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

iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 71 posts

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#61

Post by bradknowles »

phlsa wrote: post #17

In the “just point at something and press the shutter” scenario, phones have been just as good (and in some cases better) than dedicated cameras for a while. For me, the main reasons for using a dedicated camera are ergonomics and creative control. I rarely hold the device at eye level when taking a photo, since it makes for more interesting compositions. Somehow my fingers are always in the wrong position when I wan…

In contrast, I recently tried Halide on my older iPhone 13 Pro Max. Just taking some simple pictures here around the house of our cats, our furniture, my own feet, etc... and comparing those to pictures taken with the built-in iPhone camera app. Halide repeatedly gave me worse quality pictures with more noise, and also larger in size.

I'm really struggling to find the benefit of something like Halide. Can anyone recommend tutorials on how to make the best of a program like this, and actually demonstrate value over the built-in iPhone app? I've tried the company tutorials, and they didn't cover anything I didn't already know about photography.

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#62

Post by foldr »

vr46 wrote: post #46
foldr wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The audience of content creators like this is the ever-dwindling number of people buying expensive dedicated photographic gear. The vast majority of photography now is being done by people who aren't photo gear heads, because almost all of the gear is more than good enough.

Photography has gone through the roof in the last fifteen years due to camera phones, sure, but the overall market has increased too. I was at Photopia two days ago and I’ve not seen a better market for photography since the 1980s. Camera phones are simply the new point and shoot, taking their place at the bottom end or convenience end of the market, and many of those people enjoying using those cameras have a great…

It’s hard to square whatever sense of optimism you got from Photopia with the the actual revenues of major camera companies. For example, here they are for Canon from 2009 to the present:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenu...

I would also point out that the iPhone 15 Pro isn’t comparable to a low end point and shoot. You can buy both a decent cell phone and a decent dedicated camera for the same total cost as an iPhone 15 Pro. Many people are still willing to pay a premium for a good camera. It’s just that for most people, high end smartphone cameras are now the best all round cameras.

It’s consistently been the case in the history of photography that Photographers with a capital P are the last people to transition to new, more compact and more convenient tools. People used to be very snobbish about roll film vs sheet film, for example.

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#63

Post by fmajid »

foldr wrote: post #34
throw0101b wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The vast majority of photography now is being done by people who aren't photo gear heads, because almost all of the gear is more than good enough. And Chelsea said in that video that for around town her phone makes more than adequate shots, and it's an easy way for to simply capture a memory. But given that they often frame pictures of their trips to help remember them, they won't be printing and hanging up any pho…

>they won't be printing and hanging up any photos from their Italian trip from their phone. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of millions of other people are printing out and framing photos taken on their smartphones.

I thought printing had also gone out of style, as illustrated by Costco shutting down its minilabs even though they’ve been able to print digital photos since at least 2002 (the reason why I became a member in the first place).

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#64

Post by yunohn »

nayuki wrote: post #60
yunohn wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "quantum efficiency" - the number of electrons generated by a photon. That number is something like 0.5, which isn't far from 1.0. QE is a ratio as described by your Wikipedia link. There is a massive difference between a ratio of 0.5 and 1.0!

0.5 to 1.0 is just one F-stop in photography. If you make your sensor 2× better, that's not going to overcome a 100× reduction in front glass area when moving from a DSLR to a phone.

No, I’m saying you have completely misunderstood QE. 1 is the upper limit - 100% efficiency. You can’t just say 50% is very close to 100%!

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#65

Post by foldr »

fmajid wrote: post #63
foldr wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they won't be printing and hanging up any photos from their Italian trip from their phone. Meanwhile, literally hundreds of millions of other people are printing out and framing photos taken on their smartphones.

I thought printing had also gone out of style, as illustrated by Costco shutting down its minilabs even though they’ve been able to print digital photos since at least 2002 (the reason why I became a member in the first place).

