I've seen friends' pics from iPhone 12s and 13s, and many of them work really well straight out of camera (sooc): the work Apple has done in computational photography is fantastic. I have a Fuji X-T4 and, while it does things and offers a degree of latitude phones clearly don't, and likely never will due to sensor size disparity, the utility of phone cameras and in-camera auto processing keeps going up. The other day a friend went hiking, and an iPhone 13 ("Pro," I believe) automatically correctly exposed for sky, shadow, and people, and did an impressive job with HDR. Remarkable.
I keep being tempted to replace my knackered old Android and the current crop of iPhones just seem to reliably produce great looking photos, especially of people. That fact that the photos come out looking great with almost no effort other than basic framing makes me very jelous.
I've been looking at the Pixel 6 too, but the combination of much shorter OS support, and what sounds like an endless stream of bugs has really put me off. But I'm also wary of moving to iOS, I like the way Android works. I think Google do a better job with security, while being much worse on their own privacy practices. Neither look perfect at the moment.
FWIW, I've had a Pixel 6 since around launch time and have not had a single issue with it. That being said, my phone never received the 'problematic' December update, so maybe that's why.
I've had a lot of phones over the past 20+ years and I'd rate it as one of the best phones I've owned. The only downsides I've noticed are its weight (it's noticably heavy in my opinion) and that it does not charge as fast as my old OnePlus (which has unbeatable charing speeds). The picture quality is excellent and the wide-angle lens is actually quite useful.
Ok, that's interesting to hear. The december update really did seem to be a big screwup. Hopefully they will learn some lessons for the QA processes.
I think I'm going to keep my current phone going until the iPhone 14 and Pixel 7 are out. I think it's got about another year before the battery doesn't last the day and it's _fine_ most of the time. I'm hoping that once Google get comfortable with their new architecture that they start extending the guarenteed support period, which is one of the big things pushing me towards an iPhone.
I'm also not sure about the size of the 6, I'm hoping they expand the range a bit and produce a smaller one at some point.
I had to return my iphone 13 pro max twice because the pictures were blurrier than my iphone X. I don't know if the reviewers and prominent users get the tested and calibrated models from Apple. Here is a discussion on Apple forums on how bad iphone 13 pro max cameras are in the wild.
Unfortunately no. I abandoned my plan to buy 13 pro after comparing pictures to my wife's 12 pro and friends 11 pro. Both the new 13 pro max phones I got had horrendous picture quality, its not just the computational postprocessing, the raw images taken had bad picture quality. It probably has to do with the apertures in the lenses as some of the photographers in the Apple discussion forums were indicating. I don't think Apple tested this enough or paid enough attention to the mass production process. Very disappointed.
iPhones are very handy in taking kids pictures when you don't have time to go fetch a DSLR. Huawei P50 & Xiaomi seem to have better cameras but don't want to go anywhere near them.
the 13 pro max camera is insanely good so you're likely seeing a bug. I would very strongly disagree it's worse than the iPhone x or 11. I had both.
I think it's possible you're seeing a bug where the camera is using the wrong lens for the distance. I did notice earlier neat launch when I switch between 1x and 3x sometimes the software will use 1x and digital zoom to 3x instead which obviously produced horrible images. I think this got patched as I haven't seen it recently.
I have both a 13 Pro and an X. They have changed the computation performed, but I hesitate to say it's worst- just different. Halide has become my app of choice for when I want more control over that factor.
The Apple thread you linked highlights how small changes can really make a large difference on quality.
> This is a very dumb check, but I had a screen protector that was the full screen into the camera module and made my pictures blurry at times. When I removed it, photos were perfect.
Here is comparison of 13 pro max and X. Notice the blurriness and lack of detail in eyebrows and eyelashes of my kids doll. The eyebrows are more detailed in X (picture 2) though there is sensor noise.
Sure, maybe. I'm just saying that it's extremely unlikely that Apple has not managed to successfully manufacture a circular hole. The issue is likely to be something else.
The first image looks like it has had much more aggressive noise reduction applied to it. Possibly, a 'face' was detected in one case but not the other, and this influenced the processing choices.
I have a 13 (not pro), coming from a Pixel 2. I used it almost exclusively while tramping around NZ for a month. It's definitely good enough to replace a larger camera for day-to-day adventures and the ultra-wide is very useful. I put my mirrorless in a storage unit for the trip because it wasn't worth the weight, and the only thing I missed was the telephoto.
I do find the HDR to be a bit in-your-face, even on "neutral" settings. Sunsets are very saturated when you want to take a picture of pastel shades. Cloudy or sunny skies are a bit hit or miss, often there are blown highlights. The lens also seems much more susceptible to flare at night than other phones I've used with the dreaded green dot - not something I ever noticed with the Pixel. Motion photos are pretty great, really handy for low-effort blur on moving water, although you have to use Photos. Google Photos will play the clip, but it won't do the long exposure/bounce modes. Also a pain if you subscribe to G Cloud (which can sync photos fine), because iCloud is incessant about not having enough backup space. I tried Halide, but I didn't see a significant advantage over Slow Shutter Cam which costs a couple of bucks - if you're going to shoot raw, you're going to edit it somewhere else anyway. Maybe aperture and focus control is worth it? The risk with shooting in RAW and post-processing, is that the camera isn't really that good compared to a larger sensor and you're relying on a huge amount of computational photography to fix those limitations. I did try some astrophotography resting the phone on the car roof, but it never really worked.
