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With a variable aperture, it's easier to find a balance between light and image quality-

Not easy enough, apparently, or why do all of the S9's photos seem too dark? Must be on purpose then.
 
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What happens when you're the CEO of the BIGGEST company in the world, with "perceived" Leadership in the mobile industry, AND the world suddenly finds-out you screwed-up BIG TIME ?

We'll, that's precisely what's just-about to happen to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple ... you see, Apple completely Missed the Boat in the mobile industry's most-important transtion, to 10-bit color "capture" & "display" !

The End Result isn't going to end well for Tim & the rest of his Mgmt Team, nor the company's Shareholders ... nor for that matter, the same @ Samsung & @ Google.

For Consumers, the End Result is simply going to be lots of INEXPENSIVE Chinese smartphones with 10-bit color capture & display Flooding the Market, & Consumers buying them in Droves !

Most current Apple Users will very-likely hang onto their current devices, AND very-likely won't be Upgrading anymore ... they'll be buying an INEXPENSIVE Chinese smartphone as a 2nd smartphone, or rather, Verizon, AT&T, Spring, & T-Mobile will be gifting them a 2nd smartphone for FREE, and with NO cost for the 2nd line.

Apple's days of counting on Upgrades could be (long) over.

It is our very strong opinion that Apple screwed-up BIG TIME when the company decided to transition away from a Hardware Home Button ! ... NOT only did Consumers loose a key feature, but Apple got SIDE-TRACKED with Face ID & Animoji, when they should have been 100% focused, company-wide, on 10-bit Display P3 capture for photos, AND Rec. 2100-compliant 1080p HD HDR for videos !

It's NOT just Apple's Upper Mgmt team that doesn't get it .. Samsung, Google, GoPro, Efficient, Snap, ALL who have put emphasis on their "camera," yet ALL Clueless as to what they should be working on !

It's best described by the phrase "Oblivious to the Obvious" ... from Apple's perspective, it simply means offering "BGR10A2Unorm" for capture (i.e., 10-bit Display P3 via AVCaptureVideoDataOutput), supporting 10-bit color with their Hardware HEVC Encoder, AND transitioning to 10-bit color displays in their mobile devices.

Two years ago this month (i.e., March 2016), Apple offered their first WIDE color (i.e., Display P3 color space) mobile device, an iPad Pro model ... UNFORTUNATELY, Apple decided to go WIDE without also going DEEP (i.e., 10-bit color) ... and hasn't made any progress since ! ... we'll, even though Apple, Samsung, Google, GoPro, Efficient, Snap, & others, may be Asleep at the Wheel, others in Asia are NOT !

And BTW, for those of you who don't know, 50% of the Reason for supporting HEVC with photos & videos is because it supports 10-bit color ! ... NOT Rocket Science, but MOST in the industry are Oblivious to the Obvious !

So what exactly is your point? That Apple is now finally doomed because of non-compliance with your 10-bit color thingy? Good luck with that!
 
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Hello,

Can you do a drop test from different height and then test if the aperture still works ??
Mechanical parts are always prone to failure when dropped......

Did any Tech youtube address this???

Yes. This YouTuber addresses it at the end of the video. After 13 drops, the variable aperture still works.

 
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For the last three years—at least—Apple has lagged well behind Samsung in the camera department. This applies to low light noise, dynamic range, autofocus speed and accuracy, as well as the gimmicky "Portrait mode" effect.

I have no intention of ever buying an Android device—let alone one from Samsung—but I'm getting tired of Apple releasing increasingly overpriced iPhone models with silly gimmicky features while failing to compete against the performance of lower priced phones from Samsung. I used to buy a new iPhone model every year, starting with the first model. But I'm still on a 6S and have yet to see anything from Apple that would justify its price.
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The no support and no updates for 3 years is not a Note problem. It’s a Samsung problem.

Make that an Android problem. Open source, my ass.
 
Coming from an honest iPhone X owner, I think the S9 takes better photos. It is able to pick up the sky’s colors better, along with the scenery on the ground.

The skies on the iPhone X’s looks washed out a little bit when focused on the ground. I really like how the S9 camera looks.

But then again, I don’t take artsy photos, so it’s not a deal breaker. A deal breaker for me is the operating system, therefor I would pick an IOS over android...


This is my honest opinion. I have all Apple products and I’m not afraid to say when another company’s is better.
 
Because this is MacRumors and we only care that the iPhone camera is better than the Samsung one. It doesn’t matter if some company other than Samsung has a better camera, we hate Samsung and the iPhone must be better no matter what. :D
True that...But I still carry the Sony around for those occasions that I want a good camera.
 