Well, yes, I imagine it's true that people don't print photos as often as they used to, for obvious reasons. My point is that most people seem to find smartphone photos perfectly adequate for printing in the scenarios where they do still want to print photos.

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#66

Post by foldr »

Espressosaurus wrote: post #12
shortcake27 wrote: post #9

I ditched all my cameras 5 years ago in favour of convenience. I’m a bit disappointed that the difference is still so large. I was convinced phones were going to approach crop sensor quality but it’s not even close, the 80D completely smoked it. > There is a notable drawback for the iPhone 15 Pro Max in the 3X to 4.9X range (~72mm to 119mm full frame equivalent), as it’s stuck using the main sensor, rather than switc…

There's only so much you can do with a tiny sensor and mass produced plastic optics. The design going into the optics is incredible but big glass is coveted for a reason.

You say 'mass produced' and 'plastic' as if these were obviously bad things, but why?

Mass production brings down costs and makes it economical for manufacturers to spend more on R&D. If Apple was selling only as many iPhones as Cannon sells cameras, you'd be paying through the roof for all the advanced technology that goes into the iPhone camera system. I'd also point out that all modern lenses and cameras are mass produced. The lenses are not hand-ground!

Plastic moulded lenses enable aspheric designs that would be impractical or impossible to make out of glass. Given the size constraints imposed on smartphone camera lenses, the lenses would probably perform worse, not better, if they were made out of glass (which would require totally different optical designs).

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#67

Post by Zak »

grecy wrote: post #55
Zak wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also scaled to 1440x960 and... oddly for Instagram, not compressed to death. I imagine the noise would be more noticeable at full resolution or even printed relatively large and viewed at a reasonable distance.

I just looked at the full res version, I can't see any noise. Here's a gallery of full res, high ISO with my camera. Note, it's old now, there are better out there. https://havecamerawilltravel.com/sony-a7iii-high-iso-sample-...

I looked through that gallery and saw significant noise in all the images. I wouldn't consider it problematic or unusable through at least 12K, but it's there.

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#68

Post by brokenmachine »

losvedir wrote: post #25

Has anyone discussed the so-called "spatial video" (and presumably photos) yet, and how those might look or work? That's the most compelling upgrade to the iPhone to me. I'm generally satisfied with the quality of my photos now, but as someone with a 2yo and 2 week old, I'm eager to enter the "grainy 80s VHS home video" era of a new medium. Like, yeah, those old home movies were bad quality, but home video was a whol…

I don't know what spatial video is but it sounds like a gimmick.

Get a good mirrorless and take 4k videos with good lenses. They will document the memory so much better than crappy phone videos.

I got a Sony mirrorless recently and the video (and audio) quality is superb - broadcast quality.

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#69

Post by Saris »

The DSLR looks quite a bit better in all of those examples, however maybe that's me looking as a photographer and seeing the background blur from a larger sensor, better dynamic range and color, less highlight clipping, less noise, less processing 'smoothing' things, and so on.

In reality none of that really matters for day to day photos, I take casual photos to have memories of places and people, and a smartphone does just fine for that.

Re: iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

#70

Post by pertymcpert »

foldr wrote: post #33
stu2b50 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of the market. $300 point and shoots are indeed dead, but the prosumer photography market is as alive as ever, especially since the pandemic, during which every white collar worker seems to have decided to get a hobby of some kind. Analog film photography, famously, had a huge resurgence the last 5 or so years, and is quite popular.

>but the prosumer photography market is as alive as ever, I don't think you can really mean 'ever' here. Compared to the 1990s? The prosumer market might finally be starting to bottom out, but a lot depends on how much further smartphones improve. Analog photography is popular, but it is not making large amounts of money for camera manufacturers, as most people are using second hand gear.

There is a certain segment of the market which is booming more than ever, simply because this segment didn't quite exist before. It's partially fueled by a community of social media influencers.
Post reply on HN