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iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

lux.camera

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Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#151

I am still not understanding why my iPhone 13 landscape photos look as good as those from my $900 Nikkor Z 24mm f/1.8 S prime lens with its superior optics on a $2k DSLR body. If the reason is fancy post-processing, then why can't Nikon have a tiny lens like the iPhone 13 and just add fancy post-processing to it?

Obviously you don't look at close detail on computer, which is very strange for seemingly such a power photo user. Phones these days are good but not yet that good if you don't do some beginner mistakes with camera. Maybe Pixel 7 pro based on samples I saw, but definitely not ie iphone 13 pro max.

What people often mean by similar statements is they like default phone processing compared to 0 in the camera, and there is enough detail due to tons of light and due to landscapes being generally easiest scene to shoot.

As for why they are not comparable, also a very strange question from seemingly experienced photo shooter - compare software development department and budget in Apple vs Nikon, who is a tiny player we all love (have D750 since it came out and carried it everywhere up to 6000m), they use very specialized CPUs which are very good for 1 thing only (basic operations on raw sensor data and potential jpeg transformation), and various ML and stacking transformations aren't simply available there at performance required. The whole construction of camera and processing hardware isn't around snapping 30 pics and combining them together under 1s, pre-taking pictures before actually hitting shutter etc.

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#152
The funny thing is that for all the amazing technological improvements discussed, all the pictures in the article actually show that A. having a photographer who knows how to frame things, and sees the right moment to capture an image, and B. having a subject worthwhile photographing, are way more important than having a top tier quality camera.

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#153
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Nikkor assumes that you would use software to do the post processing. It gives you something a lot closer to what's coming from the sensor, so you can choose which $XXX image editing suite you want to run it through. The iPhone knows the vast majority of people won't do that with their photos, so they can go all-out, but you're stuck with their specific result baked in to your photo.

Apple has always been about making the choice for it’s users. Jobs always thought giving users too many options was problematic.

I don't see how that's relevant. You can tap the RAW button in the iOS camera app to switch between the two choices, both of which looks great. Most DSLRs only have one option because the second one (in-camera JPEG) looks like crap. They can barely do auto focus/wb/iso/shutter/aperture let alone postprocessing.

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#154
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can we get rid of the shutter? That's a challenge, I think. Take an R5 (only because I'm most familiar with it). 47 megapixels, 12 bpp 211.5MB, maximum shutter speed of 1/8000. In other words, you need to be able to pull data off the sensor (and to be clear, there's parallelization available, I just don't know what) at a global rate of 1.6TB/s.

They have global shutter sensors around the 12 megapixel level. They could split the sensor up into different processing paths. Do these 200 megapixel phone camera sensors have really bad rolling sensor issues? They are using electronic rolling shutters like your R5 when in silent mode or whatever canon calls it now.

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Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate when you get one of those amazing sunsets where the whole sky changes color, but the phone auto-correct removes/corrects the color tone.

You can shoot in raw on iphones now to prevent this or fix it later.

Thanks, but now doesn't do me any good then

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#156

Coming from a Pixel 5 to the iPhone 14 Pro, I gotta say I'm pretty disappointed. The pictures are mediocre at best, and just plain bad in dim light especially. Google's computational photography is years ahead. The latest Pixel has better sensors too.

Coming from the Pixel 6 Pro, I feel the same. The camera is comparatively very slow with even daytime indoor lighting. Half the photos I take of a child at play end up in the trash due to blur. Hoping to find out that I'm just "holding it wrong".

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#157
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A real macro lens on a DSLR is like that. You could stop the lens down for more to be in focus, but then because you’re getting close to a pinhole camera you need a TON of light. Maybe the iPhone would do better in studio conditions, I don’t know. But it’s a very tough problem.

No? If I took that photo with my 100mm f/2.8 EF macro, everything behind the caterpillar would just be vaguely green. There's be no structure to it at all. I mean it would be way out of focus. The DoF even at f/11 would be ~1cm. The problem with the photo in the article is the structure of the background is quite apparent and all the details in the background have been multiplied into hexagons which is very distracti…

Oh, I thought you wanted more depth of field.

My mistake.

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has always been about making the choice for it’s users. Jobs always thought giving users too many options was problematic.

While in training at my first restaurant job I asked a party where they would like to sit in the dining room. The owner pulled me aside and said to never give people a choice. They'll get confused and think that there's a "best" table and that their dinner could suffer if they feel like they didn't get it. I don't know if it's "real" or not but between work and my personal life I've got decision fatigue. Help make de…

Fascinating.

It seems like some table choices are better for the customer, some are better for the server. As a customer I like to be away from the other tables and the server wants everyone together in a noisy clump.

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#159

I am still not understanding why my iPhone 13 landscape photos look as good as those from my $900 Nikkor Z 24mm f/1.8 S prime lens with its superior optics on a $2k DSLR body. If the reason is fancy post-processing, then why can't Nikon have a tiny lens like the iPhone 13 and just add fancy post-processing to it?

I've noticed it's getting easier and easier to take photos with the SUN in the frame than when digital sensors first came out.

Re: iPhone 14 Pro camera review: A small step, a huge leap

#160
post #148

Would be curious to see what they think of the Pixel 7 Pro camera. Video is still worse, but picture quality overall seems to be slightly (but noticeably) better than the iPhone 14 Pro.

You won't see one. All their past postings appear to be iPhone/pad camera reviews and they make two apps for the same. As a result, I am a little queasy about their objectivity too.

I don't see an issue, given that they don't intend to do an objective comparison to other (non-Apple) smartphones.
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