Professional photographer here. I would say the Samsung images are technically better, and I'll explain why. Look at the highlights in the clouds. To my trained eye the iPhone X's blown highlights look pretty gross and show a weakness in the dynamic range. A lot of people prefer those images presumably because they're punchier, which is 100% fine in my book, but there's a catch. With about 10 seconds of post processing, you can increase the brightness and contrast of the Samsung images to resemble the iPhone images, while still retaining the highlights. With the Apple images, you most likely will never be able to recover those blown highlights, because once a pixel is recorded as pure white there's no data there to manipulate. That being said, you can always set your focus point on the bright section of the clouds and the Apple software will automatically reduce the exposure to preserve the highlights, but the resulting image would be overall darker, less punchy, and more similar to the Samsung. So maybe they're more or less the same? Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a more extensive camera test.
 
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A better comparison and examples including 100% crops is found over at:

https://www.phonearena.com/news/sam...e-8-lowlight-night-camera-comparison_id103088

I can’t see a single example there where the iPhone X beats the Galaxy S9+ and many where it looks much worse. The iPhone has this weird blurry “glow” thing going on. Very unattractive.

I honestly couldn’t care less who has the better camera. If I want good quality I’d borrow my brother’s $15,000 camera, not some tiny pin prick of a sensor.
 
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The Apple apologists in this thread crack me up. A better comparison and examples including 100% crops is found over at:

https://www.phonearena.com/news/sam...e-8-lowlight-night-camera-comparison_id103088

I can’t see a single example there where the iPhone X beats the Galaxy S9+ and many where it looks much worse. The iPhone has this weird blurry “glow” thing going on. Very unattractive.

I honestly couldn’t care less who has the better camera. If I want good quality I’d borrow my brother’s $15,000 camera, not some tiny pin prick of a sensor.
You honestly think the colors on the S9 are close to accurate, particularly on video?
 
Professional photographer here. I would say the Samsung images are technically better, and I'll explain why. Look at the highlights in the clouds. To my trained eye the iPhone X's blown highlights look pretty gross and show a weakness in the dynamic range. A lot of people prefer those images presumably because they're punchier, which is 100% fine in my book, but there's a catch. With about 10 seconds of post processing, you can increase the brightness and contrast of the Samsung images to resemble the iPhone images, while still retaining the highlights. With the Apple images, you most likely will never be able to recover those blown highlights, because once a pixel is recorded as pure white there's no data there to manipulate. That being said, you can always set your focus point on the bright section of the clouds and the Apple software will automatically reduce the exposure to preserve the highlights, but the resulting image would be overall darker, less punchy, and more similar to the Samsung. So maybe they're more or less the same? Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a more extensive camera test.

I wouldn’t try to derail this thread with sense, logic or reasoning. :p. Too many Apple defenders will come after you!
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You honestly think the colors on the S9 are close to accurate, particularly on video?

Did you read the article? Yeah, the iPhone X is really accurate:

“Without pixel peeping, I can tell you that all phones, except the iPhone X, which for some reason has left us with this unnaturally orange shot, do a good job at capturing the light on the facade.”; also

“the Galaxy S9+ is not that big of an improvement over the Note 8/S8, but it does produce more natural-looking results, since Samsung has obviously toned down some aspects of its post-processing algorithms.” — PhoneArena

And unlike the limited selection posted here, that site actually provides ALL the originals compared for download and verification.
 
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The ones that pick the S9 over the X in these comparision are mostly the ones that knows more about photography and knows about "dynamic range" and such and probably own a Dslr and take photos as a hobby. And the ones that pick the X probably use that as their main camera. I bet most of the people that pick the X probably doesn't even know what dynamic range is.
 
Although the iPhone images appear to be better, they are not. There is more info in the Samsung pictures, so with a little post eddit you could get a “fresher” image while maintaining more detail. There is more RAW material in the S9 pictures. You could compare with video S-log that looks worse raw but actually is a lot better after pp
 
S9 does better in low-light and sharper shots. As always with Samsung.. The colors are way saturated in my opinion...

Sure that iPhone might take less sharp photos but it mirrors the true colors of everything very good.

If you compare photos from them both I don’t think you’d notice much unless you compare them side to side. You *might* be able to tell from the colors of the photos.

They both have their up and downs as with anything. The perfect camera on a phone would be something in between them.. Samsung’s sharpness and apples true color mirroring.
 
