
How does the iPhone 4S camera stack up against other cameras? - brackin
http://campl.us/iPhone-Camera-Comparison
======
nlanier
As a professional photographer, comparisons like this drive me absolutely
insane, especially when they are called "incredible".

Look, the iPhone 4s processes images with in-camera software and does it
aggressively so images look pretty to the average user. They are over-
saturated and over-sharpened. And the lack of detail captured by the small
sensor all but negates the possibility of any REAL post processing.

I get it. The consumer doesn't care. They just know the pictures look pretty.
The practicing photographer knows better.

The video comparisons are even more futile. The depth of field, flexibility,
and low light performance of the 5D Mark II is so far beyond the iPhone 4s it
makes my head spin.

We are headed into exciting times when a device smaller than a deck of cards
will replace a device the size of a toaster. I know. But we aren't there yet.
Really, we aren't even close.

~~~
gbog
May I ask you, as a professional photographer, what do you think about the
eruption of strong effects in photos shared with instagram. I fell like it is
something fake, that it will look weird or stupid in a few months.

~~~
nlanier
I think it's unfortunate but I can understand it's appeal and why people like
it. Anyone can turn a crap photo into an appealing image with the application
of a filter. Who wouldn't love that? It's like MSG for photography.

It doesn't bother me nearly as much as poorly done High Dynamic Range images.
. .

~~~
gbog
Well, a maybe better comparison would be some sound effects heavily used in
the eighties. I don't know nothing about photo, that's why I ask, but about
sound I know a bit more, and there you have two kinds of effects:

1- The normal enhancements you are not supposed to hear. Maybe a bit of reverb
or compression. For these effects, in my experience, the proper way to tune it
is to turn the knob until you hear it, and then turn it back half ways.

2- The exceptional strong effect that is part of the sound. Here, you should
turn knobs to their max, it will make a different sound.

The "instagram" plague looks to me like if everyone in every music would
suddenly add 150% of one type of reverb, and everyone would blindly think it
is great, and in two years none of these will be heard (seen) without
laughing.

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nostromo
The huge leap forward between 3G and 3Gs is mostly the addition of focus.
Before 3GS, the iPhone camera was fixed focus.

Taking a photo of something close up looked terrible, like the key does in the
photo. I'm guessing they optimized the fixed focus to an object much further
away from the camera.

~~~
dpark
They optimized the focus for taking pictures of groups of people and
landmarks, most likely, and neither of those tend to sit inches from the lens.

~~~
wisty
Yet they used an apature of f/2.8. Most phones have a high apature, so they
focus on everything badly (landscape mode). The original iPhone has a lazer-
sharp focus on everything a certain fixed distance away, and blurs everything
else, but you can't actually set that distance.

So you can get a few great shots (good for ads / PR), but most will be pretty
crummy unless you get used to picking the right distance.

~~~
dpark
I'm guessing they took this in low light, so the phone opened up the aperture
to compensate. (This also explains why one of the camera shots had ridiculous
ISO.) I don't actually know for sure if the iPhone has an asjustable aperture,
but I would assume so.

~~~
tsunamifury
Aperture measurements are relative to the lens/sensor. Most people don't
understand this

f2.8 on a cameraphone =/= f2.8 on an SLR =/= f2.8 on a Medium format camera.

~~~
dpark
Aperture has nothing to do with the sensor. It's strictly a lens measurement.
Sensor size affects the cost to build a lens with a given aperture (cheaper
for smaller sensors, though that tends to balance out due to the difference in
enlargement), but the sensor doesn't affect the actual aperture.

~~~
tsunamifury
Actually yes it does. the Aperture size is relative to the spread of light
that falls on the sensor/film/recording space. As the F number is the focal
legnth, it matters how big the sensor is to define that focal legnth.

Read up on it here:<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aperture>

~~~
dpark
Actually no, it doesn't. You can have a 50/2.8 on a crop frame camera or on a
full frame or a medium format. The different sensor size may dictate different
lens construction due to the larger image circle, but it does not dictate the
focal length, the aperture, or the ratio between the two.

And the F-number is not the focal length. It's the ratio of focal length to
absolute effective aperture size.

------
chubs
This is a brilliant way to promote their app (cam plus) - a great blog post
that adds value, and indirectly is used to promote their app while drawing
traffic to their site.

I should use that idea with promoting my apps!

