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iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

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Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#351

Post by tap-snap-or-nap »

crinkly wrote: post #48
FredPret wrote: post #33

My entry-level mirrorless camera with its kit lens can take photos that blow my recent-model iPhone out of the water. Add a nice lens and there's no comparison. However: - The iPhone is always in my pocket (until I crack and buy a flip-phone) - The iPhone picture always turns out, but the Canon takes a modicum of skill, which my wife is not interested in, and I'll never be able to teach passers-by when they take a gr…

100% agree. I went on holiday at the start of this year and took my iPhone 15 Pro with me. I bought a mirrorless camera and went back because I was that disappointed with it. No joke. I regret using a phone for most of my family photos for the last 10-15 years and should have just used my old D3100 instead.

Yes, my D3100 took way better pictures than any of my phone cameras, there is no comparison with the output quality. I did find them bulky and it is much easier socially to take pictures with a phone camera.

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#352

Post by vladvasiliu »

CarVac wrote: post #164
hatthew wrote: post #135

My only significant gripe with phone cameras is that they oversharpen everything. Sharpening can subjectively make things look better as long as you don't zoom in too much, but has one significant problem: desaturation . In high-detail high-contras areas, e.g. the foreground grass, the sharpening pushes many of the pixels towards black or white, which are, notably, not green. This has the overall effect of desaturati…

Unfortunately, if the phone camera images are processed without oversharpening, the results are extremely soft. Also, the wide lenses on most phones are actually very heavily distorted nearly to the point of being fisheye, and made rectilinear with processing.

> Also, the wide lenses on most phones are actually very heavily distorted nearly to the point of being fisheye, and made rectilinear with processing.

Not just phones. Most wide-angles for "serious cameras" have distortion and rely on digital correction. See [0] for an extreme example in the form of a 16mm Canon, which is much less wide than the iPhone lens.

[0] https://photographylife.com/reviews/canon-rf-16mm-f-2-8/2

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#353

Post by justincormack »

ubercow13 wrote: post #288
Ancapistani wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's a very contemptuous thing to say. I really don't think it is. When I pick up a camera, my intent is one of two things: the experience of photography itself, or the best quality I can reasonably obtain. Neither of those goals are attained with a smartphone. Every other time I take a photo , it's with a smartphone. It's easily good enough for the vast majority of use cases. > Even if one is using in-camera JPE…

>and those are two things you give up[0] shooting JPEG No you don't? Good in camera JPEGs will utilise push-pull processing, exposing for maximal dynamic range all for you. You don't lose the advantages of the better optics and sensor just because the JPEG is produced in camera.

That should be configurable - my camera has 3 dynamic range settings, and I almost always use the narrowest one.

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#354

Post by vladvasiliu »

meatmanek wrote: post #251
strogonoff wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Physics really works out such that the smaller you make camera sensor, the smaller you can make the lens. Full-frame lenses tend to be markedly bigger for equivalent quality compared to, say, APS-C lenses. However, due to physics there is also no working around the quality issues of a small sensor. Photosites get less light and produce more noise, and automated noise suppression costs detail and sharpness. I wonder w…

> Full-frame lenses tend to be markedly bigger for equivalent quality compared to, say, APS-C lenses. Only if you define quality as field of view. For light-gathering ability and background separation/bokeh, you need a lower f/number on APS-C than on full-frame to be equivalent: A 35mm f/1.2 lens on a 24MP APS-C sensor will take pictures that look nearly identical to a 52.5mm f/1.8 lens on a 24MP full-frame sensor. (…

You're absolutely right, but what's depressing is how few people understand this. I'd say the problem with your point is that it's too practical and involves people going out and trying to produce some artistic expression.

Most people enjoy chasing measurable specs and don't stop to understand what they're actually doing. So they'll go compare a 4/3 sensor's output at iso x to a full frame sensor at the same iso. They won't stop to think about what they're trying to achieve. If they want the same depth of field, they won't be able to use the same aperture. So, out in the field, something has to give. Either lengthen the exposure or raise the ISO. If we're talking high ISOs, you probably can't shoot much slower, so higher ISO it is. Differences are then much less shocking.

The other extreme is people chasing paper-thin focus, which, I guess, isn't as easy to obtain on smaller sensors. Yet, for some reason, they won't go to a larger format, either...

