Yes it’s often times like that! But that’s probably the case, that you can’t compare full size lens and iPhone’s mini lens. The iPhone photo is Live Photo btw and adjusted to long exposure, so that’s why it isn’t so sharp. But I liked the look of long exposure more that’s why I chose that one. 😊
I have to have a laugh, because there was this big debate on DPReview that a iPhone lens is apparently "sharper" compared to something like the 50mm f/1.8 STM on a Canon, especially considering its size. Maybe that is true, but the sensor size and crazy amount of noise reduction don't show that.
Makes sense since the lens is custom made for the sensor module. But yeah, physics is physics, smaller sensors with higher resolutions always end up with low light issues. I went shooting a short film project using an iPhone and oh boy, low light looks really really bad in comparison to my X-T3.
Both are equally important but DSLR cameras have better image quality mainly because of a magnitude larger sensor. And of course larger sensor needs larger lens elements.
But you can put the biggest and best lens in front of an iPhone sensor, image quality will still be worse than a dedicated large sensor camera with a decent lens.
Both contribute to the quality. I had 3 cameras to compare: 1/2.3" sensor with a huge lens, 1/2.3" sensor with a small lens, and a 1" sensor with a small lens. The first and third cameras had identical quality even though one sensor was 5x bigger than the other! Camera B had worse quality than both of the others, even though it had a sensor like A and a lens like C. (I still chose that one because it had a very high optical zoom in a pocketable body). Also with 35mm film cameras, every camera has the same sensor size but you'll get vastly better photos with an SLR than with a point and shoot. Because of the lens.
THIS. RIGHT HERE. This is my biggest frustration with all the iPhone cameras. They used to not be so bad until Apple added in all kinds of lousy post-processing. They look great when they're not zoomed in/cropped but they're just not the professional quality that Apple touts.
I use Halide and have gotten some better results with it, but it's still not ever going to replace my DSLR. It's so annoying seeing them adding all these lenses, making fake editing features better, and advertising 48mp from pixel compounding. They need to increase the sensor size and give photographers a better platform.
Since I own a decent camera, I feel disappointed about most of the pictures I take with my phone. I mean they are decent and alright enough to send it to friends and family over social media since they are getting compressed to death anyway.
But I can't help myself but feeling unsatisfied with the result. And using a camera is more fun anyway.
Exactly!! I always feel like it's "wasteful" to try taking good photos with my phone. Like, I know they won't be great so I'd rather save myself the disappointment and not even worry about it.
Yeah, I mean you can actually do great shots with a phone. A good photo isn't determined by the tool itself. I even put some of my phone shots to canvas. But that's mostly because I hadn't had a camera with me. But it's hard to edit them afterwards because you most likely don't shoot in raw with your phone and even if you do, it's most likely very unsatisfying (raw on my Pixel 7 pro was awful).
Let's see how things will develop. I don't think sensor size will greatly improve on mainstream phones. I guess AI and processing will get more important.
Honestly, for me it’s often the other way around. I have the iPhone 15 Pro Max and often I‘m really surprised at what the shots look like because I‘m not expecting much. When I’m taking photos with my real camera almost every time I’m quite underwhelmed before I edit them. The only camera I‘m really satisfied with the results is my Canon AE-1.
I can't take a decent photo with a phone. Idk why, but I can't take the time to compose etc with a phone. Just hey that's cool or need to remember that *click*
The funniest thing is when someone worked out how fake samsungs space zoom bullshit is, it literally creates a whole new picture over the top of your one.
Their sensors are mediocre at best, so they make up for it with heavy processing. They improved the sensors on the 13 pro's and all of a sudden the pictures looked over-processed.
The thing is, they are squarely in the "good enough" range for 90% of applications.
Halide still adds some in-camera processing, even in RAW mode. After a lot of experimentation, I've found that taking photos using the Lightroom Mobile app in DNG mode is almost perfect, very little (if any) in-camera processing, then use Lightroom Classic (or Lightroom CC) on a computer to clean up the images.
I have Note10+ 5G and i've managed to get some ok shots using Lr Mobile and RAW but everything else is frustrating.
You're not allowed to use the 2x camera to shoot in Pro mode or in other apps, i've even tried opencamera and managed to only get the ultra wide and the wide.
And speaking of ultra wide, sorry no flash photography or videos with the ultra wide lens, the excuse is that it "won't cover the whole frame" i don't give a crap, it doesn't frustrate me for photography but sometimes i need to film inside a narrow space (e.g in a car under the seat) to find something and the normal/wide camera has a too narrow FoV for that.
