
iPhone 8 Plus Camera Review - ruang
http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-8-camera-review-india
======
rangibaby
This isn't a review. It is a competent photographer showing off. Which is
fine, but you should be aware of it while reading.

1\. The fake bokeh looks surprisingly good. I don't think any of my non-
technical friends would be able to spot it on their own.

2\. These pictures are absolute best-cases for the iPhone (or any) camera. For
headshots with well-chosen natural light as in these pics a picture taken with
an iPhone 4 would look almost as good. "Studio lighting" and other tricks
won't fix bad light. Neither will a $6,500 Nikon D5 with a $1,000+ lens.

3\. Nikon, Canon et al need to try harder. Cellphones have already replaced
several categories of "real" cameras, and they keep improving every year.

~~~
mtgx
Nikon and Canon should have gotten into the licensing game with smartphone
manufacturers. And by that I don't mean suing their asses off "because
patents". They should've started making camera modules and lenses and sensors
for smartphones 4-5 years ago. Now it may already be too late. In 5 years,
even amateur photographers won't be using DSLRs, at the rate smartphone
computational photography is improving.

Just look at these cropped images over a span of 4 years:

[https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old...](https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-
content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old_guy_apple_comparison.png)

They got disrupted and like most incumbents, they failed to capitalize on the
disruption "because it could eat their margins" or whatever their reason for
not getting into the smartphone market was.

~~~
semi-extrinsic
> In 5 years, even amateur photographers won't be using DSLRs, at the rate
> smartphone computational photography is improving.

I call BS, if by "amateur photographers" you're talking about enthusiasts who
care about composing and exposing a great shot, not just taking a nice picture
of the kids in front of the Christmas tree. It's like someone in 2012 saying
"at the rate smartphone input apps are progressing, in 5 years no-one will buy
physical keyboards for their computers."

The reason someone carries a DSLR today is because of the optics, the speed
and the control mechanisms. Having shutter speed, aperture, white balance etc.
at your fingertips when shooting. Having the ability to switch from a 105mm
portrait lens to a 20mm fisheye. Having that rapid autofocus and response time
that lets you capture great shots. Having 14 bit RAW files that you can post-
process to save that reflex once-in-a-lifetime shot that was underexposed.
Having the ability to mount a flash off-camera (or even three strobes). Those
are things you can never get on an iPhone or Samsung.

Nikon, Canon etc. have already "bled dry" of customers going to smartphones
instead of DSLRs, and at this point their business models look fairly stable.
The share price of both companies has also been fairly stable for the past 3-4
years; both are up 30% over the past year, although that (and a lot of their
volatility) is tied to the JPY:USD exchange rate.

~~~
shawnz
> Those are things you can never get on an iPhone or Samsung.

Why couldn't you have adjustable white balance, rapid autofocus, high response
time, high bit depth, external flash, etc on a smartphone camera? These seem
like things which should be possible even with today's technology.

~~~
dognotdog
I think once the smartphone's internal capabilities are exceeded, a "System"
(as in put together from multiple parts) DSLR or Mirrorless has more
advantages:

\- if you need more parts, eg. flash, you go from having one thing in your
pocket to carrying a bag anyway

\- dedicated UI and buttons for adjustments while shooting without having to
look away from your subject or having to change your grip

\- much larger sensors means more light to work with during shooting and post-
processing \- dedicated glass that you can't quite yet replicate with light-
field tech

The smartphone can do many of the things a dedicated camera can, it's just not
as good on almost all fronts, and much worse in some aspects. You can under
more and more conditions get images that rival DSLRs, but not ALL
condititions: If you can control time, light, and subject all at once, a
dedicated camera can be matched. If you can't control of only one, grab a
dedicated camera.

The tactile UI is one major gripe against smartphone photography for pros and
enthusiasts alike, which is why a phone to some extent needs to be
smart/automatic, and while today's image sensors straight beat the pants off
any predecessing image sensors, physics still poses hard limits on noise and
light capture.

Today's image sensors are very close to be able to count individual photons,
and making the sensor larger means being able to capture more of them at a
time. Tricks are being worked on to extend dynamic range and lower noise (like
double exposure HDR), so image quality still increases, but the larger image
sensors profit from those developments just as much as the small phone ones.
The days of small image sensors being good enough to beat a human eye are
still far off.

TL;DR: dedicated tactile UI, physical interfaces, physics, can't quite be beat
by all the high-tech we can pack in a smartphone package.

------
grandalf
A top performing smart phone "camera" is really just the algorithm that
creates a psychologically appealing composition.

Note that AI is not being used to (simply) mimic a better sensor and lens,
there is all sorts of stuff going on in the algorithms that a photographer
would do in photoshop or in the dark room.

The problem is, there is a specific aesthetic being targeted, and this removes
some of the artistry from photography.

I think there is a fundamental difference between a) the camera capturing
multiple depths of field, focal points, etc., and then allowing the user to
make the final decision in post production and b) the camera computationally
simulating lens effects and lighting effects in the way that snapchat filters
widen eyes and add animal ears.

