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

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

#51

Post by coder543 »

NavinF wrote: post #21
willis936 wrote: post #6

The 48 MP bayer mode is indeed impressive, but it does not increase the spatial frequency response. I recently used it to document some color transition errors on LG OLED displays and even with the 48 MP "RAW" mode there are artifacts from the limited spatial resolution. One of the images properly captures the display sub-pixel layout, but that is taken closer to the display. Enabling/disabling "RAW" did not change t…

Why does that happen? Is it because there's a physical antialiasing filter in the lens?

Quad Bayer: https://www.dpreview.com/files/p/articles/4088675984/Quad_Ba...

The 48MP sensor still has 48MP of monochromatic resolution, but it only has 12MP of effective color resolution. You'll still see fine details, but the colors are not as high resolution as the details. This is rarely a problem, given the way the human eye processes color.

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

#52

Post by willis936 »

NavinF wrote: post #21
willis936 wrote: post #6

The 48 MP bayer mode is indeed impressive, but it does not increase the spatial frequency response. I recently used it to document some color transition errors on LG OLED displays and even with the 48 MP "RAW" mode there are artifacts from the limited spatial resolution. One of the images properly captures the display sub-pixel layout, but that is taken closer to the display. Enabling/disabling "RAW" did not change t…

Why does that happen? Is it because there's a physical antialiasing filter in the lens?

I'm not an optics expert, but I expect that the physical system's spatial bandwidth is much higher than the sensor's bandwidth. That is to say, if there were more light sensing elements I think the spatial bandwidth would be higher.

I don't think the artifacts are directly from aliasing but rather an artifact of software interpolation.

It anyone knows better please correct me.

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

#53

Post by pb7 »

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.

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

#54

Post by foldr »

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?

I wouldn't necessarily assume that the optics are superior. Smartphone lenses are pretty sophisticated. Also, their smaller size and far greater production numbers open up manufacturing techniques that wouldn't be practical for DSLR lenses.

Edit: Apologies for commenting on downvotes, but I'd be genuinely curious to see some objective evidence that the optics of a typical DSLR lens have a superior design. Of course it is true that larger lenses for larger sensors tend to be superior because they do not need to resolve as many lines per mm and they do not need to be machined as precisely (all else being equal). But does anyone know of any actual lab tests that make relevant comparisons? I am a bit tired of people just assuming that DLSR lenses are higher quality than smartphone lenses, even though the cost of modern smartphones, and the enormous disparity in the number of units sold, makes it far from obvious that this should be the case.

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

#55

Post by willis936 »

coder543 wrote: post #45
willis936 wrote: post #6

The 48 MP bayer mode is indeed impressive, but it does not increase the spatial frequency response. I recently used it to document some color transition errors on LG OLED displays and even with the 48 MP "RAW" mode there are artifacts from the limited spatial resolution. One of the images properly captures the display sub-pixel layout, but that is taken closer to the display. Enabling/disabling "RAW" did not change t…

If you take a photo of a subject that is closer than 7.8 inches, you're no longer using the main camera on the 14 Pro. It automatically switches to the ultrawide camera and crops in to show the same field of view. I suspect that is happening to you in some cases, but you're unaware, based on the fact that you didn't mention anything about this limit. The 48MP camera has the same color spatial resolution as a 12MP cam…

Ah that would be my problem. I took zoomed photos to avoid lens distortion. The ultrawide would have been a better option.

This wasn't meant to be a nice dataset, it was just something I quickly tried to document my observation to a single other human. I would have been more careful if I expected to share it more widely.

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

#56

Post by foldr »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #22
mkaic wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until that same fancy processing is available on a DSLR, I think the comparison OP is making is valid. At the end of the day, what I as a consumer care about is "is photo look 1. pleasing, 2. accurate to my perception, and 3. easy to create?" and in those regards, the iPhone absolutely outperforms every DSLR I've ever used.

I didn't say a phone camera isn't better for the average consumer... I use my phone camera far more often than my actual camera... But there's no world in which it's technically superior to a real camera, especially one with in-camera processing or in the hands of a professional with access to and skill with professional post-processing software.

>real camera

A minor and pedantic point, but could we stop with the idea that smartphone cameras are somehow not 'real'? They are enormously sophisticated imaging devices that comprehensively outperform, for example, the 35mm film SLRs that many photographers were using in the 90s. An iPhone 14 enables you to take technically superior photos to the photos that professional photographers were taking only a couple of decades ago.

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

#57

Post by pcurve »

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.

Yep. Dslr and large sensors count when it comes to making every pixel count without introducing artifacts

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

#58

Post by cdevroe »

k2enemy wrote: post #32

The author clearly knows a lot about photography, so I don't think this is a mistake in the article... When did "depth of field" begin meaning the opposite of what it traditionally meant in photography? For example: A nice side benefit of a larger sensor is a bit more depth of field. At a 13mm full-frame equivalent, you really can’t expect too much subject separation, but this shot shows some nice blurry figures in t…

I think you're right. The point they were trying to make is that there is more separation between the subject and the background. So, in a way, an _improved_ DOF if not a _greater_ or _shallower_ DOF.

Maybe?

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

#59

Post by [deleted] »

k2enemy wrote: post #32

The author clearly knows a lot about photography, so I don't think this is a mistake in the article... When did "depth of field" begin meaning the opposite of what it traditionally meant in photography? For example: A nice side benefit of a larger sensor is a bit more depth of field. At a 13mm full-frame equivalent, you really can’t expect too much subject separation, but this shot shows some nice blurry figures in t…

[deleted]

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

#60

Post by fassssst »

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?

Just shoot your mirrorless in RAW and process them later. Lightroom gives great results, but you can also use Apple Photos to get similar color processing as your iPhone photos.

The mirrorless photos will look much better on a laptop or bigger screen but about the same on a phone.

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