
iPhone 11 Pro Camera Review - dsego
http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-11-pro-review-china
======
jonlucc
The photography in these kinds of reviews is amazing, and the camera looks
pretty stellar compared to the XS, but I find myself reading them wondering if
it will make my pictures any better. I'm a mediocre photographer at best, and
I'm certainly not going to be able to capture many images like the ones in
this review.

~~~
overcast
The key elements to these photos basically come down to dramatic
lighting(dawn/dusk), leading lines(look at the bridge and waterway shots, your
eyes are guided to the mountains and the horizon), and the rule of
thirds(dividing your image up into quadrants, and keeping important subjects
at their intersections). Basic stuff, but as always requires LOTS of practice
and experimentation.

~~~
Diederich
Over 20 years ago, my wife and I were driving up highway 395, just east of the
California High Sierras. At the time, we were only using disposable cameras.
She suddenly asked me to pull over, which I did, and backed up a bit, to right
around here:
[https://goo.gl/maps/dh4gyRPi71ZQmy4b7](https://goo.gl/maps/dh4gyRPi71ZQmy4b7)

She got out of our 1996 Saturn SL, walked around a few minutes, snapped a
single picture, and got back in the car.

A couple of months later, she gave me slightly blown up print of that picture,
developed in black and white, in a simple frame, and asked if I'd like to put
it on my desk at work.

The photo was stunning, and so I took it to work.

Over the year, a number of people came by and commented on the striking beauty
of that picture. In fact, two different people (at different times) came,
looked at the picture very carefully, and said that they were quite surprised
that there was an Ansel Adams photo they had not seen before.

At my suggestion, she entered it into various local and state photography
competitions, and won all of them.

Alas, it was lost in a fire many years ago.

My wife has no training, formal or otherwise, in photography. But she has a
naturally keen eye for graphic design and layout.

Equipment is good and important; location, timing, and an eye for composition
is, in my opinion, far more important.

~~~
ska
Equipment can't make you a good photographer. Luck and taking lots of photos
sometimes can get you a good photo, but it's not reproducible.

The thing that better equipment gives you is options, and if you know how to
use it, the possibility of getting photos you otherwise couldn't get (at least
not a decent version of). That's it, really.

Even the most modest equipment can take a great photo - but the conditions
have to be just right for that gear.

~~~
shiftpgdn
A great video I came across recently has a guy taking great photos with a $13
disposable camera:
[https://youtu.be/TFVX0x0dCsU](https://youtu.be/TFVX0x0dCsU)

Like you say, equipment is only a small fraction of the equation.

------
mtw
I would love a high-resolution photos of these. The small size look amazing
for phones like Huawei P30 Pro or Samsung Note 10, but then you realize that
the full size version has blotched textures or excessive sharpness

~~~
wrboyce
Gruber has the originals on his review:
[https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/the_iphone_11_and_iphones...](https://daringfireball.net/2019/09/the_iphone_11_and_iphones_11_pro)

~~~
sh-run
People have always questioned the usefulness of smaller sensor cameras (Ie
M43) with the improvement in cellphone cameras, but it looks like I'll still
carry my Olympus EM5.2 when I travel.

The iPhone 11 gets great social media photos, but I wouldn't want to get any
of those printed (at least not larger than 4x6). Of course the best camera is
the one you have with you so I am still happy to see the improvements over my
Xr and my wife's 8+.

~~~
pwython
M43 cameras are still relevant as the depth of field blur in these phone
cameras is faked, sometimes with odd results. An f/1.8 aperture on most camera
sensors translates to something like an f/8 full frame equivalent (for
comparison, f/1.8 on M43 looks like f/3.6 on full frame). It still lets the
same amount of light in, but there's no shallow depth/blur.

~~~
sh-run
Yeah, there's also the benefits you get from longer exposures and the ability
to swap lenses. I carry an Olympus 12-40mm f/2.8 and Panasonic 100-300mm
f/4-5.6, which gives me a massive focal length range to play with in a
relatively small package.

