors being equal. The same lens will give a more blurry picture on a smaller sensor. Add to that the fact that the lenses aren't equal and you exacerbate the problem.

Agreed, but then how many people on this thread are saying the iPhone is just as good as a DSLR full stop.

When you you say for many people; that is the same segment of the population that never cared; they're the kind of person who would have owned a cheap 35mm point and shoot or even a 110 camera back in the day. They want quick and dirty 'memories' and not high quality photos. And there's nothing wrong with that. Most people didn't want an SLR in 1980 and most people don't want a DSLR in 2017.

What is new to this decade is the attitude of "my way is the only way". So if thy don't see the benefits of a DSLR for them, then those benefits don't exist. People today seem to have inferiority complexes and need to convince themselves and others that the way they do things is the only possible way and anyone with a different idea is wrong and needs to be put down.



And this is precisely the point. I'm saying the DSLR gives a better quality image and you're saying that if you look at it on a tiny, low resolution display you'e got the same image quality.

It would just be just as meaningful to say 8k video is no better than old fashioned NTSC at 486 lines. As long as you're viewing it on a 10 inch standard def screen from 10 feet away. While that is perfectly true, nobody is going to say NTSC is on par with 8k video. Just as nobody in their right mind would say an iPhone is on par with an SLR because when you view in tiny low res you can't tell the difference.

Think you can spot the difference between an Apple QuickTake picture and a Nikon D5 picture when you're viewing them on an Apple ][? I guess that 1994 Apple point and shoot can compete with the best DSLRs pretty well after all. Makes you wonder why the QuickTake flopped so badly, it was a heck of a lot cheaper back then than the D5 is today.

And if you want to limit yourself to iPhone displays or 4x6 prints, the difference between an iPhone 5 and iPhone X is meaningless. It's like arguing which of two snails is faster when there's a Ferrari in the race.

Also, I can run faster than any Ferrari sports car every built can drive. Up a flight of 12" tall stairs.

"Agreed, but then how many people on this thread are saying the iPhone is just as good as a DSLR full stop."

None, that I can see.


"What is new to this decade is the attitude of "my way is the only way". So if thy don't see the benefits of a DSLR for them, then those benefits don't exist. "

Who are these people you're talking about?

 

[Alexander.Of.Oz]

i wish we could shoot raw on phones one day. i would jsut tend to use it more in lower light conditions.

You can shoot in RAW, you just have to use a third party app. I recommend one called PureShot, it's only a few buck$ in price and offers you full control of everything on the camera, including spot metering.

But, expect to be disappointed with really lowlight shadows, they are still noisy, even though you are shooting in RAW. I think it's because these tiny sensors have a limited dynamic range of maybe 7-8 EV, where as modern DSLR's get up to 13 EV.

 

[citysnaps]

I have a Sony A7RII (42 MP) camera with nice Zeiss glass and so forth. And yes, for sure it takes nicer photos. Meaning slightly dynamic range with more natural color/tone transitions, far more detail (it's got 4x the pixels, and when you downsample that you get an amazing 20 MPix image), better glass, the works. The noise level is lower, too.

However, it's a lot, and I mean a LOT closer than you think with the 8/X for well lit shots. The portrait mode is getting better and better, and on an iPad I have shown side-by-side images to clients who actually can't tell the difference between the two cameras. In the hands of a skilled photographer, the iPhone can do a pretty stellar job these days. It's not caught up to modern DSLR/Mirrorless ILCs, but it's caught up to DSLRs from 10+ years ago. And that's pretty amazing.

The quality of the X is within spitting range of say the 1" Sony RX100 - a well regarded prosumer $1,000 pocket camera. And that's stunning, because both have Sony chips and the RX100's is so much larger. Whatever Apple (and Google) are doing in the ISP engines for these cameras is remarkable. Truly remarkable.

TL;DR, is the iPhone X designed to replace a DSLR? Nope. Can it in some cases? Yep. Machine learning and dedicated processing hardware is leading the way in getting decent, sharp, well balanced photos from tiny **** sensors.

And I don't usually carry around my A7RII. But I always have the iPhone. And more and more often, I leave the A7rII home; to be used on only paid jobs.

PS: For video the iPhone X is much closer to say, a Sony FS5 (a $5,000 S35 pro video camera) in 4K which is extra truly remarkable. It has a decent DR range and good bitrates. I have used the iPhone (7+, 8+) for b-roll cutaways on paid shots that had Sony FS7s and Canon C300's on them. No one can tell, even in 4K. The cameras are getting that good.

"PS: For video the iPhone X is much closer to say, a Sony FS5 (a $5,000 S35 pro video camera) in 4K which is extra truly remarkable. It has a decent DR range and good bitrates. I have used the iPhone (7+, 8+) for b-roll cutaways on paid shots that had Sony FS7s and Canon C300's on them. No one can tell, even in 4K. The cameras are getting that good."

That's quite remarkable. Even when the FS5 is shooting in Slog3?

 

[840quadra]

You did not say similar. You said the same. It's my opinion the exposure settings from one type of device might not be optimal for another device and therefore such a test has little value. I also feel it's invalid to use such a comparison to state one device struggles compared to another device. If you want the best possible results use the settings which provide the best possible results.


I don't disagree with the premise smart phone camera technology provides amazing results given the compact size. However I do take issue when you apply what may be suboptimal settings in your comparison. Given the same settings the dSLR may or may not take a better picture. Given its better light sensitivity usage of the same settings as a phone could result in an overexposed picture which might look worse than the phone picture.

It appears the point of my test was again missed, actually it is being ignored altogether.

