

Robert Scoble's Galaxy S II vs iPhone 4S camera test - nextparadigms
https://plus.google.com/photos/111091089527727420853/albums/5663472490008529457

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obeattie
This a dreadful comparison. There is nothing to show depth of field; there's
no comparison between performance in low-light and harsh-light conditions; no
comparison between flashes. All-in-all, pretty useless.

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product50
Unfortunately, that is typical of Robert Scoble. You should have been warned
before you clicked on that link.

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watmough
mostlylisa on Twitter, of the taptaptap people I think, put out the following
link:

<http://campl.us/f349>

Not a comparison, but it really does show that the iPhone4S camera is pretty
damn good.

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tofu
Why does the iPhone 4 photo look the sharpest? Probably just shaky hands?

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listrophy
Probably shaky hands indeed.

While not indicative of real-world use, comparison shots like this, IMHO,
should be done with a stand... unless the only variable being tested is
"likelihood of shakiness due to camera(phone) form factor."

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rauljara
I generally agree with you, except in this case one of the specs they touted
in the iPhone announcement event was capture speed. It captures much faster
than the iPhone 4, and would be a good explanation as to why the 4s appears
less shaky.

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tofu
I don't think capture speed has any effect on the sharpness of the image,
sharpness is more down to the lens/shutter speed, I'm assuming the "speed"
touted by Apple refers to the startup time of the camera app as well as the
responsiveness of the UI and the ability to take consecutive shots faster.

Looking at the shots again, it does seem that the sharpest image, that of the
original iPhone 4, is also the noisiest, iPhone4 autoexposure set it to high-
iso/fast shutter I suppose?

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iliis
Yes, that's definitely the cause here. The iPhone 4 Picture is much darker,
meaning it was made with a higher shutter speed and therefore is much shaper
when holding it by hand. If you have a good camera lying around you can try it
out by playing with iso/aperture/shutter-speed: Make two pictures in a
dark(ish) place, one with low speed and low iso, the other with high speed and
high iso (but same aperture). Depending on how dark it actually is and how
steady your hands are, you'll see a big difference in sharpness.

The other thing are the colors, which seem much better in Samsung's picture.
This, too, has nothing per se to do with the quality of the camera but it's
settings. This time it's the white balance that's different. This is one of
the things, where camera automatics are still often wrong. A small change of
the subject can cause big differences. Moving a few centimeters more to the
left is enough...

Again, you can try that with a "real" camera. A DSLR will let you choose the
color temperature, but even cheap digital cameras have sometimes different
modi for "sunlight"/"cloudy"/"artificial light". I won't go into details here
(see [1]), sufficient to say that this can greatly affect a picture.

Also note that the picture from the Galayx II and the one from the iPhone 4S
have roughly the same brightness and sharpness. Judging from the noise and
resolution, the two cameras seem quite similiar (and are maybe even produced
by the same factory).

 _TL;DR_ This comparison is not meaningful at all. For a professional result
you would need to control the cameras completely manual and take a lot more
pictures in different settings (light, reference colors, tripod, ...).

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_balance>

EDIT: He actually made more than these three:
<https://secure.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer>

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starwed
> _For a professional result you would need to control the cameras completely
> manual and take a lot more pictures in different settings (light, reference
> colors, tripod, ...)._

Well, it's also worthwhile testing how well the automatic settings work --
that's how most folk will use the phone.

(All I really want in a camera phone is non-shitty low-light photos.)

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codenerdz
The really bad quality of iPhone 4S shot may be due to his hands shaking, we
really wouldnt know untill somebody uses a tripod to do comparative shots.
Nice thing about Galaxy S2 software though is that you can specify ISO,
focusing type as well as use a timer to deal with "shakiness" of the shot. In
less than ideal light situations, Galaxy suffers from shutter lag, i havent
tested the iphone picture taking that much though.

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phatbyte
The iphone4S seems more yellowish but it's more detailed when you look the
book words. You can't barely read any on the Galaxy unlike on iphone4S.

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barrkel
They are focused on different points. The Galaxy is focused closer than the
4S; the details on the Belkin card reader (in particular, the edge contacts in
the slots) are clearer on the Galaxy, and the difference is even more marked
on the keyboard letters. The Galaxy also has a higher exposure. On the book
paper, the lack of focus combined with overexposure has causing some bleed
into the type; but it shows better detail in shadow areas.

Much of a muchness, IMO. The two are very close, and aside from things like
color temperature (which I personally would discount and tweak later if
desired - though I wonder if the white balance is configurable on either
phone), they are all but equal.

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tvon
Full size photos on flickr: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer>

His stream, which has some other test photos with commentary:
<https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts>

~~~
barrkel
The full-size photos are available through the "download photo" link under the
actions menu in Google+.

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veyron
Who exactly is robert scoble, and what is his claim to fame? His name seems to
come up somewhat frequently

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blauwbilgorgel
I believe this is called the "Robert Scoble"-effect. One could liken it to
social media spam: I don't want to know Robert Scoble, don't find him notable,
yet his name appears everywhere.

Such people know how to insert themselves in the daily conversations and can
count on the support of their followers to carry their views far and beyond.
Most of the time those views are not much more than a catchy social hook. You
Googling his name and reading this reply will likely cement Robert Scoble in
your brain for a while longer.

I find it an interesting, albeit at times annoying, phenomenon. Like the Quora
drama (in which Scoble was able to permeate into a lot of topics):

[http://scobleizer.com/2011/01/30/why-i-was-wrong-about-
quora...](http://scobleizer.com/2011/01/30/why-i-was-wrong-about-quora-as-a-
blogging-service/)

[http://www.quora.com/Dan-Kaplan/Sorry-Scoble-Quora-is-not-
yo...](http://www.quora.com/Dan-Kaplan/Sorry-Scoble-Quora-is-not-your-
playground)

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drzaiusapelord
>I believe this is called the "Robert Scoble"-effect.

Heh, I love that. I'm going to use it.

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arkitaip
iPhone 4S produces more accurate colors. Overall, I'm delighted how great the
image quality if for all cell phones; astonishing how far we've come in just a
few years.

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jsnk
How do you tell that iPhone 4S has more accurate colors without actually
seeing the real objects?

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sjs
Maybe he has the same keyboard and has seen a can of Diet Pepsi before. It's
not hard to imagine that being true.

I think that the 4S shot is too red/yellow compared to the Galaxy II. This
sort of comparison is pretty subjective though.

(aside for evanwalsh: for the record I hate my Nexus One and have a 4S on the
way)

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stewbrew
Does he also have the same light/lamp/bulb?

Without making sure parameters & the software used were the same, such a
casual comparison doesn't seems too useful to me.