For a hobbyist like me M43 is great and won't be replaced by a cell phone any
time soon. And as much as I'd like an A7iii I can't justify the extra cost and
lens size for what I do.

~~~
pwython
I recently sold my M43 gear that I primarily used for video (GH5, GH5S), but I
had to hang on to my GX85 and Oly 12-40mm f/2.8 for photos -- perfect little
walk around combo!

Then I accidentally broke the GX85, and it didn't take long to get the itch to
take photos again. So I finally made the jump to full frame with a used A7RII.
Man, big difference. In image quality and size of course. Not trying to
convert you, M43 still has a place in my heart, but check out used prices on
the Sony Alphas. You can get something like an A7II for less than the cost of
that Oly 12-40. ;)

~~~
sh-run
Wish you wouldn’t have shown me that.. this time next year I’ll be surrounded
by a pile of Sony GM Lenses.

------
ioulian
The pictures do look good, the colors are nice and the small image on the page
is nice. But I haven't seen any 100% crops or full images. it's there that
you'll see that the image is worse than a DSLR or another camera with a big
lens and sensor.

I can get nice pictures (= vibrant and nice colors) with any camera, what I
can't get is a sharp image, with sharp edges.

I went to a trip with my Android Phone and DSLR, and my GF has an iPhone 6.

We took pictures with all 3 devices. When I looked at jpg photos from Android
phone on my PC, they had all "perfect" (=vibrant and catchy) colors, but when
you zoom in, it's all a blurry mess with no detail. The iPhone was nice and
sharp (at least much sharper than the android pics). The DSLR was of course
the sharpest one.

Now on the android phone, I have a "pro" settings that captures RAW image. And
it's incredibly sharp, the colors are bland of course, but the data is there
and we can add/process the colors in post. But why is the image so much worse
when using JPG.

My idea it that normal jpg has HDR enabled and is being processed too much,
thus losing a lot of detail. You don't get that loss when capturing RAW.

What I'm afraid is that the new iPhone dark mode (or even the P30 Pro and
other phones with post processing) will also process the images too much and
stack them thus losing a lot of detail. When put on instagram or made smaller
for Facebook/websites, you won't see the missing details, but the colors will
be vibrant and that's "good enough" for most people.

When I take a picture I rather have the real RAW data in the picture instead
of processed jpg that I can't control. What do you guys think about the
automatic post processing done by your device, that when done incorrectly,
you'll lose a perfect picture because the implementation just lost you a lot
of detail...

I guess the post processing trend is there because you just can't make a good
lens and sensor that small and still have nice results. The phone makers are
just trying to fix this with post processing...

~~~
kalleboo
Most people don't zoom in on their photos. They look at them on their phones,
full screen on their computers, or at best on a TV (1080p or maybe 4K, but
sitting far away).

This is what manufacturers optimize for. Getting great pictures for the 95%.

Who cares if the hairs on the dog are blurry when you zoom in so much you
can't see the rest of the picture? Well, Pros who might want to crop the photo
later. And for them, DSLRs will still exist.

~~~
beezle
And that's why Apple and Samsung are still using 1/2.5 (5.8mm by 4.3mm) 12MP
sensors, typical of generic point and shoot cameras. Compare to lower end
'prosumer' type fourthirds cams that use a 17mmx13mm sensor and 15-18MP.
That's almost 9 times the area for 25-50% more pixels.

------
_coveredInBees
I think the iPhone 11 makes some good advances as outlined in the linked
article, but a lot of the pictures didn't particularly wow me at all from a
camera capabilities perspective. A bunch of the images at the top of the
article are nice, but that is entirely due to the photographer's skill at
composing aesthetically pleasing shots and have little to do with the actual
capabilities of the iPhone 11.

As someone who owned the LG G3 years ago, and absolutely loved the wide-angle
lens on that phone, most of these pictures would look identical. I guess the
point I am making is that while it's exciting to have a wide-angle lens on the
iPhone 11, it doesn't in any way move the bar compared to what's been out
there for a while.