------
rplst8
I see a lot of differences in hue/saturation between the S95/5D and the iPhone
4/4S. Reds are redder, blues are bluer. Over saturated images can definitely
be pleasing, but typically are not natural.

If the S95 was set to "Vivid" in the color settings, I think the result would
be very similar to the iPhone 4/4S.

The other interesting thing...

According to the EXIF, the iPhone was shot with an ISO of 60. The S95 EXIF
reports 20,480. That sounds strange to me... And possibly purposefully
misleading.

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mediamaker
got lucky and shot a hummingbird taking a bath today with my 4s. It's a good
example of the video quality this phone offers:
<http://vimeo.com/mediamaker/hummingbird-iphone4s>

~~~
dhbanes
Great video, awesome catch.

------
muhfuhkuh
There's _got_ to be some shenanigans going on when the iPhone 4s shot of the
city looks _better_ than the 5DMKII, an essentially $3000 camera.

~~~
ben_straub
Not so shocking, actually. The 5D is a pro camera, and you're expected to pull
the RAW data into Lightroom and manually tweak and tune the final product. Its
output is optimized for this workflow: minimum processing in-camera, maximum
options later.

The iPhone's software, on the other hand, is doing some auto-adjustment before
the file hits the SD card. It's optimized for a decent photo without any
manual steps.

Also, notice the distortion in the iPhone photo: the buildings "lean" towards
each other. The Canon 24-70mm f/2.8 is a _nice_ piece of glass, and is worth
every penny of its $1500 asking price.

tl;dr: Take the 5D shot (in RAW, hopefully) and let a pro have a shot at it in
Lightroom. _That's_ a fair comparison.

~~~
rbritton
The 5DII would have also been more accurately compared with the Canon EF 24mm
f/1.4L II lens (according to the Exif data the sample photo was shot at 24mm).

The iPhone 4S's camera is a fixed focal length while the Canon lens they used
is a zoom lens. Zoom lenses trade certain attributes for the flexibility of
being able to zoom, one of which is corner softness at wide open apertures.
The 24-70 is a decent all-around lens, and I have used it extensively, but I
have never encountered a zoom lens that reaches the same image quality as a
fixed lens for the same focal length.

~~~
sk5t
With those little bitty scaled-down snaps, there ought to be no discernible
corner softness with a big 2.8 pro zoom (and IMHO there isn't); we're mostly
eyeballing center sharpness, white balance, and range of contrast. Of course
there'd be less barrel distortion with a prime... but it doesn't stand out
either way with these scenes.

You can see there's a little less blowout on the shiny roof with the 5D, and
quite a bit more detail in the shadowed city streets. Certainly a higher color
temperature, probably more accurate. But the 4S is quite impressive
nevertheless. No apparent vignette issues.

These photos are not useful for assessing high ISO noise/grain...

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buff-a
Gosh! That _is_ incredible!

I was genuinely expecting a detailed breakdown of the lenses and hardware.
Instead what we got was a comparison of images from each camera. And an ad for
a camera app.

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jerrya
But really, there is no lens cover, and these things are shoved into a pocket
with keys and coins and lint. How is it any phone can take good pictures (as
to win contests, and our imaginations.)

Why do so many (most) high end smartphones have no lens covers? It's the first
think I would add to a smartphone I design, and yet, I am obviously completely
wrong.

~~~
jacobolus
You have to _really_ damage the front of a lens to start noticeably degrading
image quality. The nice thing about a lens is that for points in focus, light
rays coming from the same direction hit the same spot on the sensor,
regardless of which part of the front of the lens they pass through.

See for example <http://kurtmunger.com/dirty_lens_articleid35.html>

~~~
jerrya
That was a terrific link and response, thank you.

OTOH, the surface area of the lens he damaged is enormous compared to the tiny
little lens on my phone....

------
ck2
Also, here is a neat video comparison between iphone 4s and Canon 5d MKII

<http://vimeo.com/30606785>

They used this little test rig (look at the size difference!)

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/67369108@N02/6248202568/in/phot...](http://www.flickr.com/photos/67369108@N02/6248202568/in/photostream/lightbox/)

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altrego99
Would be interesting to see such a comparison done between iPhone, and one of
its toughest competitors - say Galaxy S2.