The guy narrating the video ruins what is a very good comparison. Sounds like he is reading the script and just wants to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. Watch some MKBHD videos for tips on how to narrate a review and not sound like a legal disclaimer at the end of a pharma ad.
 
Although the iPhone images appear to be better, they are not. There is more info in the Samsung pictures, so with a little post eddit you could get a “fresher” image while maintaining more detail. There is more RAW material in the S9 pictures. You could compare with video S-log that looks worse raw but actually is a lot better after pp

That’s the reason iPhone wins in general. The average user doesn’t care about post editing whatsoever. They want photos that are readily instagrammable - photos that look accurate and natural. In fact, iPhone remains the most popular camera in terms of usage in social media.
 
These tests are not really useful in my opinion. If you want to shoot professional you have to use a third party app and raw mode with the iPhone.

I would wish they analyse the photos with Photoshop or Lightroom to see how much you can get out of the raw pictures.

The jpg pictures are processed pictures and are not out of the camera.


For snapshots both cameras are good enough.
 
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you have to use a third party app and raw mode with the iPhone.

how much you can get out of the raw pictures.

The jpg pictures are processed pictures and are not out of the camera.

.
People who actually use the cameras don't know what the above means, don't care what the above means, and the above is thus completely irrelevant.
 
The quality of smartphone cameras plateaus for two or three years now. The manufacturers add gimmicks like this ridiculous fake bokeh or portrait modes but seem to be unable to improve the actual image quality. Zoom in a bit and the mess becomes apparent.
 
The quality of smartphone cameras plateaus for two or three years now. The manufacturers add gimmicks like this ridiculous fake bokeh or portrait modes but seem to be unable to improve the actual image quality. Zoom in a bit and the mess becomes apparent.

Indeed.
The main thing I think we could hope to see, if they want to spend the extra $10 on some new flagship is multiple lenses.
Then we can actually get real genuine additional data coming into the phone for the software to combine to give better images.

Naturally I would not expect anything this advanced in a standard phone:
https://light.co/camera

hero-1-Float.png



But perhaps 3 or 4 would be a possibility (I don't expect the money men would every allow it though)
 
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Professional photographer here. I would say the Samsung images are technically better, and I'll explain why. Look at the highlights in the clouds. To my trained eye the iPhone X's blown highlights look pretty gross and show a weakness in the dynamic range. A lot of people prefer those images presumably because they're punchier, which is 100% fine in my book, but there's a catch. With about 10 seconds of post processing, you can increase the brightness and contrast of the Samsung images to resemble the iPhone images, while still retaining the highlights. With the Apple images, you most likely will never be able to recover those blown highlights, because once a pixel is recorded as pure white there's no data there to manipulate. That being said, you can always set your focus point on the bright section of the clouds and the Apple software will automatically reduce the exposure to preserve the highlights, but the resulting image would be overall darker, less punchy, and more similar to the Samsung. So maybe they're more or less the same? Personally I wouldn't mind seeing a more extensive camera test.

Agreed. There is no reference photo so comments like '... the colors in the iPhone X image are warmer and more true to life.' become largely subjective. Objectively speaking, the supplied iPhone X photographs consistently demonstrate overexposure, which as stated above, can not be corrected after the shot. Assuming both cameras were focused on the same point to eliminate user error, the Samsung photographs are vastly superior.

That’s the reason iPhone wins in general. The average user doesn’t care about post editing whatsoever. They want photos that are readily instagrammable - photos that look accurate and natural.

I humbly disagree. I would bet that a significant proportion of Instagram/Facebook photos have filters applied post-production.

In fact, iPhone remains the most popular camera in terms of usage in social media.

I suspect that the prevalence of camera brand used in social media is tied to phone market share and that alone. After all, most people don't have a second handset specifically for this purpose. Q4'17 showed Apple had 19.2% and Samsung had 18.4% - ref: https://www.statista.com/statistics...by-smartphone-vendors-since-4th-quarter-2009/
 
You cannot test Portrait mode on the iPhone using a sign. That is not what it is meant for. It is for DSLR-like portraits of people, not signs. Even a cursory reading of how Portrait mode works should tell you this test is flawed. It is a machine learned algorithm that applies depth of field mapping to pictures of people.

From iMore:

Shooting other, non-human objects isn't officially supported for Portrait mode, but you can still do so if you wish; just be prepared for the artificial depth of field to not look perfect.​

In fact Portrait mode is an effect and can be removed from a photo:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208118

So, really, what is the value of this test?
 
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