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iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

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Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#21

Post by grecy »

ssijak wrote: post #13
zobzu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the photo of the woman is terrible. I don't blame the phone for it, its very hard to achieve with small sensors, and the iphone is probably the best of the bunch. But it doesn't make the picture quality near "good-enough" for that scenario. With slightly better lighting it can be "good enough" to be hard to distinguish from a bigger sensor camera for "web" where "web" really means ~6inch phone display - and t…

What percentage of people would rate portrait photo with bokeh much much better from a DSLR than from an iPhone 12 pro (or any other top Android phone) in a blind test? I would say that more people will prefer the phone photo, unless you edit the dslr photo (which phone is doing automatically unless you shoot RAW on iPhone).

I would guess close to 0% of people, IFF we're looking at the photos side by side on a phone screen, or maybe a crappy laptop screen.

Put them both on a hi-res display, or HD TV or (even better) print them out in large format. Then there's no comparison.

So it really comes down to how is the photo going to be used.

And for 99% of photos taken these days, viewing it on a small screen is the purpose, so the phone camera is perfectly good enough.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#22

Post by crazygringo »

ponker wrote: post #3

Imagine if Apple or Google shipped a digital SLR with all of their software magic onboard (or executed on a paired phone).

I don't really see the point.

Things like low-light photography has always been available on DSLR's, like SLR's long before it, since you've always been able to control shutter speed, aperture, and ISO.

And all the extra software magic can already be done on your laptop on RAW files, where you've got enough space on your screen for all the sliders -- and a large enough screen to see the difference it makes in the details.

These days, pretty much the only people shooting with DSLR's are the people who want/need that fine-grained manual control anyways.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#23

Post by gomox »

aloknnikhil wrote: post #10
ponker wrote: post #3

Imagine if Apple or Google shipped a digital SLR with all of their software magic onboard (or executed on a paired phone).

I think there was a thread here on the disadvantages of all the software processing in phone cameras today. I had a similar experience trying to capture the orange skies when the wildfires were raging here in California. My iPhone corrected every single image to remove the orange and replace it with a dark gray sky. It looked more overcast than apocalyptic. But I'm not fully against the idea of shipping some of those…

I would be surprised if any other auto white balance camera (basically any digital camera on the market) didn't do the same in that situation.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#25

Post by KineticLensman »

zobzu wrote: post #12
jseliger wrote: post #2

In some ways, this feels like the reviews of the last couple of generations of iPhone: it can work really well in very good light and at typical web resolutions. The photo of the woman in the parka is very impressive as a technical demonstration but is also pretty blurry/smeared, to my eye. As an only camera, it's probably the best or near the best of the phones.

I think the photo of the woman is terrible. I don't blame the phone for it, its very hard to achieve with small sensors, and the iphone is probably the best of the bunch. But it doesn't make the picture quality near "good-enough" for that scenario. With slightly better lighting it can be "good enough" to be hard to distinguish from a bigger sensor camera for "web" where "web" really means ~6inch phone display - and t…

> I think the photo of the woman is terrible

This is partly because the flash has blasted her face with light losing all the shape except for an ugly shadow under her nose. With my Nikon I could try at (very) high ISO for a natural-light shot or use an off-camera flash to shape her face in a more flattering way. But perhaps people used to the very flat / boring light common in mirror selfies won't care about this.

The blur on the edges of the fur look digitally smeared rather than optically blurred.

[edit - okay, I didn't spot that he used off screen light rather than flash. But the effect is similar and hasn't given any pleasing sculpting of the subject. Other processing may have made things worse]

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#26

Post by dylan604 »

shen wrote: post #6
ponker wrote: post #3

Imagine if Apple or Google shipped a digital SLR with all of their software magic onboard (or executed on a paired phone).

It will be dismissed as a toy by your typical dpreview crowd because “software magic” is the antithesis of specs.

