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orbitalpunk

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 14, 2006
567
349
I am noticing the ultra wide lens is noticeably worse than the wide lens. Photos are not as sharp, blurry in the corners and video in poor lit scenes is over run with noise reduction compared to the wide. I know it doesn't have OIS and and a slightly slower aperture so i expect some reduced quality. but i notice it even in day time photos and wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing similar issues.
 
Ditto. The ultrawide produces mushier images in anything but perfect daylight.
 
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Ultra Wide lenses are harder to design because of the low angle at which the light hits the sensor. There will be a lot of distortion correction going on as well. This correction ends up smearing the extreme edges or final third of the image. Improved lighting will improve contrast which in turn gives the impression of sharper images. Lower light will reduce contrast and require a higher ISO which will have a detrimental impact on image quality.

As a photographer, I spent over £2000 on an ultra wide angle lens (10-24mm Full Frame) rather than £800 because the optical quality for £800 doesn't buy edge to edge sharpness, you'd still have softer edges etc. So, to expect a phone to produce Sharp images edge to edge on a UWA is probably unrealistic, even with a small sensor and increase depth of field it offers. I don't have the phone myself (still prefer my iPhone X), so I can't comment on how good/bad it is.
 
Ultra Wide lenses are harder to design because of the low angle at which the light hits the sensor. There will be a lot of distortion correction going on as well. This correction ends up smearing the extreme edges or final third of the image. Improved lighting will improve contrast which in turn gives the impression of sharper images. Lower light will reduce contrast and require a higher ISO which will have a detrimental impact on image quality.

As a photographer, I spent over £2000 on an ultra wide angle lens (10-24mm Full Frame) rather than £800 because the optical quality for £800 doesn't buy edge to edge sharpness, you'd still have softer edges etc. So, to expect a phone to produce Sharp images edge to edge on a UWA is probably unrealistic, even with a small sensor and increase depth of field it offers. I don't have the phone myself (still prefer my iPhone X), so I can't comment on how good/bad it is.

Ditto. With real cameras you need to spend decent amount to get favourable results. So I’m not expecting the iPhone ultra wide to be completely amazing... yet. Another couple of years development and I’m sure they’ll be producing more acceptable results.

Of course I’m still waiting on my phone arriving today, so I’ve not seen the results first-hand yet. I’m just basing my expectations on my experiences with SLR/DSLR/mirrorless cameras.
 
Apple cheeped out on the lens (not so much the sensor). To me that's evidenced not just by the huge distortion and vignetting (thus the noise in the corners that had to be brightened up a lot) but most of all by the ridiculous never before seen amount of Chromatic Aberation correction I have seen in numerous posted pictures. Whenever you look at strong contrasty backgrounds apple gets rid of the red/green CA by graying it and blurring it creating a huge almost halo-like appearance.
Sorry to be so crass but to me the 13mm ultra wide images are unusable for anything but the most basic Instagram shots. I rate them in good light around 2-4 Megapixels at most.
 
There’s always the possibility that the images will improve a bit with the next update to the camera software itself, whenever that lands.
I’m sure by using machine learning and all of the fancy tricks Apple builds into not just the software, but right down to the silicone itself, they’ll be able to improve on matters. Or one would hope so at least.

Of course we also expect an awful lot from a sensor with an active area of around 6x4mm, which is less than a quarter the size of a standard (UK) postage stamp, and the tiny lenses to go with them. There are limits.

It’s fairly typical 1st gen Apple, ok, but not mind blowing.
While I would still expect improvements through the software, I think it’ll be 2020 or 2021 before we go, wow, that’s pretty decent for a phone.

Or, my opinion will change drastically when the 🤬 delivery driver finally shows up with my phone :D
 
I think Apple purposely 'cheaped' out, for the sake of saving some features for the next iPhone. I mean, take the telephoto camera. It was introduced with iPhone 7 Plus, and it had an aperture of f/2.8. With the iPhone X, they increased it to f/2.4. And now, with the iPhone 11 Pro it has increased to f/2. Another example would be OIS; introduced with iPhone 6 Plus for photography, made its way to video recording on the iPhone 6s Plus and later on it was introduced on the 'regular' 4.7 inch iPhone 7 as well.

I can't imagine Apple not having been able to have all those improvements included with the 'first generation devices' in the first place. I honestly expect the next iPhone to have OIS on the Ultra Wide Angle lens (even though many people argue that UWA doesn't need OIS as badly as the telephoto or wide angle sensors do), a wider aperture, Night Mode, higher MP count (which does matter with Ultra Wide) etc.

Obviously I can't predict anything accurately, but I wouldn't be surprised by it.

Having said that, I do notice the UWA sensor indeed being pretty bad in image quality. But I won't be using it all kinds of situations anyway.
 
That's the thing, its not just the glass, it seems like the sensor is much more inferior than than the wide sensor. It's really terrible.
 
I read somewhere that the ultra-wide lens and the phone are still taking the picture even though it looks to be done for a half second. Keep holding the phone steady a little longer. It you move away too quickly you will see some motion blur.
 
The ultra wide is softer and lacks detail.
 

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I am noticing the ultra wide lens is noticeably worse than the wide lens. Photos are not as sharp, blurry in the corners and video in poor lit scenes is over run with noise reduction compared to the wide. I know it doesn't have OIS and and a slightly slower aperture so i expect some reduced quality. but i notice it even in day time photos and wanted to see if anyone else is experiencing similar issues.
I find that I’m missing the zoom lens of my iPhone 8 Plus.
 
The ultra wide pics are definitely not sharp or as sharp as wide angle.
 
The Ultrawide is a naturally lit daylight sensor in my testing. Does fine when you're at the park or looking at a skyline. It does relatively poorly indoors or at night.

Its a nice feature, and I'm not sure how much of the poor quality is just down to physics (I am not sure anyone has a 'good' Ultrawide).
 
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