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Why is it so impossible for me to take consistently good photos with my 6?

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Are these better Bent. Look at the tree pic. The sky is not deep Blue here today in Wisconsin
Yes! Much better, as were the pics you posted above.
These seem more like 'normal' shots one would expect from an iPhone. Was the zoom engaged in previous pics?

And while I'm at it, another full res test. While the bokeh isn't as smooth and nice as a real camera, it's not bad considering what it is.

 
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Yes! Much better, as were the pics you posted above.
These seem more like 'normal' shots one would expect from an iPhone. Was the zoom engaged in previous pics?

And while I'm at it, another full res test. While the bokeh isn't as smooth and nice as a real camera, it's not bad considering what it is.

Image


Some of the long distance ones don't seem or appear crisp to me...On the long distance ones, zoom was totally off.....Do you use that Slider to adjust brightness?

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Yes! Much better, as were the pics you posted above.
These seem more like 'normal' shots one would expect from an iPhone. Was the zoom engaged in previous pics?

And while I'm at it, another full res test. While the bokeh isn't as smooth and nice as a real camera, it's not bad considering what it is.

Image



https://forums.macrumors.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=497781&d=1411831029

Not impressed with this one at all
 
Are you talking about my tree pic Max?

I was talking about OP's pictures, but your tree pic also looks like you've zoomed in a little bit (judging by a perspective that does not look like one that a wide angle lens will produce, more like one produced by 50-80 mm equivalent lens).

I've never, never seen a bad photo on any of my older iPhones, my wife's 6 and my 6+ are also doing great, but ALL of them produce extremely bad pictures even if you zoom in just a tiny bit. 1:1 crops usually have a little bit of the effect going on too, but again, the viewing size is much smaller then 1:1 with 8MP.
 
Bent. By looking at my pics. Do you think I have a defective camera? Would a Genius Bar appt be necessary ?
I don't know... I'm not really an expert on the iPhone cameras, but my impression is that they aren't up to par with what I have expected from my iPhones. That said, I haven't seen an uncompressed photo straight from your iPhone yet, so it's hard to tell how reflective the pics you've posted are of the full images in the iPhone.
 
The macro shots are indeed very nice!

That said, in the full sized images there is a lot more digital NR than I would like to see, esp. noticeable on the teeth. And the darker green frog shot looks almost like a watercolor of a frog!

It's not as noticeable in good sunlight, but still there (if you look for it - e.g. between her eyes). Again, a lot of this could be solved with just a little user control to dial it back for those that would rather take grain over Monet.

 
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Unless it is in very bright light, everything always looks smudgy. I took about 5 photos of this praying mantis and none of them came out very well. I can never get them to look that sharp.

I didn't read the entire thread, but you were trying to take a picture well beyond the capabilities of the camera. Direct sun, deep shadows, close branches on one side and far distance on the other. The camera averaged all that and that's the result. It didn't know what you wanted to focus on and the shallow depth doesn't appear to have anything in it. :)

With that said, next time move around so the critter and the branches fill the frame so that the focus will be "closer" to the mantis. It's so thin I doubt tapping on it would reliably focus on it.
 
Once it gets light outside, I'll take another similar pic to what I did in the OP but without any zoom (I'm sure the mantis has gone elsewhere by now).
 
Once it gets light outside, I'll take another similar pic to what I did in the OP but without any zoom (I'm sure the mantis has gone elsewhere by now).

Ok, here's one I took this morning of the same branch without zoom (couple moths hanging out there now instead of the praying mantis). The detail of the tree looks much better but the background trees and grass is till funky looking (which isn't a big deal since the subject was the tree).

hNZLDnw.jpg


So, based on this test, I think it would be better to take the picture without zoom and then zoom in and crop once the photo has been taken.


(Drag photo into address bar for actual size pic)
 
So, based on this test, I think it would be better to take the picture without zoom and then zoom in and crop once the photo has been taken.

That is (and if it isn't is should be) a rule of thumb across the board. Digital zoom ALWAYS degrades the image tremendously. I never use it; just get closer to the subject if possible, and if not possible, then you just have to deal with it because the alternative is a picture you wouldn't want anyway.
 
I just looked over some more birthday photos I took recently on iPhone 5s. They had bad "Monet effect" that I failed to notice on the 5s smaller screen. Overhead fluorescent lighting seems to make it more likely I'll get this effect when taking pictures of a group of people.

My new 6plus photos I took yesterday have the Monet effect in background details. My frustration with the camera was that OIS didn't seem to help at all with getting non blurry photos in moderate (not dim) indoor lighting. I thought based on the keynote presentation I'd get a bit better results. And without a focus assist lamp a lot of indoor shots will still turn out blurry even with flash. I guess that's to be expected for a phone camera.

I'll have to look over video later. And I'll have to compare the photos taken on my husband's plus. If his are a lot better I might have to consider there's something off with certain phones and mine is one of them. I'm betting on my lack of skill and unrealistic expectations instead.
 
Here's a comparison I took with an iPhone 5 and iPhone 6. The aggressive NR is pretty noticeable in the shadows and on the zipper, but the 6 definitely looks better when viewing the photo zoomed out.

I noticed the 6 chose a lower ISO (500 vs. 800), and the photo has a darker exposure (this might be due to the part of the TV I caught in the corner of the photo).

EXIF data is also included.

Full-size photos here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fyctt9xxtyi4z3r/AACoXa4Lj_dLWZiEOPyNnbvGa?dl=0
 
Ok, here's one I took this morning of the same branch without zoom (couple moths hanging out there now instead of the praying mantis). The detail of the tree looks much better but the background trees and grass is till funky looking (which isn't a big deal since the subject was the tree).

Image

So, based on this test, I think it would be better to take the picture without zoom and then zoom in and crop once the photo has been taken.


(Drag photo into address bar for actual size pic)


though, if you zoom in a bit on the pic, so it is composed a bit better, so the subject is centered, the photo looks pretty good.
 
The issue, at the end of the day, is that apple has pushed this sensor to its limits. For noticeable improvement there needs to be a bigger sensor and better optics.
 
Why hasn't anyone made a clear side-by-side comparison with the 5 and 5S yet?
 
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