>In the iPhone 11 and 12, I found it useful to have the ultra-wide in my pocket— way more useful than the iPhone’s Panorama Mode— but I still mostly avoided it. It was ‘fixed focus’, which means there is no way for the lens to adjust what is sharp. It was designed so all of the frame was in focus. This caused smudgy images, trading clarity for a wider field of view.
This part doesn't make a lot of sense. The iPhone 12 ultrawide is fixed focus, so it's sharp if your subject is at infinity (which is pretty close, given the focal length) and blurry if it's not. There's no reason why having a fixed focus should yield 'smudgy images'. I guess maybe the article is suggesting that the fixed focus is set at a hyperfocal distance to increase the sharpness of closer subjects. I'm not sure if that would really make sense for such a short focal length, though, as the majority of elements in the frame would typically be at infinity.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 39.8 ms ] threadThose who are interested in this area should check out their explainer article on what’s iPhone’s ProRAW format: https://lux.camera/understanding-proraw/
I’m from this field (tech for phone photography) and it was really helpful.
I've been looking at the Pixel 6 too, but the combination of much shorter OS support, and what sounds like an endless stream of bugs has really put me off. But I'm also wary of moving to iOS, I like the way Android works. I think Google do a better job with security, while being much worse on their own privacy practices. Neither look perfect at the moment.
FWIW, I've had a Pixel 6 since around launch time and have not had a single issue with it. That being said, my phone never received the 'problematic' December update, so maybe that's why.
I've had a lot of phones over the past 20+ years and I'd rate it as one of the best phones I've owned. The only downsides I've noticed are its weight (it's noticably heavy in my opinion) and that it does not charge as fast as my old OnePlus (which has unbeatable charing speeds). The picture quality is excellent and the wide-angle lens is actually quite useful.
I think I'm going to keep my current phone going until the iPhone 14 and Pixel 7 are out. I think it's got about another year before the battery doesn't last the day and it's _fine_ most of the time. I'm hoping that once Google get comfortable with their new architecture that they start extending the guarenteed support period, which is one of the big things pushing me towards an iPhone.
I'm also not sure about the size of the 6, I'm hoping they expand the range a bit and produce a smaller one at some point.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253181534
iPhones are very handy in taking kids pictures when you don't have time to go fetch a DSLR. Huawei P50 & Xiaomi seem to have better cameras but don't want to go anywhere near them.
the 13 pro max camera is insanely good so you're likely seeing a bug. I would very strongly disagree it's worse than the iPhone x or 11. I had both.
I think it's possible you're seeing a bug where the camera is using the wrong lens for the distance. I did notice earlier neat launch when I switch between 1x and 3x sometimes the software will use 1x and digital zoom to 3x instead which obviously produced horrible images. I think this got patched as I haven't seen it recently.
The Apple thread you linked highlights how small changes can really make a large difference on quality.
> This is a very dumb check, but I had a screen protector that was the full screen into the camera module and made my pictures blurry at times. When I removed it, photos were perfect.
This seems extremely unlikely. The aperture in these lenses is fixed, so the aperture is just a circular hole.
Picture 1 iPhone 13 Pro Max
https://i.postimg.cc/Rhb4Jq2F/61-D79076-B244-4-BDF-9-CD1-898...
Picture 2 iPhone X
https://i.postimg.cc/L4yHb0hp/EF1-FCAF0-D1-A6-488-E-8-F03-B8...
The first image looks like it has had much more aggressive noise reduction applied to it. Possibly, a 'face' was detected in one case but not the other, and this influenced the processing choices.
I do find the HDR to be a bit in-your-face, even on "neutral" settings. Sunsets are very saturated when you want to take a picture of pastel shades. Cloudy or sunny skies are a bit hit or miss, often there are blown highlights. The lens also seems much more susceptible to flare at night than other phones I've used with the dreaded green dot - not something I ever noticed with the Pixel. Motion photos are pretty great, really handy for low-effort blur on moving water, although you have to use Photos. Google Photos will play the clip, but it won't do the long exposure/bounce modes. Also a pain if you subscribe to G Cloud (which can sync photos fine), because iCloud is incessant about not having enough backup space. I tried Halide, but I didn't see a significant advantage over Slow Shutter Cam which costs a couple of bucks - if you're going to shoot raw, you're going to edit it somewhere else anyway. Maybe aperture and focus control is worth it? The risk with shooting in RAW and post-processing, is that the camera isn't really that good compared to a larger sensor and you're relying on a huge amount of computational photography to fix those limitations. I did try some astrophotography resting the phone on the car roof, but it never really worked.
This part doesn't make a lot of sense. The iPhone 12 ultrawide is fixed focus, so it's sharp if your subject is at infinity (which is pretty close, given the focal length) and blurry if it's not. There's no reason why having a fixed focus should yield 'smudgy images'. I guess maybe the article is suggesting that the fixed focus is set at a hyperfocal distance to increase the sharpness of closer subjects. I'm not sure if that would really make sense for such a short focal length, though, as the majority of elements in the frame would typically be at infinity.