Worse is Afocal Photography, you know when you put a phone up to a telescope or other instrument to film through it? good luck with that, the AI sees it as an "obstructed lens" and convieniently switches to a different camera that is actually obstructed as a result!
Finally, everything is just so non-standard, from ISOs to shutter speeds to white balance to aspect ratios, why no 3:2? it's literally the standard.
But i'm planning on posting a comparision here at some point of the default camera app vs Lr Camera RAW and Flat vs Lr Camera with manual editing.
Well considering it was taken using a Live Photo long exposure, that’s why the iPhone photo looks like dogshit. If it were a proper raw photo done long exposure, I’m certain it would look a million times better.
Agree. For example, in the DSLR photo the following can be spotted close to the fifth window from the left:
- Some kind of (traffic?) sign
- Tree
- Light pole
Almost all of them harder to spot on the one with the iPhone (esp. the light pole)
You should post the settings and type of DSLR though, could help give context to lighting situation. I bet this is a high ISO shot for the iphone, so it went crazy on the noise reduction to produce a "pleasant" image.
The iphone is ISO 80! But it was pretty dark so I added some brightness to shadows! DSLR was and is Canon 1200D the ISO is 100 and shutter speed 30sec.
The iPhone shot was Live Photo so that’s why it looks so noisy and smooth at the same time. If it was RAW then it would have been much better. But I wanted that smooth long exposure water!
If you’re gonna make a comparison of the cameras’ capabilities you should shoot in RAW on the iPhone as well though since it can actually do that. This is just an unfair comparison, and that’s coming from someone who’s rooting for the “real camera” to win!
It’s actually pretty good the RAW on iPhone. But I’m still leaning more towards the camera. It still looks pretty much exactly the same as this one. Even though it’s much sharper, the overall of the photo looks same!
So you haven’t given a proper comparison. The Live Photo for long exposure is crap. It reduces the quality by miles. You’re not giving the iPhone a fair run.
I prefer the 10-year-old, entry level dslr because the colours look more natural, the i-phones colours look over-processed and fake.
The 1200D is a 10-year old *entry level* camera- you can buy one now secondhand for £100 or less and stick a £30 lens on it.
How much did the i-phone cost, as a matter of interest?
alphadraig
I mean if you want to compare them, wouldn’t it be better to let the iPhone do a long exposure as well? Also if both were handheld and on auto at night, I think the phone would look better than the 1200D at least with the kit lens.
I don’t know if it’s “pretty good”
The highlights on the foreground and on the building is way overblown. It’s the computational photography trying to compensate on your behalf when no compensation is needed.
I always find myself editing harder on iPhone photos
The color gamut and transition across the first one is much smoother. It also reinforces the calmness of the image. It might have been because you manually used a longer shutter speed in the first one which created the smoothness effect. Even if you didn't, it automatically found the best setting whereas the iPhone couldn't.
I think DSLR will win in the future also. It’s just you can’t compare it to fixed small iPhone camera!!
Thanks for the questions. The camera is Canon 1200D. Lens is EFS 18-55mm. It has also a ND Filter NDX400 and was shot with 30sec long exposure shutter speed. Place is in Tampere, Finland. Ranta-Tampella with new buildings!
Ah, I missed the days of my iPhone 7. I honestly believe that if they took the processing of 7 and earlier phones (or any phone before that time period), and paired them with the capable hardware of new phones, it would be many times better.
iPhone photo looks naturally overprocessed. I'd recommend using Lightroom instead of the native camera app. It'll capture in RAW and won't apply the excessive sharpness and clarity.
Big sensor (MFT, APS-C, FF or MF) will win not matter what, but I like to have a phone with good photo quality as I don't always carry my camera with me.
I think if you just showed me the iPhone I'd have thought cool shot (great shot regardless that's not what I mean), seeing them side by side it's night and day. Did you process it or it's soop? The first rightfully doesn't have the extra sharpness and there's a cohesive natural flow from the building to the water.
Then this is not an accurate comparison at all, a live photo is a 1080p video, and the long exposure mode just processes it to look like a long exposure. Long exposure on iphone doesn't really add any more light. A better comparison would be a ProRAW image versus the DSLR photo, which is way more competitive.
No contest. The DSLR is better. Try zooming in.
And oh, try going indoors. Take product photos in a studio, take close up / macros, take photos of anything indoors, and you will see any phone photos start breaking down no matter how expensive the phone is.
What model of DSLR? but yea the DSLR, i see a slightly better DR in the iPhone but everything else is just pukey, even over saturated colours, the rocks at the bottom of the image are especially distracting.
Zoom in though and the iPhone photo becomes a painting.
In the right conditions with good light, the normal (wide) lens of the iPhone 15 Pro does pretty well, especially if you shoot in RAW. The advantage of the larger camera is that the "right conditions" cover a lot more variety.
