The ultimate iPhone camera comparison: iPhone 6s vs. every other iPhone generation

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The ultimate iPhone camera comparison: How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to every other iPhone generation?

In the past eight years, each new advancement in iPhone camera technology has made dramatic improvements to image quality. The new 12-megapixel iPhone 6s iSight camera is no exception. With 50% more megapixels than the last four iPhone 8-megapixel models, the iPhone 6s boasts a number of key improvements including: improved auto-focus, local tone-mapping, noise reduction, and colour separation, with that fancy “deep trench isolation” technology Apple is raving about.

In this follow-up post to my previous iPhone comparisons, I present a 9 iPhone comparison from all iPhone versions taken with Camera+ including: the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and the new iPhone 6s, in a variety of real-life situations to test each iPhone camera’s capabilities.

Macro
The first comparison is a macro of pencil crayons to examine the increase in detail with the new 12MP iPhone 6s. The original iPhone and 3G are fixed focus so they are unable to focus on closely placed objects resulting in blurry, pixelated images. Autofocus was added to the iPhone 3G which improves the quality of the image slightly. There is a noticeable improvement in the details and sharpness of the image with the 5MP iPhone 4 and the 8MP iPhone 4s, but we only begin to see the details in the pencil crayon tips with the iPhone 5 and 5s due to addition of the five-element lens which increased the sharpness of images. The iPhone 6 is a brighter image thanks to the local tone-mapping algorithm added to this version, but the clear winner is the iPhone 6s. The addition of detection autofocus and deep trench isolation gives this iPhone camera faster, more accurate focusing and clearer, less noisy images. The detail and colour separation in the iPhone 6s image is dramatic.


Pencil Crayons Macro
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Backlit
Next, a backlit photo of a boat in a marina demonstrates the improvements the iPhone camera has made in dealing with high contrast lighting situations and...​

Pretty cool click through JPG comparisons for all iPhones from multiple perspectives.

 

[redman042]

I just took a look at this. The 6s camera is more improved over the 6 than I thought. Very nice!

 

[mi7chy]

Low light seems a little better on the older 6.

 

[CE3]

Excellent comparison! Wow, the camera leap from the 3G to the 3GS was huge!

 

[Sgt.ThroatPunch]

There is already an article on the front page about this, why be redundant?

 

[PNutts]

There is already an article on the front page about this, why be redundant?

This thread was created before the article appeared on the front page.

 

[Sgt.ThroatPunch]

This thread was created before the article appeared on the front page.

My apologies. I am the victim of PDT > EST confusion.

 

[sunking101]

Excellent comparison! Wow, the camera leap from the 3G to the 3GS was huge!

The iPhone camera was wayyy behind the competition until the iPhone 4 came along.

 

[Sgt.ThroatPunch]

The iPhone camera was wayyy behind the competition until the iPhone 4 came along.

For sure. At that time, picture taking on cell phones was more of a gimmicky thing than the norm. It seems they were too busy revolutionizing the phone.

 

[sunking101]

For sure. At that time, picture taking on cell phones was more of a gimmicky thing than the norm. It seems they were too busy revolutionizing the phone.

It was the main 'feature' on phones for a long time and whilst Apple arguably had the best smartphone, their cameras were a joke until the iPhone 4. I didn't come onboard until the 3GS purely because of the cameras, and even the shooter on that was crap compared to the competition. The iPhone 4 was a game changer though as it was a fantastic smartphone *with* a great camera.

 

[PNutts]

My apologies. I am the victim of PDT > EST confusion.

There's no time zone on the thread so I had a 50% chance of being right.