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iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

austinmann.com

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Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#31

Post by Tade0 »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #19

I've always found it odd nobody, specifically Samsung or Sony (since Sony already makes their own high-end CMOS sensors), doesn't ship a phone with a slightly superior sensor? Yes, I get the unit economics of it (at least I think I do, I've never worked in the phone industry so that could easily be hubris on my part), but if you can spend an extra few dollars or even tens of dollars on your BOM for something that is…

My take is that it's easier to sell parts to manufacturers who bear the expense of marketing.

Certain iPhones were manufactured by Samsung, cameras for a long time were almost exclusively supplied by Sony.

I guess someone ran the number on that and figured it would make more sense financially.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#32

Post by gizmodo59 »

pgib wrote: post #15

I got the iPhone 12 Pro after using my iPhone X for the last three years. I was mostly excited about a big camera upgrade, and there are definitely some big improvements from what I have been using. But I'm not 100% sure if I'm going to keep it. I'm not sure I'm blown away enough for just shy of CDN $2,000. Even though it's almost the same size, it feels considerably bigger than my X, and I'm not a fan of the matte b…

The X is my favorite by far. It was a leap in terms of the user experience and design. I think all the versions that followed that doesn't change the user experience by that much. May be we will see one in the 20th anniversary edition!

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#33

Post by detaro »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #19

I've always found it odd nobody, specifically Samsung or Sony (since Sony already makes their own high-end CMOS sensors), doesn't ship a phone with a slightly superior sensor? Yes, I get the unit economics of it (at least I think I do, I've never worked in the phone industry so that could easily be hubris on my part), but if you can spend an extra few dollars or even tens of dollars on your BOM for something that is…

I don't think attempts at specifically photo-optimized smartphones have done that well when it was tried, and at least Sony is probably happy having their sensors in everyone elses high-end phones (which I think is the case). And in the form-factor of a normal high-end phone it's probably not just "just use a more expensive sensor", the top models likely are already near the top of what's possible sensor-wise.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#34

Post by mrkstu »

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…

Apple ProRaw should allow best of both worlds:

https://www.techradar.com/news/what-is-apple-proraw-the-new-...

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#35

Post by sudosysgen »

jeffbee wrote: post #4
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).

The ability to acquire a raw image over USB from a real camera would be amazing.

gphoto is a linux utility that allows you to do just that :)

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#36

Post by feifan »

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).

> executed on a paired phone

One constraint around this is the sheer bandwidth required to do any sort of live processing (either for viewfinding purposes or autofocus) — the latency (and even bandwidth) of anything less than a direct raw feed into the processor isn't gonna be good enough.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#37

Post by varispeed »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #19

I've always found it odd nobody, specifically Samsung or Sony (since Sony already makes their own high-end CMOS sensors), doesn't ship a phone with a slightly superior sensor? Yes, I get the unit economics of it (at least I think I do, I've never worked in the phone industry so that could easily be hubris on my part), but if you can spend an extra few dollars or even tens of dollars on your BOM for something that is…

It probably depends on what scale these parts can be provided on. It is possible that for a digital camera the supply capability could meet the demands but would struggle with the volume required for a phone.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#38

Post by Synaesthesia »

BigBubbleButt wrote: post #19

I've always found it odd nobody, specifically Samsung or Sony (since Sony already makes their own high-end CMOS sensors), doesn't ship a phone with a slightly superior sensor? Yes, I get the unit economics of it (at least I think I do, I've never worked in the phone industry so that could easily be hubris on my part), but if you can spend an extra few dollars or even tens of dollars on your BOM for something that is…

Samsung, Huawei, Sony, Apple, they're always trying to put the best and latest sensors on their phones.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#39

Post by Shivetya »

gizmodo59 wrote: post #32
pgib wrote: post #15

I got the iPhone 12 Pro after using my iPhone X for the last three years. I was mostly excited about a big camera upgrade, and there are definitely some big improvements from what I have been using. But I'm not 100% sure if I'm going to keep it. I'm not sure I'm blown away enough for just shy of CDN $2,000. Even though it's almost the same size, it feels considerably bigger than my X, and I'm not a fan of the matte b…

The X is my favorite by far. It was a leap in terms of the user experience and design. I think all the versions that followed that doesn't change the user experience by that much. May be we will see one in the 20th anniversary edition!

and here I am looking to go to the Mini because at this point the phone's cameras have been more capable than I have for ages and all I want is a phone but without the size and weight that makes me notice I am carrying it.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#40

Post by TrainedMonkey »

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…

You are correct that a larger sensor would capture more photons, however I think you are not comparing apples to apples. That picture is a snapshot with basically 0 visible light and was made possible by capturing a lot of channels and running a remarkable software enhancement. AFAIK, there is no API to do anything like that with uploaded raw picture (0). So to get a similar quality picture with a larger sensor you will need a long exposure time... and an average human subject shivering in a cold environment will come out way blurrier.

Good portraits are usually made by excellent lightning conditions. As a portrait this picture is average, but when you take conditions in the account the result is quite amazing.

(0) That is an assumption I am making which might be wrong. You could also definitely do this by hand by investing 100-1000x more time.

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