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Is it me, or is my new camera no better than my iPhone?

Going by the order of the photos in your set, I'm going to say the first and third photo were taken with your 3GS. The second and last photo taken by the Samsung. Please tell me if I was correct. I don't know much about cameras and such, but the pictures taken by the Samsung definitely has more clarity and vibrancy.
 
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ann713 said:
Going by the order of the photos in your set, I'm going to say the first and third photo was taken with your 3GS. The second and last photo was taken by the Samsung. Please tell me if I was correct. I don't know much about cameras and such but the pictures taken by the Samsung definitely has more clarity and vibrancy.
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I have to agree that 23 and 204 are likely the iPhone.

Looking at the darker areas it is noticeably different than on the other two. The water is much richer in the Samsung pics too. (if we are correct.) And considering this is outdoors and little movement I would have to say you should compare on moving objects and inside and you will likely see a difference. Also, printing larger sized photos will make a difference more noticeable as well. These are pretty small images you have posted so there is likely to be less difference than if you were looking at larger images.
 
Almost any camera can take great photos in good light like this. While the iPhone has a great camera, it definitely has drawbacks. I don't know anything about your new camera, but I'll assume that it was some sort of optical zoom. Your iPhone definitely does not, leaving only digital "zoom" which is simply a crop, reducing resolution. As someone else said, move indoors into some less than desirable lighting and the camera will almost certain surpass the iPhone, even without using the flash.

That being said, the best camera is the one you have with you, and you most likely always have your iPhone. The same probably can't be said about your new camera.
 
Another thing to note is that the lens that comes with the NX11 is the cheapest one you can get. Any replacement lenses can significantly improve the quality.


flyfish29 said:
I have to agree that 23 and 204 are likely the iPhone.
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It would actually appear to be the opposite. Based on the fact that the iPhone names the photos IMG_*.JPG, and the samsung probably uses SAM_*.JPG, plus the fact that the iPhone has taken more photos since the Samsung is new, SAM_23 and SAM_204 were likely the real camera.
 
Take a photo of a person. Take it at dusk/evening.
The photos you show at first look like the Samsung isn't terrific but looking at the two sets. The iPhone has bumped contrast, and is also slightly muddy. look at teh rocky regions in the second set.

Wait until you get a new iphone and see how that photo quality is. BUT an indoor dimply lit room will stink for iPhone...not sure about teh Sammy.

Also what size can you blow up each and get good results. With my new camera I can make a crop (even chopping a vertical horizontal) and it is still a decent shot.
 
It's not just me then! Some of you can't tell the difference either. For the record, 007 and 023 were the Samsung NX11, 204 and 208 were the 3GS.

Of course, in a dimly lit room the iPhone will suffer; but I'm not likely to take another camera to the pub, so iPhone wins again. I'm probably not going to get prints, what's the point when you have Flickr? Instead of boring people showing off my photos, I'll just email a link and let them look in their own time.

I expected significantly better pictures, but I noticed distortion at the edges, worse even than the iPhone, and although the colours are better on the Samsung, it's amazing what can be done in a few minutes with Aperture. I'm sure someone who knew what they were doing could make it even better!

The iPhone 4 has a better camera than the 3GS, and the iPhone 5 is bound to have an even better one - there's been rumours of 8MP, separated flash, better ISO performance.

I should have waited a bit longer, and got a pretty good compact camera that does GPS, makes phone calls, and has half a billion apps available.

Who wants to buy a Samsung NX11?
 
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I've been planning on taking a trip to europe, and this is something I really want to see. I love visiting historacal remnants of the past. especially old arcitecture. I guess I'll add Scottland to my list of places to see next summer.
 
I could tell.

Plus, your sammy has interchangable lenses (right?) and a bunch of settings. You're comparing your iPhone's camera under the best possible conditions, to a very nice camera under its worst conditions.

Give your samsung a chance to shine, and it will out-perform the iPhone in just about any other setting (eg. not bright landscapes).
 
Yeah at web sizes there isn't much difference, but when you view the full-res versions, the difference is clear. The iphone shots are horrendously blotchy, and the samsung shots still quite blotchy but not as bad and also they're like 2x the size. My 4-yr old 10MP DSLR runs circles around both in the same conditions.

In bright daylight and for shooting landscapes like this, almost any camera will be a competent performer. But like others here have said, once you start getting into more challenging situations (lower light, shallower DoF, etc), that is when you will really start to see the differences.

Re: the distortion- since the iphone has only a fixed lens, I would not be surprised if the image processing algorithms in the phone compensate for lens distortion (i.e. it can be programmed in and applied to every shot equally because the iphone has no zoom and only one lens). The samsung, with interchangeable lenses, does not account for this. Which is why you see it in your pictures. I don't know if Aperture has the ability, but Lightroom has lens correction modules to fix the distortion for a wide variety of cameras and lenses.

Ruahrc
 
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