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Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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National Geographic photographer Jim Richardson took his iPhone 5s to Scotland and, after taking 4,000 photographs, called the camera on the device "very capable" with pictures that "didn't look like I was having to settle for second best because it was a mobile phone".

Apple's Phil Schiller tweeted a link to the article this evening, commenting "iPhoneography".

With intense use (I've made about 4,000 pictures in the last four days) I've discovered that the iPhone 5S is a very capable camera. The color and exposures are amazingly good, the HDR exposure feature does a stunningly good job in touch situations, the panorama feature is nothing short of amazing--seeing a panorama sweeping across the screen in real time is just intoxicating. Best of all it shoots square pictures natively, a real plus for me since I wanted to shoot for Instagram posting.

Once I figured out what the camera could do well I began to forget all the things it couldn't do at all.
While the iPhone 5s still uses an 8-megapixel camera, it utilizes a sensor that has a 15 percent larger surface area, which means it will produce higher quality photos in low-light conditions. It also has a 5-element lens with an aperture of f/2.2, an improvement over the iPhone 5's f/2.4 aperture and the pixels are larger, at 1.5 microns, for better light absorption. All in all, the iPhone 5s has a 33 percent increase in light sensitivity.

Interested readers can follow Jim Richardson's Instagram page at @jimrichardsonng or #proofscotland from the Instagram iOS app. The full post from National Geographic's Proof blog has more images as well.

Article Link: National Geographic Photographer Praises iPhone 5s Camera
 

ThunderSkunk

macrumors 68040
Dec 31, 2007
3,783
3,990
Milwaukee Area
My father is a pro photog as well, and had a similiar experience with the 5s. Its handiness combined with its quality is striking.

He uses it for location scouting and whatnot, then returns with his gear and shoots with the big beast.
 

4lorn

macrumors newbie
Oct 7, 2013
1
0
Instagram, huh...?

"Oh cool!" I thought "Finally a review by someone who knows something about photography, not another Instagram selfie poster"

Sigh...
 

Jayse

macrumors regular
Jun 29, 2010
131
1
Sydney, Australia
It would be really interesting to see where mobile phone photography, and photography in general will be in a decades time. God bless technology!
 

haruhiko

macrumors 604
Sep 29, 2009
6,529
5,874
The 5s is a very much refined iPhone 5 and I'm very satisfied with its performance.

The camera is fast (burst mode 10 photos in a second), so fast that it is the best feature to show the speed of the device. The camera is obviously better in low light, in some places that required flash to get a clear image, now we can take the photo without flash and as you can expect the overall color tone will be better (no flash is better than the tiny flash on a camera no matter how "true tone" is the flash). The fingerprint sensor is very convenient and seldom fails.

The surprise is that the battery life is quite decent on the 5s and in my experience it is about 20% better than that of my iPhone 5.
 
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pdjudd

macrumors 601
Jun 19, 2007
4,037
65
Plymouth, MN
I guess you fail at simple math. If each picture is about 8mb x 4000 = 32000 or 32 gigs. 64 gig iPhone can easily handle...

Not to mention that there is no mention that he did it all at once - he could have easily taken 500 pictures in the field, offloaded them to some sort of storage system (like his laptop at the hotel) and deleted them. He just said he took 4000 over 4 days.


You and you're math. The post was obviously satirical. Plus once you put your music, a ton of apps, toss in a few videos...the poster actually has a point.

How are any of us supposed to determine that was satire? And no, as the poster could tell, it is quite easy to store all of those pictures easily if he so desired with even the 32 Gig model.
 

FrizzleFryBen

macrumors 6502
Dec 14, 2009
453
179
Charlotte, NC
I guess you fail at simple math. If each picture is about 8mb x 4000 = 32000 or 32 gigs. 64 gig iPhone can easily handle...

You and you're math. The post was obviously satirical. Plus once you put your music, a ton of apps, toss in a few videos...the poster actually has a point.

Honestly, it was the first thought that popped into my head as every few days I have to purge a ton of pictures from my phone if I want to take more. What can I say, I love my cats.

EDIT: I mean your rather than you're in the first sentence...dang autocorrect
 
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haruhiko

macrumors 604
Sep 29, 2009
6,529
5,874
You and you're math. The post was obviously satirical. Plus once you put your music, a ton of apps, toss in a few videos...the poster actually has a point.

Honestly, it was the first thought that popped into my head as every few days I have to purge a ton of pictures from my phone if I want to take more. What can I say, I love my cats.

EDIT: I mean your rather than you're in the first sentence...dang autocorrect

If you have a lot of music, 2 tonnes of apps, toss in a few huge videos then even one photo can be too big for an iPhone. This is not a point.
 

captain kaos

macrumors 65816
Jan 16, 2008
1,156
28
UK
You and you're math. The post was obviously satirical. Plus once you put your music, a ton of apps, toss in a few videos...the poster actually has a point.

Honestly, it was the first thought that popped into my head as every few days I have to purge a ton of pictures from my phone if I want to take more. What can I say, I love my cats.

EDIT: I mean your rather than you're in the first sentence...dang autocorrect

Your, not you're ;)

Anyway, i do like the new camera, definitely an upgrade from the 5 due to the better low light capability and high speed shutter option.
 

imaginex20

macrumors 65832
Jun 17, 2009
1,504
690
You and you're math. The post was obviously satirical. Plus once you put your music, a ton of apps, toss in a few videos...the poster actually has a point.

Honestly, it was the first thought that popped into my head as every few days I have to purge a ton of pictures from my phone if I want to take more. What can I say, I love my cats.

EDIT: I mean your rather than you're in the first sentence...dang autocorrect

How was it a satirical post? I didn't see any humor in it..
 

Rhymecrafter

macrumors newbie
Apr 29, 2009
17
0
Ashland, OR USA
5s

Can't wait, just purchased a Mac book Air, 11 inch, but really want the 5S, I am still running around with a 4 and it works great, but photography is very so so at best. :eek:
 
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slapppy

macrumors 65816
Mar 20, 2008
1,227
42
Would like to see a no bias, factual comparison with the Nokia/Windows, Samsung and 41MP images from normal light to dark settings.
 
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