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saturdaysaint
I'd really like to see a comparison/analysis between iOS 4.3 and iOS 5. I
noticed an immediate, dramatic improvement in subjective quality and focus
speed on my iPhone 4. I initially thought that this came down to some kind of
auto-sharpening but Lori Grunin, one of the more discriminating camera
critics, seems to pin a lot of the iPhone's quality on the AF -
[http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20122150-1/the-
iphone-4s...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20122150-1/the-
iphone-4s-and-canon-powershot-100-hs-shoot-it-out/).

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adlep
Hey Folks, Heads up, this dude is trying to raise money for a project that
turns the Iphone 4 and Iphone4S into a GoPro like device that is also
compatible with GoPro mounts... This is an awesome idea, I hope he succeeds in
this... <http://www.facebook.com/actioncase>
[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/actioncases/action-
case-...](http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/actioncases/action-case-turn-
your-iphone-4-into-an-action-came)

------
mambodog
I was quite impressed by this video[1] shot with an iPhone 4S, especially it's
handling of motion/auto stabilisation.

[1] <http://vimeo.com/30578363>

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BillPosters
Looks like unsharp mask filter is automatically applied to 4s.. which is fine
for happy snaps, but if DSLR cameras applied such sharpening automatically
without the option to turn it off, just watch photographers around the world
take to the streets in protest! So many images on the web are so over-
sharpened by people who don't know how to sharpen properly or just use the
default settings.

------
mattharris
As an iPhone 3G owner I feel about this photo just like how I feel about my
iPhone: not surprised. 3GS was the phone that started opening doors.

~~~
rane
This was my initial reaction but it appears 3G has fixed focus and thus is so
much inferior to 3GS in the first pic.

------
brackin
This is pretty incredible, didn't realise how big of a jump there was. You can
see that the 4 has a highly capable camera but the 4S is even better.

I'm a 4S owner and can definitely see that it's better. Obviously you could
say Camera+ want the iPhone camera to get better as their photos will be
better and they'll sell more apps but at the same time it's impressive.

------
zwass
An absurd comparison. The first series is comparing out of focus shots from
older iPhones to in focus shots from newer iPhones. The last shot comparing
the 5DMII makes the iPhone look better but this is because we are looking at
small size photos that the iPhone by default sharpened and increased contrast
and saturation on.

~~~
nicksergeant
Not necessarily absurd. As mentioned in other comments here, the original
iPhone _had_ no focus. Objects close to the camera were naturally out of
focus.

~~~
rorrr
With that "logic" they should compare it with 5D mk II and 1200mm lens shot in
extremely low light at ISO 6400.

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rbanffy
Can we please automatically kill submissions with words like "incredible" in
the title?

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hunterowens
Amazing for sure.

~~~
sambeau
I do not know whether it is your sarcasm, your lack of sarcasm or, indeed, the
lack of clarity with regards to any sarcasm that has offended people, but—I
suspect that you would not have been down voted if you had used the word
"Incredible".

I did not find this article hard to believe; nor was it so-extraordinary-as-
to-seem-impossible. While both reactions might have been experienced first-
hand had it been shown to a pre-iPhone self, I have experienced this gradual
revolution first hand—over a period of four years.

These photographs were interesting and informative. The progression of camera
quality and the extrapolation of future camera quality (that I found hard not
to make) was Illuminating.

I could not have drawn these conclusions had the site and the photographs not
been _totally credible_.

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teflonhook
Well that's the end of the camera industry.

~~~
jseliger
1) Not really; see this discussion:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3128316> .

2) A lot of people still aren't buying smart phones because they're really
expensive. It looks like U.S. smartphone penetration in general is around 50%:
[http://www.google.com/search?q=smart+phone+penetration+unite...](http://www.google.com/search?q=smart+phone+penetration+united+states)
, and most of them don't have cameras nearly this good and won't for a while.
People who can afford a $50 – $200 pocket camera might not want to pay more
than $100 a month for a smartphone data plan.

3) That being said, the smart money is definitely on the low-end pocket camera
going away over time.

4) High-end cameras, even pocket ones (think the Canon S95 or S100 class) are
going to be around for a long time. Ditto dSLRs. Until the laws of physics get
violated, dSLRs are going to take vastly better pictures than camera phones.
Which doesn't matter to _most_ people but does to a substantial minority.

~~~
incremental
The end of the camera industry != no cameras, it really means that standalone
cameras are reduced to a niche market serving enthusiasts only.

Will that happen? Seems likely, given current trends - phone cameras like the
4S are (nearly?) good enough now, I think.