Where the iPhone 11 has improved drastically, is with night mode shots, and
that's somewhere it has been lacking substantially compared to the
competition. They've done a really good job catching up and maybe even
surpassing the competition in some areas. Kudos to them for that.

That being said, you aren't going to get great prints out of night mode images
for anything much larger than post-card sized prints with the iPhone 11 (or
any other smart phone camera to be honest). I love the image of the person in
the boat at dusk, but even at the size displayed, you can see a bunch of
artifacts from noise reduction. As much as everyone loves to hate on DSLRs
these days, you are going to get much cleaner images in these light starved
environments with a large sensor and good lens. I personally think it's absurd
to make that comparison, but I just had to say this because every article
about the latest smartphone camera ends up having a bunch of comments about
how they are superior to DSLRs at this point (which they are on the
computational photography side of things, but good luck getting clean, large
prints out of a phone camera, especially in low-light situations)

~~~
endorphone
"As someone who owned the LG G3 years ago, and absolutely loved the wide-angle
lens on that phone, most of these pictures would look identical"

They wouldn't look remotely alike. Many of those simple shots are incredibly
complex dynamic range scenes were the results are quite spectacular. With a
lesser device the results would have been a blah photo, which is the point of
the amazing progress that is happening in computational photography and the
hardware that feeds it (focus pixels, secondary depth analysis, and sensors
that have much better dynamic range than they did -- even current SLRs have
much better dynamic range than a few years ago).

As to print outs, almost no one actually prints out anything. Most photography
is for social media, your own camera roll, etc.

"As much as everyone loves to hate on DSLRs these days, you are going to get
much cleaner images in these light starved environments with a large sensor
and good lens."

This is a strawman. No one is hating on DSLRs, and I can't find a _single_
comment claiming that they're superior to DSLRs, beyond in the computational
photography realm. But yes, smartphones are good enough that we often leave
our DSLR at home, and when we do bring it there are many situations where the
smarts of the smartphone yield usable to excellent photos where the DSLR will
stumble. All things being equal a larger sensor is ideal, though things get
more debatable on the lens side (larger lenses equal a longer focal length
equal a much shallower depth of field, which while beneficial for bokeh, in
many situations because a serious hindrance rather than benefit).

~~~
_coveredInBees
I suggest you pick up an LG G3 and test it's capabilities out. It's not like
HDR is some new invention that just came about in the smart phone space. It's
been around forever. Yes, some of the algorithms have gotten better, and the
HDR tonemapping has been improved, but I've taken thousands of HDR images with
my G3 many years ago that looked great.

Case in point -
[https://photos.app.goo.gl/RMMcJe9X6XjaEqcw7](https://photos.app.goo.gl/RMMcJe9X6XjaEqcw7)

> As to print outs, almost no one actually prints out anything. Most
> photography is for social media, your own camera roll, etc.

Well, you're certainly very defensive for no apparent reason. All I stated was
that it would suffer for prints, which is factual and nothing you stated
really adds value to that. I didn't say that it was no good because of that...

~~~
endorphone
I didn't say the G3 couldn't take good pictures. However saying "my G3 once
took a good picture, therefore it's equivalent to this" isn't reasonable.
Those are difficult scenes and unless _you_ have a G3 to take a picture in the
same lighting and conditions, your claim is baseless. Taking even current, top
of the line smartphones and taking photos in perfectly equal conditions often
yields significant differences in outcomes, yet you're seriously arguing that
a five year old smartphone would be equal, with zero proof.

"Well, you're certainly very defensive for no apparent reason."

You stated that they wouldn't look good printed out which is a claim I didn't
even want to argue (despite it being very wrong), instead pointing out that
people generally don't print out often anyways, so... That isn't defensive,
it's factual, as you say. No need to get defensive about it.

Feel free to get a G3 and an iPhone 11 and take comparable photos and show
everyone, including the entire industry that recognizes the advances, how
wrong they are -- it will surely see a lot of hits and attention.