Well, yeah, because the software magic is a pure attempt to make up for the lack of specs. Sensors the size that fit in phones will never be able to create shallow depth of field naturally, so fix it in post. Sensors the size that fit in a phone will never have the same light sensitivity, so fix it in post with AI (even better?!).

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#27

Post by sudosysgen »

grecy wrote: post #21
ssijak wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What percentage of people would rate portrait photo with bokeh much much better from a DSLR than from an iPhone 12 pro (or any other top Android phone) in a blind test? I would say that more people will prefer the phone photo, unless you edit the dslr photo (which phone is doing automatically unless you shoot RAW on iPhone).

I would guess close to 0% of people, IFF we're looking at the photos side by side on a phone screen, or maybe a crappy laptop screen. Put them both on a hi-res display, or HD TV or (even better) print them out in large format. Then there's no comparison. So it really comes down to how is the photo going to be used. And for 99% of photos taken these days, viewing it on a small screen is the purpose, so the phone camer…

For this picture specifically, which is the one OP was talking about: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/50730c37e4b03a...

Yes, anyone could tell the difference between this taken on a dedicated camera and this taken on iPhone. Really, anyone. No matter the resolution.

It really does just look like a blurry mess. A cheap 150$ DSLR with a bottom-bargain Chinese or very old lens (at say, F1.4 or lower) would provide significantly better results.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#28

Post by crazygringo »

aloknnikhil wrote: post #10
ponker wrote: post #3

Imagine if Apple or Google shipped a digital SLR with all of their software magic onboard (or executed on a paired phone).

I think there was a thread here on the disadvantages of all the software processing in phone cameras today. I had a similar experience trying to capture the orange skies when the wildfires were raging here in California. My iPhone corrected every single image to remove the orange and replace it with a dark gray sky. It looked more overcast than apocalyptic. But I'm not fully against the idea of shipping some of those…

What you're describing is the problem with auto white balance, which affects phone cameras and webcams equally. Often it works well, but sometimes (like in your case) it fails disastrously.

Unfortunately the iPhone (and Mac's built-in FaceTime) cameras have no option to manually set the white balance. You need to use third-party apps/webcams to handle it.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#29

Post by yladiz »

ssijak wrote: post #13
zobzu wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the photo of the woman is terrible. I don't blame the phone for it, its very hard to achieve with small sensors, and the iphone is probably the best of the bunch. But it doesn't make the picture quality near "good-enough" for that scenario. With slightly better lighting it can be "good enough" to be hard to distinguish from a bigger sensor camera for "web" where "web" really means ~6inch phone display - and t…

What percentage of people would rate portrait photo with bokeh much much better from a DSLR than from an iPhone 12 pro (or any other top Android phone) in a blind test? I would say that more people will prefer the phone photo, unless you edit the dslr photo (which phone is doing automatically unless you shoot RAW on iPhone).

I don't know how you would define "better", but if you mean higher quality, I'm certain that most people would be able to pick out the DSLR version in a "blind" test, even if you used the same approx. lens focal length on the DSLR and the phone (e.g. 52mm when comparing to iPhone). I would guess people would prefer the DSLR one, but it's simply a guess (and I'm biased because I know more or less what to look for).

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#30

Post by sudosysgen »

crazygringo wrote: post #22
ponker wrote: post #3

Imagine if Apple or Google shipped a digital SLR with all of their software magic onboard (or executed on a paired phone).

I don't really see the point. Things like low-light photography has always been available on DSLR's, like SLR's long before it, since you've always been able to control shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. And all the extra software magic can already be done on your laptop on RAW files, where you've got enough space on your screen for all the sliders -- and a large enough screen to see the difference it makes in the det…

The big issue that's missing are stacked exposure RAW files with gyroscope and accelerometer data.

When that becomes available, then yes the possible processing on a computer will match and exceed what can be done on a phone.

If any camera would be able to do it, I'd bet on the Sony A9iii or A7iv.

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