More information about the camera on the iPhone XS:
I have the Pixel 2 XL. The camera isn’t just ‘good, almost like a DSLR’. It’s “a hired photographer with a DSLR and a bag of lenses is following us around taking pictures, then selecting the best images and editing them Photoshop and putting them on my phone.” Love it.
Though my wife’s iPhone 7 takes great photos too, it is so slightly behind in skin tone and look. I think it’s better than Samsung though. I’m not surprised Apple is just slightly behind, it’s still capable of amazing results.
No offense, but that isn’t even remotely true. Without the full size sensor, glass, shutter, etc, a camera phone will never be more than a good point and shoot. And even good camera phone’s shots need a good edit.
Not doubting it’s a great camera, it just isn’t that great.
Yeah, I was futzing around with my DSLR today and I was amazed at how good the pictures looked. I was so used to my 7 plus. Which is damn good, but not DSLR quality.
No offense, but I see a heck of a lot of confirmation bias in DSLR owners; goes with poorly exposed pet photos and over-saturated vacation photos of statues.
I guess I’d distinguish between ‘taking pictures’ which is what 99% of people want, and for which the Pixel 2 is pretty certainly better than a DSLR in both quality of output and effort going in… Vs ‘artistic photography’ which is the person with a fancy camera but is also willing to get up a 3 a.m. to drive to this week’s location, take 300 photos as the sun rises, get home and spend the full Saturday picking one and editing it and printing it.
The latter, sure a DSLR is superior. Of course you can provide pictures that a phone can’t take, like long exposure night photos, though that sample size is getting smaller every year. A flapping mirror box, or now mirrorless camera, simply collects less noisy data due to its larger sensor. But the picture itself is generally poor, until it is selected and processed from RAW. Alternatively the latest phones give ‘just better’ results. It shouldn’t even be surprising really, Apple probably has 100 software engineers working on its jpg engine while Nikon simply can’t devote those kinds of resources.
While I’d like to have a photography hobby, small kids and crazy life and other hobbies don’t allow it. So I’m in the ‘taking pictures’ camp. My DSLR and two fast primes and massive flash unit get used on occasion, but typically my phone takes ‘better’ pictures. I’ll even go out on a limb and show a few ‘snaps’ taken in the past few weeks… these are not photographs, but effortless pictures taken in the moment. Note the mediocre picture of lunch - just showing how the camera does in a low light, poor white balance environment.
Not sure the Apple thread is the place for this either :). Note I may come back and delete these pictures.
One of the reviews I read, I believe it was Gruber’s, noted the differences between real bokeh on a DSLR and the iPhone’s software version-- the software was too regular, and objects in the background turned into perfect circles. I don’t see why they couldn’t fix that in software to look closer, though, and the edge detection is definitely much improved.
The biggest improvement is the software HDR, though. That’s vastly better on the XS models.
Absolutely, the picky discerning viewer will point out all the flaws of the algorithm. The rest of us really… don’t… care… we just want nice photos.
I find it utterly fascinating how software has such a massive impact on image quality. They take what’s really a terrible camera, tiny lens, into something that really looks great. It’s kinda magical.
Yeah, I just realized that the last photo really holds up even large-scale - looks amazing and totally sharp, full size on my 27 inch, 1440p monitor.
Your argument is right, the best camera is the one you have with you (and are willing to carry around with you). Your pictures look great (outside of the bokeh which isn’t great), but your phone isn’t doing anything a DSLR can’t do better. The difference is the DSLRs software is scaled way back while the phone’s software is heavily processing the picture. You could have your DSLR do all that, but it makes more sense to do it right on Photoshop after the fact (because you are working with a higher quality image from the beginning). I completely get that you don’t want to mess with that, but that makes it a better camera for you, not the better technical camera.
It’s probably not the right thread at all, but I had no idea about how DSLR worked before coming here. Such cameras process the picture when you take it, or is that minor?
If you take RAW files, you get the raw data, as it was captured by the sensor. It’s then mostly up to you and your processing software to apply presets that match the mood you want to set.
If you shoot in JPG format, the camera will analyse the scene and apply is own presets based on what it thinks will look best (it can do pattern matching to detect landscapes, portraits, backlit scenes, …).
Oooooh… now the concept of RAW pictures suddenly makes sense.
Thank you for the explanations!
Plugged my phone into the car yesterday with great anticipation only to be bitterly disappointed as no Waze icon materialized on the screen.
Signed up for their beta program in order to get a taste, but that club seems to be pretty exclusive, so no CarPlay Waze for me. Again.
While you wait for Waze, why not use Google Maps which pulls in a lot of its data? I saw that it updated for CarPlay yesterday.
When I was in my full amateur mode a few years back and reading everything I could on photography, it was widely recommended that if you are going to shoot jpgs, you want the camera’s setting to be as neutral as possible. Everything the camera’s software will do, you can do better yourself in photoshop.
Most people I met treated their DSLRs like a large point and shoot, use auto, never change settings, and no post production work. For these people a camera phone is far better.
The review I read on Google Maps yesterday said it’s not up to par. Things like if you leave the route, it doesn’t update.
I’ll definitely give that a try, but I live in an area with extremely heavy traffic and rely on the updates on accidents, traffic jams, speed cameras etc. that Waze still seems to get to me quicker than google maps. I haven’t compared them back to back in a while however and will see how things go.
Let us know how it goes. I’m also a Waze user, after having used Google Maps for years, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. But until Waze updates, it’s better than Apple Maps! (because everything is).
Waze seems to have deprecated a bit. In recent versions, it seems Waze is slow as hell to get its initial GPS lock and populate your route options, whereas Google Maps is nearly instant. Noticed this over the last few months on several different phones. I prefer Waze, but have found myself impatient and using Google maps much more often.