~~~
_coveredInBees
> I didn't say the G3 couldn't take good pictures. However saying "my G3 once
> took a good picture, therefore it's equivalent to this" isn't reasonable.
> Those are difficult scenes and unless you have a G3 to take a picture in the
> same lighting and conditions, your claim is baseless.

Talk about moving goalposts. What a bunch of baloney. Apparently now you can't
argue any point without replicating exactly those specific images in the
article. It isn't worth continuing a discussion since you don't have much
constructive to add. I actually showed you a great example of a challenging
HDR image snapped by a G3, which is more "proof" than anything you've provided
so far.

Like I said in my original post, the iPhone 11 makes a great improvement in
general. I pointed out that a lot of the excitement that the OP has about the
wide-angle lens at the top of the article is justified in that wide-angle on
smart phones is a lot of fun from a photography perspective (I've been able to
enjoy it for several years already). But it has less to do with the wide-angle
shots being miles superior than what has already been out there. No reason to
take those observations so personally.

~~~
ricardobeat
Get a friend with an iPhone 11, the G3, and compare. No need for this whole
word duel. I think you'll be surprised.

------
mewse-hn
How could anyone read this without knowing it's an advertisement:

"today I’m just as thrilled to be putting an entirely new Ultra Wide lens in
my pocket. It gives us another format to tell the story, another perspective
to visualize, and a better rounded tool for doing our best creative work."

~~~
mfer
Does the author have a bias? Certainly.

Is this an advertisement? Ads are paid announcements. There was nothing noting
it was paid for in any capacity.

There's a difference between an ad and a bias. I find it useful to notice
biases because we all have them. Ads are quite different.

~~~
Gene_Parmesan
First, there can be a big power discrepancy in cases where free product is
provided for review purposes. It's different if you are part of a traditional
media outfit and have a significant, steady readership. But for someone like
this, there can be a _lot_ of pressure to give very favorable write-ups.

Second, this wouldn't be the first time someone did a paid promotion without
noting it was paid. I don't know anything about this guy, so I'm not accusing
him of anything. I'm just saying it's naive to think that everyone is always
highly committed to playing nice with the FTC rules. (See game streamers and
their odd tendency to open tons of 'loot boxes' on stream & get significantly
better results than expected.)

Finally a lot of the copy reads like it's straight from a press release, with
capitalized words and everything.

Whether it's enough to constitute an ad in a regulatory sense, I don't know.
But you can be _advertised to_ without the source being a literal ad according
to a legal definition.

~~~
la_barba
Whats the point of muddying the waters without having verifiable facts? The
thing with speculation is .. anyone can speculate, on anything, for any
reason. That doesn't make it true.

>I'm just saying it's naive to think that everyone is always highly committed
to playing nice with the FTC rules.

Who exactly said that?

~~~
TeMPOraL
Look at the quote at the beginning of this thread.

If it looks like an ad, if it reads unnaturally, like something no real person
would say to convey a honest opinion, then it's most likely an ad.

~~~
mfer
I read the post and it read fairly naturally to me. There are a wide variety
of people out there who communicate differently.

Given the date of the post, time to write it up, and time to take the pictures
this phone is in the hands of something before the official release date.

I read this like I read something from John Gruber about something Apple.

------
gniv
Beautiful photos, but why is the Exif scrubbed? I would have liked to see
details.

~~~
mrfusion
By the way, what happens to exif when you upload online (or also fb or
instagram)?

Does it get removed or can everyone see my location?

~~~
sp332
It doesn't automatically get removed. Some services will remove some
information. Facebook, predictably, uses the info itself but strips it from
downloads. [https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-can-you-tell-
fr...](https://www.consumerreports.org/privacy/what-can-you-tell-from-photo-
exif-data/)

------
Damogran6
My DSLR is aging out...they've changed lens mounts (manufacturers seem to do
that just long enough to blow the cost benefit of keeping lenses long term...I
use my phone for 98% of my photos. The last one I actually printed out (a
panorama) came from my iPhone XS Max.

