Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

lux.camera

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 340 posts

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

#191

Post by password1 »

solardev wrote: post #123

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 a Pixel 4a to the 14 Pro I'm really impressed instead. Like it's the much needed upgrade that I felt I needed (I'm really passionate about photography). I'm seriously considering selling my DSLR now.

I think google computational might be better in some edge cases, but it comes at the cost that sometimes it over-processes things: some textures look painted on my pixel photos, some night shoot feel "cool" but do not capture what I'm looking with my eyes at all, no matter my settings. And with portraits I have this feeling sometimes that I capture a nice image only to see it somehow ruined when the processing ends, with the face that becomes too "beautified" (smooth skin, etc).

I feel the iPhone computation is overall better for the most common lightning situations and maybe less aggressive, but I would need to test it for way more time to form a more complete opinion.

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

#192

Post by acchow »

alberth wrote: post #181

> “I think the 12 MP shooting default is a wise choice on Apple’s part, but it does mean that the giant leap in image quality on iPhone 14 Pro remains mostly hidden unless you choose to use a third party app to shoot 48 MP JPG / HEIC images or shoot in ProRAW and edit your photos later.” This, 100%. The massive difference in image quality is when shooting in RAW. That’s when you actually get the 48MP & the images are…

Why would you need more than 12MP if the photo is only going to be displayed on a 6 inch screen?

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

#193

Post by astrange »

pb7 wrote: post #53
sys32768 wrote: post #47

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?

Do they look the same when zoomed in/at 100% zoom? Phone photos look great on small screens but show weaknesses on desktop.

It's rarely the case that you want to look at a camera or a phone photo at 100% zoom unless you're cropping a smaller image out of a larger one. Of course, sometimes it's useful for things like reading text, but that's limited by the lens and focus abilities as much as the sensor resolution.

You'd be surprised how little megapixels are just fine for putting up on a wall or billboard. It's all about how far away the viewer is.

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

#194

Post by hengheng »

amelius wrote: post #189

These relatively cheap tiny cameras would be so useful in so many other products, from medical to sports. It is really a shame that most new consumer tech is locked behind the doors of large corporations these days, that will keep the tech from reaching its true potential in a myriad of products.

I've been looking to buy "portrait focal length" cameras. You can get the AliExpress equivalent of a standard phone camera, dressed up as compatible to Raspberry Pi, and somebody even brought wide-angles to that market once, but no-one seems to have the long focal lengths.

Optics is weird. Either a device becomes a thing and then it's immediately a huge product, or the availability is straight up zero.

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

#195

Post by tourist2d »

acchow wrote: post #192
alberth wrote: post #181

> “I think the 12 MP shooting default is a wise choice on Apple’s part, but it does mean that the giant leap in image quality on iPhone 14 Pro remains mostly hidden unless you choose to use a third party app to shoot 48 MP JPG / HEIC images or shoot in ProRAW and edit your photos later.” This, 100%. The massive difference in image quality is when shooting in RAW. That’s when you actually get the 48MP & the images are…

Why would you need more than 12MP if the photo is only going to be displayed on a 6 inch screen?

Because you can make a pinch motion to zoom into photos.

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

#196

Post by user_7832 »

cthalupa wrote: post #113

Unfortunately, it still takes crappy concert photos. The combination of low light, crazy lighting, etc., still wreak havoc on the images. Fortunately, most of the venues I go to for shows generally have a "No detachable lens cameras" rule, which means my Fuji X100 is allowed. Unfortunately, security at the venues often ignores the policy and I don't want to be That Guy holding up the line arguing with them about it.…

I’m curious what you feel is “good enough” for concert images. I recently went to a concert and took a ton of pictures on my Pixel 5, which IMO performed much better than my previous android (non flagship) phones to a level I was pretty happy with, albeit I do not have an iPhone to compare with. I uploaded some (slightly decent) images to imgur, could you let me know if this is better than or similar to your experience/photos?

https://i.imgur.com/gm8jUkj.jpg https://i.imgur.com/hrBL18U.jpg https://i.imgur.com/zLPFgPW.jpg https://i.imgur.com/1kPzHZ3.jpg https://i.imgur.com/97R9asy.jpg https://i.imgur.com/3ITpUuT.jpg https://i.imgur.com/1MClydK.jpg

(No editing by me, though I did pick preferentially some photos that weren’t blurred majorly. The largest blurred object appears to be the DJ (BT) who was moving a decent bit.)

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

#197

Post by sudosysgen »

emkoemko wrote: post #96
sys32768 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my Z5 I can use the built-in Landscape mode, and on the Z6 I can use auto or manual. Autocorrect RAW in Adobe Photoshop looks good. And certainly on a 4k monitor the DSLR images reveal more detail. My post here has me realizing I need to take iPhone and DSLR shots side-by-side in the same place with the same lighting and begin to compare them in-camera and in post-processing.

"What aperture are you shooting at? You probably already know it, but for landscapes you'd be looking at f/5.6 or so unless you're hurting for light." this is bad advice.... shoot on a tripod and set your f stop to get the DOF you need or do a focus stack, f/5.6 would work if your shooting a distant landscape but having anything in the foreground f5.6 would not be enough, i usually stay at around F10 any higher i don…

If you are using an APS-C camera or a FF above 30MP, at f/10 you are already suffering from diffraction. You really want to be between f/5.6 and f/8. Of course, composition is still the most important thing, so if you need the depth of field you need the depth field.

As for the exposure you can just use aperture priority with your ISO set to the base ISO. On a Nikon camera you'd actually want to be at 64. If the scene doesn't have challenging highlights then going under the base ISO or overexposing will provide even better results.

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

#198

Post by spookthesunset »

alberth wrote: post #181

> “I think the 12 MP shooting default is a wise choice on Apple’s part, but it does mean that the giant leap in image quality on iPhone 14 Pro remains mostly hidden unless you choose to use a third party app to shoot 48 MP JPG / HEIC images or shoot in ProRAW and edit your photos later.” This, 100%. The massive difference in image quality is when shooting in RAW. That’s when you actually get the 48MP & the images are…

Yeah but that is just software… and software is much more mailable than hardware. At some point perhaps the default will be 48mp

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

#199

Post by xdfgh1112 »

city17 wrote: post #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.

Well yeah but it doesn't hurt to make photography more accessible to everyone.

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

#200

Post by xdfgh1112 »

sys32768 wrote: post #47

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?

Because landscape photos are easy. No bokeh, no depth of field (everything at infinity), good lighting, no need for fast shutter speed or a big sensor. Your images will be sharper I guess, but that's not worth $2k in most cases.
Post reply on HN