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iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

austinmann.com

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Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#51

Post by bradenb »

vladvasiliu wrote: post #44
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…

What do you mean by "slightly superior sensor"? Do you assume that there exist (or someone could produce with today's technology) sensors that are "objectively" better that the current phone sensors? In my opinion the limiting factor in phone cameras is the size. Of course, for a given size a cheap, crappy sensor will give crappy results. But I wouldn't be surprised that sensors used in flagship phones are actually p…

I think he's postulating that the sensor+phone manufacturers could give themselves an edge by only selling less-than-top-of-the-line sensors to their competitors.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#52

Post by kristofferR »

KineticLensman wrote: post #25
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…

> 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. Th…

He didn't use a flash for that image, the only light was from another phone screen. And it was a three second hand-held, it's impressively clear for what it is.

> This Portrait mode w/ Night mode 3-second exposure was shot with the iPhone 12 Pro in my right hand. Simultaneously, in my left hand, I held my iPhone 11 Pro and used the light emitting from the screen (not the flash) as an off-camera fill light for Esther’s face.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#53

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

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…

Does iPhone not have a pro mode? On my Samsung phone I put it into pro, adjusted the white-balance inside and then pointed my camera outside.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#54

Post by [deleted] »

ciarannolan wrote: post #7

I wish these reviews would post the full res images. I clicked "View Image" on a few of these to see just the photo but they're all cropped and compressed. Almost any flagship phone can produce similar pics to the ones in this article. The devil is really in the details now.

[deleted]

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#56

Post by vladvasiliu »

bradenb wrote: post #51
vladvasiliu wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "slightly superior sensor"? Do you assume that there exist (or someone could produce with today's technology) sensors that are "objectively" better that the current phone sensors? In my opinion the limiting factor in phone cameras is the size. Of course, for a given size a cheap, crappy sensor will give crappy results. But I wouldn't be surprised that sensors used in flagship phones are actually p…

I think he's postulating that the sensor+phone manufacturers could give themselves an edge by only selling less-than-top-of-the-line sensors to their competitors.

OK, I didn't read it like that. My reading was more along the lines of "manufacturers are cheap, when they could pay extra for a better sensor and mark up their product accordingly".

Unfortunately I don't remember where this was, but I read that the way Sony is setup they couldn't really do it.

This was related to "actual cameras", not phone cameras, but the article's point was that "Sony sensors" was a separate division, and Sony Cameras would be their client, just as, say, Nikon.

Nikon was supposedly taking part in the design of the sensors Sony would manufacture for them and this design was only to be used for Nikon. So if some engineer came up with some revolutionary idea, at least in theory, Sony cameras wouldn't be able to use it.

Not sure if this is the case with the phones, too, but I wouldn't be surprised if at least Apple took a similar approach with this.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#57

Post by dham »

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…

For the same price you can get a nice DSLR and the iPhone SE 2. That's what I did. Heck even my Nikon D70 from 2008(bought it used in 2011) can still run circles around even the most expensive phones for pictures. Best camera is the one you have on you, well when you have kids you haul the DSLR around anyway. Sorry.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#58

Post by numpad0 »

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).

There are surprisingly little “cultural” differences between iPhone and dSLR, iPhone shots look like a Nikon at wrong ISO.

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#59

Post by sgt »

vmception wrote: post #46

Just bought mine :) I hope the Lidar can help portrait mode and other AI depth of field techniques work at further distances to a subject If this becomes true I chuck all of my DSLR-form factor cameras immediately, its over.

This review is seriously tempting me into buying one. I thought I was happy with my XS!

Re: iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review

#60

Post by numpad0 »

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…

What’s the point of winning the camera game just for one generation? 808 PureView did absolutely nothing in saving Nokia.
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