I just can't justify a $1200 camera purchase to replace my Sony A57...and I'm
a little sad about it.

~~~
iCarrot
It must have been the move to mirrorless that forced a mount change. Even
Nikon abandoned their F mount line (which started in 1959) and introduced Z
mount for their mirrorless.

Also given how often Sony is churning out new cameras these days, going
secondhand will save you serious dough.

~~~
Damogran6
I think you're right on all accounts. The adapter to let the old lenses work
on the new bodies is the thickness of the pentaprism on the old camera. It's
designed to keep the geometry of the stuff that got removed when they went
mirrorless.

A lightly used A-mount (like an A77) is an intriguing thought...if it had a
kit lens, then my kids could keep using the a57 til it failed completely.

------
Gravityloss
I have two requirements for camera: fast startup time from a standby to taking
photos, and working touch exposure control. The majority of phones I've tested
do not provide these. For some reason, on Oneplus 5 it works. I tested a newer
model and it was worse. Sure, on a newer phone the photos are better for
example resolution wise, but that's usually not the limiting factor.

I have some street photo / rangefinder hobby background where the idea is to
not endlessly twiddle some knobs but be able to take technically decent enough
photos quickly. No posing or setting up a still life but real events. When I
carried a dedicated camera, it wasn't in a bag but in my neck, usually even
without a lens cap. Fixed focal length lens, Canon Canonet or Panasonic GF.
It's not necessary about automation or "AI" that helps you to be quick, but
rather just less features and actual working interfaces.

~~~
ricardobeat
> working touch exposure control

what do you mean? A long press gives you immediate access to exposure on the
iPhone. There are also dedicated photo apps (like Halide, mentioned in the
article) that offer more advanced controls.

~~~
Gravityloss
Let's say I'm photographing someone who is backlit, against the sky. By
default, the person looks like black silhouette since the camera chooses an
exposure that doesn't make the sky completely white.

I also don't want to have the person in the center of the frame, because that
would be really boring framing. Photography 101.

On my current phone I can do the framing how I want, then touch the person on
the touch screen. The phone instantly readjusts the exposure upwards so that
now the person is more properly exposed and the sky is overexposed. This is
what I wanted. Then I continue on to take the photo. This doesn't seem to work
on many other phones. I never enter any menus or do any wheel adjustments. It
takes extremely little time and is a very natural workflow.

On a rangefinder camera one would aim the center of the screen at the person,
then hold the shutter halfway so it would pick the exposure from there, then
frame (=aim somewhere else) and take the photo. If you have autofocus, it also
focuses on the half-press.

In neither case are there any manual adjustments or looking at any buttons.
Your eyes are on the viewfinder / photo area all the time.

------
post_break
What I'd like to see is a direct comparison of an Xs running neuralcam and the
11 night mode. I've taken a couple of photos so far and the app has done
wonders. [https://imgur.com/a/BwvW6J8](https://imgur.com/a/BwvW6J8)

~~~
Synaesthesia
Nice one, I’ve been looking for an app like that. The new iPhone does seem
like it has a great camera but I wish Apple would bring “night mode” for all
the other iPhones.

~~~
post_break
So far I like the app. It doesn't work miracles but definitely helps in low
light situations. You have to hold it still while it does the work, and the
best part is that it is all on the phone, no internet needed for it to work.
I'm stingy but this is one app I actually bought and didn't feel ripped off.

------
irrational
>We are truly in a golden age for taking pictures of dark shit with phone
cameras.

Apparently I take pictures of different things than the author. Different
kinks for different folks I guess.

------
dep_b
Just wondering how much this is really just software performing the "upgrade"?
The Pixel 3 camera app made every camera better in the end.

~~~
decoyworker
The new iPhone camera looks pretty sweet but the part that I'm starting to
disagree with is what they call, "semantic rendering." This is where the
camera recognizes different things in the photo and treats them different like
sharpening some areas, smoothing others, etc.

To me this this aspect feels like basically an Instagram filter. Are we going
for accuracy or how pleasing the photos are? They're definitely more pleasing
but not an accurate representation.