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#355

Post by trallnag »

nmeofthestate wrote: post #322
dialup_sounds wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google made an publicized effort to better represent darker skin tones, which may explain the tan. It probably thinks you're overexposed and desaturated instead of pale. https://store.google.com/intl/en/ideas/real-tone/

"What we need is a great big melting pot Big enough to take the world and all it's got Keep it stirring for a hundred years or more And turn out hot-dog-coloured people by the score"

That's basically what the USA are. Although Brazil is probably a better example.

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#356

Post by throw0101c »

Quarrel wrote: post #316
prox wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without hyperbole I could give people a badly calibrated CRT from the 90s and it doesn’t matter to some. Some people just don’t see anything wrong with pictures, and don’t even know what to look for or what it’s called. The inverse are the professional photographers who work with pictures day in and out, they see everything.

I am amazed at the eye professional photographers have. A shot of a building that is suddenly really interesting, versus my shot of that building. Colour. Angle. etc. I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup. BUT, yes, lots of people might look at a random photo on their phone and not notice skintones, or the fisheye etc. If you then give them a pile of 10 photos from a pro, versus 10 f…

> I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup.

Checkout this book by the late† Bryan Peterson, where he shows photos taken by his students as well as his own of the same location, and explains the differences in techniques/settings:

* https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54228164-bryan-peters...

His Understanding series of books are also good (Exposure is worth checking out if you know nothing about camera settings):

* https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/82078.Bryan_Peterson

† April 2025: https://www.crottyfh.com/obituaries/bryan-peterson

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#357

Post by Quarrel »

throw0101c wrote: post #356
Quarrel wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am amazed at the eye professional photographers have. A shot of a building that is suddenly really interesting, versus my shot of that building. Colour. Angle. etc. I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup. BUT, yes, lots of people might look at a random photo on their phone and not notice skintones, or the fisheye etc. If you then give them a pile of 10 photos from a pro, versus 10 f…

> I just don't have the eye for it, despite having a decent amateur setup. Checkout this book by the late† Bryan Peterson, where he shows photos taken by his students as well as his own of the same location, and explains the differences in techniques/settings: * https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/54228164-bryan-peters... His Understanding series of books are also good ( Exposure is worth checking out if you know…

Thanks, that looks great.

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#358

Post by vFunct »

relaxing wrote: post #339
vFunct wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah you can't fix color balance from bad color cast. ALL photos look good with direct flash. Never use bounce flash. And indirect lighting is never flattering. EVER. Fire any photographer that ever uses bounce flash. Nobody wants their muddied color. I was also a photo editor with thousands of photographer submissions. I can always tell which ones used bounce flash. A sure sign of unprofessional amateurness. I get th…

Yah, you can. Get out of the 80s or whatever decade you learned paparazzi style light was a good look. For anyone reading, soft shadows from indirect light is why professional studio setups use beauty dishes, bounce cards, and big flash boxes or umbrellas with diffusers. Bounce flash is a way to create a little of that magic when you can’t get the entire rig to a shoot, as in wedding photography. Pointing your on cam…

Studio lighting isn’t natural lighting nor is it bounce flash lighting. I am specifically talking about amateurish event/wedding photographers that use bounce flash. Which have a iPhone use commonality. (You never use iPhones in studio.)

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#359

Post by [deleted] »

SoftTalker wrote: post #175
dagmx wrote: post #38

The points really boil down to: 1. Difference in focal length/ position. 2. Difference in color processing But…the article is fairly weak on both points? 1. It’s unclear why the author is comparing different focal lengths without clarifying what they used. If I use the 24mm equivalent on either my full frame or my iPhone, the perspective will be largely the same modulo some lens correction. Same if I use the 70mm or…

Can you really have a 70mm focal length on a phone that is less than 10mm thick? I thought it was simulated by cropping the image from the actual very short focal length.

[deleted]

Re: iPhone 16 cameras vs. traditional digital cameras

#360

Post by Narew »

dkga wrote: post #289
chongli wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with computational photography is that it uses software to make photos "look good" for everyday users. That may be an advantage for those users but it is basically a non-starter for a photographer because it makes it a crapshoot to take photos which predictably and faithfully render the scene.

This made me ask, is there a (perhaps Swift) API to get the raw pixels coming in from the camera, if there is such a thing? I mean, before any processing, etc.

There is. If you use lightroom app for example you can have access to raw pixel. But I'm not sure there is a way to get all the images the camera app from the iphone take. Phone don't take one shot to create the final image. they take hundred of shot and combine them.
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