

IPhone 4S against all other iPhone models (low light shooting) - mrpollo
http://campl.us/posts/Low-Light

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bprater
I think we've finally came to the place where consumer-grade digital cameras
will quickly begin to fade out. The images and video coming from the 4S are
mind-blowing -- I'm still dumbfounded such a small lens array can produce such
clear photos. (Check Vimeo's iPhone video channel.)

The only thing my 4S lacks that my point-and-shoot has is an optical zoom.
Beyond that, the phone's ecosystem of photo apps plus the ability to drop
photos into Facebook in seconds makes warehousing my old digital a no-brainer.

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sehugg
One thing smartphone cameras still don't do for me is minimize the time
between wanting to take a shot and taking a shot. This is one area I think
consumer cameras could also be improved. Ideally I'd like one button for
pictures, one for video -- mash it down, the camera powers on and figures out
what to do as fast as possible.

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alastairpat
Compact cameras are still terrible in that regard; you can only get that 'off
to photo taken in 0.3 seconds' with SLRs today. It's thus not really a valid
argument for compact digital cameras still having relevance.

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pavel_lishin
Imagine that your customer is drunk.

Digital cameras win hands down. Slam the power button, slam the photo button,
and you have at least a blurry blackmail-worthy shot of your friend dancing
with a hobo.

With a mobile phone, by the time I get the app up and running, the hobo is
gone and my friend is left with nothing but hobo sweat.

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jtreminio
On my Galaxy II, whenever I want to have the camera functionality ready, I
open the camera app and press the power button. The screen turns off, and I
simply need to wake the phone back on to be immediately ready to take a
blackmail picture.

This is even quicker with the "NoLock" app that disables the lock screen.

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ghshephard
My Finger DNA has already memorized "Double Click + Camera Icon" from the lock
screen, and then hit the shutter release/+ button on the iPhone like mad.

Even on the relatively poor shutter speed iPhone 4, I'm usually taking
pictures within 2-3 seconds. Supposedly the 4S has significantly reduced the
shutter-lag to first picture - looking forward to seeing the truth of that.

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pavel_lishin
Double-click and Camera Icon? For me, double-clicking just brings up the
iTunes/iPod interface.

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hexley
Update to ios 5

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codenerdz
Both iPhone and iPhone 4S have great cameras, but I have recently tested 4S
camera vs Sprints Epic Touch 4G(Samsung Galaxy S 2) and couldnt find
discernible quality differences that would make iPhone 4S stand out.

Furthermore I loved the fact that Samsung's Camera software allows you to
specify the ISO and focus mode(spot/center/etc) whereas neither Camera+ nor
iPhones Camera app provides for ISO manipulation(I dont recall if Camera+
allows specifying focus modes) -- this could be a limitation of iOS SDK.

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bkorte
Manual controls would be great.

Camera+ lets you separately control focus point and metering point, that's
most likely what you're looking for in "focus modes".

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mixmastamyk
I wish they had used a mini tripod to minimize blurriness. It also doesn't
sound like they were able to use Camera+ on the earlier models, therefore the
shots had different settings. The photos for the models pre-iphone 4 aren't
really comparable then, though I appreciate the effort.

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artursapek
Using a tripod would have made this article irrelevant, nobody ever actually
uses a mini-tripod when shooting with their phone.

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newhouseb
Not true, as per the scientific method you only want to test typically along
one dimension (in this case sensor quality).

If the cameras are subject a random motion which causes blur greater than the
blur caused by low-light conditions then the results are meaningless as the
random motion is independent of the variable being tested.

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suivix
I disagree because you want to test photographs from a human holding it, not a
tripod holding it. Perhaps you could take dozens of shots with each phone and
compare.

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wtvanhest
suivix nailed it. Photography is not one dimensional. A great photograph with
a camera phone must be handheld. Suivix's point about taking a great number of
photos then comparing the results with a huge sample then making a
quantitative assessment would be the only correct way to test it.

This post wasn't about the quality of the sensor it was about the quality of
the photograph.

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newhouseb
Increasing the number of photographs would definitely make this more
significant (as increasing the sample size in any experiment does).

My point is that regardless of if a 4S shot better photos, the photographer
could hiccup and get a blurrier photo than they might have taken last with a
3GS. In a less extreme circumstance, they could have just exhaled instead of
hiccuping, in which case no one would have noticed and the error could be
incorrectly attributed to the camera.

A great photograph with a camera phone requires a certain set of parameters
that can almost entirely be individually measured outside of human interaction
(and randomness). If you want good handheld performance, you need a fast
exposure time, which can be measured from the EXIF data of each photo. If you
want high dynamic range, measure the ratio of pure white and black pixels to
the rest of the image (white and black is basically over/underexposed). The
only thing that would be effected by motion that I can't think of how else to
measure beyond being handheld is time to good focus (outside of crazy
contraptions that result in more repeatable motion, like sticking your phone
in a centrifuge), but there probably exists a way to do so while avoiding the
inherent non-repeatability of humans behavior.

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joejohnson
Can anyone explain (simply) what the Camera+ app does that might be different
than the integrated iOS camera app?

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codenerdz
Camera+ provides several functions that I would consider super useful:

1) Timer mode -- allows me to minimize the shake in the less-than-ideal light
situation.

2) Separate focus/exposure locks

It also adds a number of post-processing filters, but these are a dime a dozen
in this post-Instagram world

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gcb
> 2) Separate focus/exposure locks

in hardware? or software post processing?

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alanfalcon
In hardware. It's not post-processing, it's real camera control.

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zobzu
Impressive how this site always have shacky blurred pics and claims to make a
comparison. WTF is this seriously?

Oh i know. Bullshit that's what. They don't even care.

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TheIronYuppie
This is an outstanding comparison. Roughly speaking, are there configuration
settings required? Or is this just click?

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TeeOff
No, it's a crap comparison...

Focus varies, exposure varies and I'm shure the stability of the person taking
those pictures varies too.

It tells _nothing_ about the quality of the camera (hardware) or the software
(in phone post processing).

Meh.

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tdoggette
"Nothing," really? This seems like a very real-world sort of test that gives a
fairly decent indication of the kind of pictures that you're likely to get in
the conditions indicated. It's not scientific, and there are lots of
uncontrolled variables, but it's still _useful_.