~~~
erikpukinskis
There is no such thing as an accurate image. What your brain sees when it
looks at an image is totally different from what it would see if it was
standing in front of the lens. And what my brain would see is different still.

Lenses are subjective. The question is: what do you want to see, and what
lenses see that?

------
samvher
These night mode shots are seriously impressive. This might give DSLR
manufacturers something to catch up with.

~~~
ansgri
DSLR manufacturers already have compact mirrorless to catch up with. Now only
if the mirrorless moguls would recognize the potential of ehnancing their
comparatively giant APS-C sensors with at least half the computational
photography wits of modern camera phones, now that would be magnificent.

Also, for me personally, the next waypoint for the phones should be the
development of compact telephoto lenses -- it seems only Huawei got that right
with their P30Pro.

~~~
charrondev
I’m not sure how it is at APS-C (I use a full frame DSLR) but I don’t think
there’s much room in the workflow of a lot people using DSLRs for more
computation I’m the camera itself.

I know if I want a _great_ picture I

\- shoot raw. \- shoot on manual mode (often still with auto exposure). \- put
the photo into Lightroom.

With a huge sensor and a fast lens there’s no need for a lot of the
computational photography phones are doing:

\- “portrait mode” - unneeded when you have a fast lens and can get more real
bokeh than you could ever need. \- “night mode” - with modern sensors you can
get usable images even at 6400/12800 ISO. This lets you get a solid image even
at a reasonable, handheld shutter speed.

The real improvement other than sensor dynamic range and pixel count has been
in autofocus. I still miss some some shots with my Canon because I didn’t
react fast enough to nail my focus.

~~~
prolepunk
Panasonic has really good image stabilization for MFT systems where lens
stabilization and sensor stabilization system work in tandem allowing to take
shots with up to 1 second exposure handheld. Basically it's like having gimble
inside the camera.

Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 (50mm f/3.5 equivalent full frame) is under $200 and is
an excellent portrait lens.

With initial release of GH5 autofocus was pretty bad, but with the last
firmware upgrade apparently it's quite good now.

I however cant yet justify upgrade from GH4, which doesn't have sensor
stabilization.

------
kitchenkarma
Can someone explain to me what is so special in those photos? These look like
snapped on the phone...

------
ctdonath
I want to see an app: full frame high rate recording with all cameras, marking
"photos" as time & subframe. From there, be able to later roll individual
"photos" forward/back in time, and shift/rotate/zoom/interpolate within that
video space. When satisfied, dump the (massive) video and keep the selected
photos. Likewise for sub-videos.

I want to focus on getting photos without having to get it right at that
moment. Get me ALL the image data, let me indicate what/when I want a picture
of, and save details of framing & timing for later.

Live Photos is just the smallest beginning of what we should be able to do
with 3 60fps >4K cameras, a half terabyte storage, and an unlimited data plan.

------
shinyeyes
I wonder when Apple will address the elephant in the room: "how can we keep
our lens always clean like our SLR lenses?" iPhone is a good camera but I
haven't found any good case to keep it dust-free. It's even worse nowadays
with lens bumps.

------
Hamuko
Does this mean that I can justify the staggering price of an iPhone 11 Pro by
saying that I won't be needing a new camera? Not that I was really in market
for a new point-and-shoot, but I feel like I need something to justify it.

------
joering2
Still prefer how Pixel 3 photos look like on the phone that was released a
year ago [1]. Interestingly I recall my first Android to be Samsung i977 some
9 years ago and photos were more vivid than iPhone X.

However Pixel comes with unlimited (!!) photo and 4k video storage [2]. Apple
cannot beat that.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_3](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_3)

[2]
[https://store.google.com/product/pixel_3](https://store.google.com/product/pixel_3)

~~~
Diederich
> However Pixel comes with unlimited (!!) photo and 4k video storage [2].

Yup, this is why we switched to Pixel, back when the first version came out,
and we haven't looked back.

------
runjake
For some perspective on this, go look at Austin's iPhone 6s camera review [1].