At the end of the day I acknowledge the SLR can and does take better pictures overall. It just didn’t within the criteria I was testing for. I have posted this a couple times before in this thread. In the end, I was amazed the phones gathered such sharp (for a phone) images in such low light, especially with them both favoring 1/40th of a second exposure while being handheld. A true testimonial for OIS and Digital stabilization. Taking pictures at 1/40th with anything handheld is difficult, and I was impressed the phones did so well, and was also shocked I couldn’t duplicate them with my older SLR at those settings. FWIW the only thing that wasn’t optimal was the camera shake, color, white balance, and exposure were all fine. Images were just a little blurry due to hand motion.

I don’t know what else to say that I haven’t covered, so I guess I will await your final response, knowing we disagree at the end.

 

[maikerukun]

i find it amazing that in every photo thread people try to show off the picture quality by posting lots of close-ups...

I'm assuming you saw the original image I posted from atop a mountain spanning literally 3 separate downtowns??? lol.

I find it amazing that you somehow didn't see that photo first...

 

[Swampthing]

Read the very first post of this thread! The one written by MacRumors, it's there.

Perhaps YOU should re-read it. It doesn't say those new camera features are exclusive to the iPhone X camera. It also does not say the iPhone X uses better algorythms for photos than iPhone 8+.

BTW, MacRumors is not an authoritative content source. Hence the title, Mac RUMORS. I'd need to see something from Apple noting there are differences instead of the musings of some blog poster which cites no source...

 

[maikerukun]

The worst picture is the Golfing one.
I mean, look at those tree edges... HAHAHA. Like painted with water color.
View attachment 733587

I think the problem here is you assume that normal people look at an image and go "I'm gonna zoom in as close as possible on those tree edges there to decide if it's a beautiful photo or not HAHAHA...weird dude.

Most people look at an image as a whole, and the details within are just part of the charm.

That images is fantastic, but folks like yourself will always miss the forest for the trees. Enjoy your life dude lol.

 

[Niklas_nick]

Some pictures really wowed me, like the whole set by razeus, but others look like 15 year old point-and-shoots on digital zoom with heavy pixelation and messy/blurry textures (especially tree and grass on the golf course), also in some noise reduction seems to take a heavy hit on sharpness.

But as they say, the best camera is the one that’s with you and for everything that’s not professional use or intended for print, the iPhone camera will probably be wholly sufficient.

 

[bchery21]

here's one of my fav's I've taken with it so far. this was golfing on Sunday.View attachment 733491

Wow that looks good. Untouched?

 

[pl1984]

It appears the point of my test was again missed, actually it is being ignored altogether.

At the end of the day I acknowledge the SLR can and does take better pictures overall. It just didn’t within the criteria I was testing for. I have posted this a couple times before in this thread. In the end, I was amazed the phones gathered such sharp (for a phone) images in such low light, especially with them both favoring 1/40th of a second exposure while being handheld. A true testimonial for OIS and Digital stabilization. Taking pictures at 1/40th with anything handheld is difficult, and I was impressed the phones did so well, and was also shocked I couldn’t duplicate them with my older SLR at those settings. FWIW the only thing that wasn’t optimal was the camera shake, color, white balance, and exposure were all fine. Images were just a little blurry due to hand motion.

I don’t know what else to say that I haven’t covered, so I guess I will await your final response, knowing we disagree at the end.

Your test was to set both cameras to the same Av/Tv/ISO settings and then declare one was struggling compared to the other. You are either missing or ignoring my point which is different types of cameras are likely going to require different settings in order to achieve the best picture possible.

In the example photos, I used the same Av/Tv/ISO settings for both cameras and you can see there is a significant difference in the two pictures. The 40D image is over exposed because it has a sensor which captures more light per any given Av/Tv/ISO value. Perhaps I would want to bring the ISO down to reduce the exposure and grain. Or maybe increase the Tv in order to reduce light and reduce camera shake due to it being hand held. Maybe I might want to decrease the Av to reduce the exposure and increase my focal depth. The thing is the dSLR is over exposing the image and the settings causing it could be resulting in worse images (Av - short focal depth, Tv - increased camera shake, ISO - increased grain). The 40D also had a 50mm focal length whereas the GS7E has a 26mm focal length. Thus camera shake would be more pronounced given the longer focal length (just imagine what it would be had I used my 70-200/2.8 at a 200mm focal length).

The point is there are too many difference to insist on using the same settings and then declaring one a victor over the other because suboptimal settings were used in the case of the loser. You could do a comparison with the same set of exposure settings but I have to ask what is the point? It is this one statement of yours I take issue with. Otherwise we're in agreement. I believe I already acknowledged as much.

 

[maikerukun]

Some pictures really wowed me, like the whole set by razeus, but others look like 15 year old point-and-shoots on digital zoom with heavy pixelation and messy/blurry textures (especially tree and grass on the golf course), also in some noise reduction seems to take a heavy hit on sharpness.

But as they say, the best camera is the one that’s with you and for everything that’s not professional use or intended for print, the iPhone camera will probably be wholly sufficient.

To be clear, the golf course image wasn't zoomed in, that is straight out of the camera and shot immediately pulled out of pocket before Katie took her swing in about half a second. In other words, no composition, no trying to sell to an art dealer, no anything other than deciding to grab a quick photo before Katie finished her shot within a second of pulling out of the pocket...

Which means you're silly to try and hold it to the standard of anything beyond being a photo taken on a phone for a nice memory lol.

That's the problem with you macrumor critics lol, ya'll think you're getting paid for your opinion, but you're not judging art, you're judging random photos on people's phones...this photo is GORGEOUS, and if you can't see that, you don't have the eye you think you do

 

[pl1984]

Wow that looks good. Untouched?

Did you zoom in?