Cameras are supposed to capture reality, not create a postcard-like view of
whatever was in range or generate a flattering selfie.

These reviews should not be called camera reviews, they should be called
"image algorithm reviews".

What's next, phones whose "microphones" make our voices sound more masculine
or flirtatious?

~~~
jbob2000
I am really afraid of the direction "camera algorithms" are going. My partner,
bless her to death, prefers to take pictures on Snapchat now instead of any
other app. Mainly because the filters there make your nose smaller, eyes
bigger, and alter some of the other facial dimensions to make you look
prettier. We are going to end up in some weird future where everyone looks
beautiful digitally, but, uhh, "normal" in reality.

~~~
grandalf
> We are going to end up in some weird future

I worry about that too. It may also end up being a future where we are no
longer fooled by fake effects and they start to feel inauthentic.

Chances are when plastic were new, people remarked at how similar chrome-
painted plastic was to actual metal. These days we can easily tell them apart.

------
bogomipz
TL;DR: This is little more than an advertisement for luxury tour operator Ker
and Downey and the luxury hotel brand The Taj Group masquerading as an Apple
hardware review.

------
JustAnotherPat
These photos all have a very "Shot on the Iphone" feel. Can't tell if it's
because Iphones excel at one type of picture or because Apple/this reviewer
feels the need to go all the way to India to test out a phone camera.

------
cphaynes
I got the 8 Plus (upgrade from the 6S Plus), mainly for the camera. Lugging my
Nikon D610 has become a pain in the ass.

I wish iOS would allow native DNG (RAW) captures with their camera app. They
added HEIC but not DNG? It'd be so much faster to snap a pic and capture DNG
with the native app, rather than firing up LR Mobile / VSCO, etc.

~~~
ashman5
While I agree, I speculate that Apple doesn't allow this simply for iCloud
Photo Library backup aspects. The HEIC/HEVC save backup space. Backing up
RAW/DNG would be data costly. I realize there are ways around this, but it's
not Apple's style.

~~~
snuxoll
There are apps like ProCam that take RAW images and save them to the camera
roll, they sync over iCloud Photo Library without issue. I think the normal
user is just fine with JPEG or HEIF and the space savings are more important,
so Apple has kept it out of Camera.app.

~~~
spike021
I'm not sure why they couldn't, though. They provide several different format
options for recording video, like 1080p vs 4K.

~~~
snuxoll
Yeah, but at the end of the day the different video settings still use
"standard" formats that a normal consumer can open on their desktop or laptop.
HEIF being the real outlier, changing any of the settings buried in
Settings.app for the built-in Camera.app doesn't effect the ability of a
normal user to view their content on a current operating system (Windows 10 or
macOS High Sierra). RAW images change all of that - Windows 10 has really
basic support for some RAW formats, and there are some workarounds like
RAW+JPEG in ProCam but it results in two separate files combined as one
"image" in your iCloud Photo library, syncing this to a Windows PC results in
two files and just confuses users (macOS works around this by hiding
everything in the Photo Library, invisible to most users).

------
AOsborn
That is some of the best SEO/content marketing I have seen all year. Nice
camera review too. Have already passed the link to a number of friends.

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gnicholas
There are lots of reviews popping up about iPhone 8 vs iPhone 7. What I'd like
to see is a side-by-side of Portrait Mode on: iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 10,
iPhone 7 Plus running iOS 11, and iPhone 8 Plus.

------
coverband
Isn't it possible to offer the "Slow Sync" feature on older models like 6/6s?
I would assume this would be software controlled... Maybe another camera app
has this already?

------
rem1313
The marshmallow comparison was spot-on at the end :)

------
denisehilton
never been a fan of iphone camera but this is next level. For iphone standards
at least.

------
tobyhinloopen
In Today's news: A newer model iPhone has a better camera than the previous
model.

Neat new features though, like that "slow sync". Why don't older models get
"slow sync" though? It seems like something that is controlled by software

~~~
sdrothrock
All of these except the "smarter sensor" seem like software features -- I
wonder if it's technically impossible to get them on the iPhone 7 or if it's
just a matter of differentiation.

~~~
aorth
An honest iPhone 8 launch event would say " _we improved the camera hardware
but also had some fantastic breakthroughs in the camera software, and we 'll
be backporting those to all supported models in iOS 11_". The pessimist in me
says that nobody would buy an iPhone 8 if they did this. Wait a second, now
that I've thought it through it's obvious that this is exactly why they didn't
backport the software improvements to previous iPhones. :)

~~~
jamesrcole
> The pessimist in me says that nobody would buy an iPhone 8 if they did this

People with an iPhone 4, 5 or 6 have more reason to upgrade to an 8 rather
than a 7 than just the camera.

~~~
imtringued
I think his argument is that they are not backporting other software features
including those that are unrelated to the camera.

~~~
jamesrcole
The improvements aren't just to the software. There's non-software reasons for
a, say, iPhone 5 user, to upgrade to an 8 over a 7.