If you aren't shooting photos like his with your iPhone X, upgrading to an 11
series is not going to make much of a difference.

1\. [http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-6s-camera-review-
switzerla...](http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-6s-camera-review-switzerland)

------
todipa
I have the Nikon full frame D850 along with the holy trilogy of lenses
(14-24mm + 24-70mm + 70-200mm f2.8 zoom lenses).

in 2018, for every picture I took with the D800/850, I took +200 iphone
pictures.

I still believe there is room for a high caliber camera but I don't want to
own it anymore, I just want to rent whenever I need it.

~~~
kalleboo
I want a high caliber camera but I never want to have to carry it around with
me...

~~~
eatbitseveryday
If discouraged by the weight, but not the price, consider a compact Leica
(e.g., the Q).

------
jug
I feel for the compact camera manufacturers.

Smartphones killed the 2/3" sensor market. Now they've killed the 1" sensor
market too. Micro 4/3 is stale with no major sensor advancements for years
now. What's left, APS-C and up?

~~~
criddell
I feel for all camera manufacturers. Why isn't there a Canon or Nikon or Sony
cloud service where photos are sent to? Why haven't the big camera companies
embraced computation in their cameras? Do DSLR bodies even have GPS
capabilities for tagging photos?

It feels like there's no innovation in the camera space outside of Apple and
Google.

~~~
nradov
Very few DSLR bodies have GPS capability built in. This is kind of stupid
because integrating a modern GNSS receiver would have only a trivial impact on
size, weight, cost, and battery life. The odd thing is that GPS is somewhat
common on much cheaper compact cameras.

Some of DSLR manufacturers do offer fragile, awkward GPS accessories that you
can plug in externally. And they generally provide some sort of geo-tagging
feature in the software included with cameras.

GPS does have some limitations for photography because it takes a while to
lock on and doesn't work indoors. Modern smartphones can achieve much better
location accuracy due to using multiple means. So the ideal solution would
probably be for the camera to obtain location data from the phone via
Bluetooth.

~~~
davidgay
> So the ideal solution would probably be for the camera to obtain location
> data from the phone via Bluetooth.

Which at least Nikon offers. But you have to have the paired device with you,
leave the camera in the right mode, etc, etc.

------
zihotki
It would be interesting to see how it will score in DxOMark (the best unbiased
source for comparing both mobile and standalone cameras) tests comparing to
current top-players. This review feels biased.

------
rolltiide
Its nice that his wishlist are all software ux tweaks

I’ll be getting the Iphone 11 Pro for the camera technology and wide support,
along with the dual SIM feature that I’d like to know more about

------
mantoto
Super weird to read this text. I just came home from our first Japan trip and
we both had a DSLR with us and three lenses. Heavy to carry around.

I expect 3-4k pictures from dslrs and 2k made by our smartphones. I'm really
curious how our end result will look like.

I expect 100-300 images but this is our first holiday where we took
considerable amounts of pictures/snapshots by phone.

At least on my Samsung s9 and my wives pixel 3a lots of those images look
sharp.

------
truth_seeker
I recently started appreciating 60fps screen but,

iPhone 11 came up with 240 fps

Galaxy Note10+ came up with 960fps

and now Huawei Mate 30 Pro with 7680 fps

~~~
celeritascelery
At what point is it no longer noticeable?

~~~
beisner
120fps

~~~
samwhiteUK
Erm, the numbers he/she is quoting are video framerates

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m0skit0
I never considered the camera when buying a phone, and in fact would love a
price discount in higher phone models with a cheaper or even no cameras.

Question for professional photographers from someone that has no idea about
photography: why would you use a phone when you can use your professional
camera?

~~~
throwaway2265
I’ve been doing professional photography for over a decade, having used a wide
range of DSLR’s and mirrorless cameras.

I really enjoy using my iPhone for photography when not working. It removes
the friction of taking photos. I don’t have to carry a large camera while
traveling, don’t have to charge extra things, it’s just overall easier.
Whatever quality I’m losing is made up by simply capturing more moments than I
otherwise would have if I was using my DSLR.

------
dharma1
How much better is the Pro camera than regular iPhone 11 camera?

~~~
briandear
Cameras and chips are identical, however the Pro gives you the Telephoto lens.
(That’s the “third” lens on Pro.)

~~~
pcl
Actually, it’s the ultra wide lens that is unique to the pro.

~~~
djrogers
No, you have it backwards - the 11 got the utlra-wide lens as it's second
camera.

[1] [https://www.apple.com/iphone-11/](https://www.apple.com/iphone-11/)

------
Abishek_Muthian
Good to know that iPhone 11 Pro camera holds up to the expectations of a
professional photographer. Now everyone else should aspire to be a
professional photographer and buy iPhone 11 Pro according to Apple.

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familysized
The fisherman seen in that photo is also in these very similar photos...

[http://davidbuddphotography.com/galleries/01-places/china/gu...](http://davidbuddphotography.com/galleries/01-places/china/guilin-
yangshou-comorant-fisherman/)

~~~
coldtea
"Fisherman/men in a canoe like boat at dusk/night in asia" is such a cliche it
should be forbidden...

Knowing the journalist/fixer trade a little, this is some well known
place/person, and photographers who go to China are taken by their local
helpers (who know the drill) there to shoot "interesting" pictures.

This fisherman guy probably makes (or could make) more money posing for
tourists than fishing...

~~~
PStamatiou
You can pay a photographer guide to help you get this exact shot. Author used
this, as suggested by the footer perhaps: [https://www.mercierzeng.com/guilin-
photography-tours](https://www.mercierzeng.com/guilin-photography-tours)

This kind of stuff exists for many popular shots with local photographers you
can hire to take you and even have you get up close with locals.

------
La-ang
I have a word for you Apple fans: H U A W E I

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anonu
Its amazing to me that the smartphone wars are now just about cameras.... and
more broadly content generation.

It also amazes me that everyone's is wooed over these iPhone specs. I've had
my OnePlus 7T Pro for a few months now. Most of the top-line specs match or
beat the new iPhone. Nightscape on the OnePlus is also amazing - takes great
low light photos.

Seems like iPhone has been chasing some of the more advanced Android-phones
for a few generations now.

~~~
SamBam
What I want to know is whether there are any phone-sized stand-alone cameras
that can compete with any of the modern amazing phone cameras.

I love my Pixel 2's camera, it shoots gorgeous pictures, but I'm seriously
considering downsizing my phone significantly. I'd love to have a nearly-dumb-
phone but... can't give up the camera.

If someone sold a standalone camera that is as portable and as good, I would
take it and a dumb-phone in a minute.

~~~
petepete
It's not _quite_ as small but _way_ better than every smart phone camera on
the market, the Ricoh GR3.

[http://www.ricoh-imaging.co.jp/english/products/gr-3/](http://www.ricoh-
imaging.co.jp/english/products/gr-3/)

------
djschnei
@Austin Mann, [https://letsencrypt.org/](https://letsencrypt.org/)

~~~
egwynn
Looks like it’s on SquareSpace, which does their own cert provisioning. Maybe
the author just hasn’t set that up or has it misconfigured.

------
c0nsilienc3
Exotic locations and good light make a better photo than simply having the
newest iPhone--I think everyone here can agree.

Brian Chen, whom I respect, from NYTimes reviewed the newest iPhone and
compared all his notes, photos, and videos to his iPhone reviews in the past
and said there was hardly a difference in quality and performance.

I'm not saying the camera advancements aren't nice, but as a working
photographer I have pretty strong opinions about some of the new features like
night shot. There are already apps that exist for iOS that do this (take
multiple photos and average them out to produce a brighter image with less
noise). Also, I believe that if it's really too dark to take a good photo,
it's not worth taking a photo at all because even the night shot image won't
look that great (and of course they look great when you see them because they
are side-by-side comparisons with the darker, more crappy photo, but as
standalone photos they look like garbage). I'd rather find or make good light
if I want to take a portrait.