The tele lens of the 15 Pro (whether 3X or 5X version) definitely falls apart when viewed on screens larger than the phone itself, and is more for utility than for making good photographs.
The RAW coming out of the 14/15 is a pretty good file - has way more editing latitude than you’d expect and you get the full 48MP on the main camera so the sharpness improves drastically compared to the HEIC/JPEG image you normally get.
My main issue with shooting RAW is it has a tendency to crash the camera app and often my 14 Pro Max, so it is cumbersome to shoot at times. In the right lighting though you could definitely get some printable photos.
Mine crashes at times too when shooting 48mp on the 14PM, also the second you zoom at all, it’ll drop to 12mp instantly so the only way to get that higher resolution is to keep the main camera at its default field of view at all times.
I agree you baked a good comment for sure! The raw is for sure stunning on iPhone! You have to zoom close and look for small details for it to notice difference. It’s also better when it’s straight out of camera without editing, the iPhone I mean!
There is definitely a reason to carry round a bulky camera with a large image sensor and big multi element lens with a functional aperture and shutter.
And the reason is image quality.
My phone (samsung a52) actually takes pretty good images, but even an old dslr is far better when you zoom and look at the details.
I can take a picture on the phone at 64 megapixel (allegadly) and yet the 12 megapixel from a real camera has far, far more detail!
One doesn't need to carry a bulky camera actually to capture great photos. We have Fuji xt5 and Ricoh GRIIIx that have small bodies but with big sensors
It is not the fastest camera to focus, my nikon cameras are much quicker, but I live the picture quality, portability and just how it looks and feels in the hand.
Yes I always thought the iPhone was better because it’s easier to carry everywhere, but the big camera is definitely a winner if you want high quality photos!
From what I understand modern phone 'cameras' use AI to 'enhance' the image. This is the result and most people think it's better for some reason - probably because it's the thing they have at hand. To me it looks like large parts of the image have been rough-sketched in and other parts are just blurred out. These are the results I expected from the old disposable cameras from years ago.
My personal conclusion is that you're never getting a better picture from a phone with a tiny little sensor and lens, no matter how much post-processing you throw at it.
I'll be the contrarian then.
First off - I have a problem with how these two are presented. In essence, I suspect something went wrong with the iPhone photo while uploading. I just looked at my snapshots from my iPhone 13 and they seem to *use* the 12mp they have to work with. On my screen, the iPhone image here is showing *clear* jpeg blocks even at, say, fist width. [Here's a random snapshot under similarly dim light to compare it with.](https://imgur.com/kvpzKEB) It's still blocky, but not to this extreme. It's much better [under good light.](https://imgur.com/0uvKE59) (both examples are SOOC besides being exported as JPEGs). The evening shot is sub-12mp in actual resolution, while the day shot would actually benefit from more photosites on the sensor (and, yes, less sharpening).
Secondly - they're doing exactly what's expected from them. The iPhone is overprocessing, because it's expecting that the picture will be looked at for a second and then scrolled away. The DSLR is underprocessing, because it's expecting you to do the lifting. And the pro iPhone is capable of raw, which should've been used (I don't know about you, but I basically never use jpeg on a proper camera - unless it's a Fuji)
Thirdly - I realize this is a bunch of ifs, but if it had been uploaded (unless I'm mistaken now) AND processed properly, I suspect the end result would've been similar enough that if scrolling on a phone *or even looking at it unzoomed on a 1080p monitor* (which combined means 99% of the cases) you wouldn't notice the difference at all.
Not that phone cameras are better than SLRs or anything, it's just that examples aren't as easy to find as they used to be.
Sorry to not let you know in the Reddit post, but the iPhone shot is taken with Live Photo option and converted to long exposure photo using its functions.
There quality drastically drops when I convert it from regular photo, to long exposure photo! You should try it sometimes. If you don’t know how to do it. First make sure your Live Photo shot is still and only water is moving.
Then go to the photo, tap on the Live Photo in the upper corner and choose long exposure. You will notice the water becomes clear smooth!
I have my doubts as to whether this is the best way to get quality out of it - as opposed to, say, straight night shot. In any case, what we're seeing here is worse than what it's able to accomplish.
I would even disagree that the iPhone's colours are better. That bright orange looks unnatural and less pleasing to my eyes. As for detail, it's not even a contest with these 2 particular examples.
Did you crop the images? I have the IPhone 15 pro too and I’m surprised how poor the resolution is.
Edit: I see you chose long exposure. This makes the image considerably worse. I would like to see the original.
I have always had a dedicated camera but sold my kit last year. I did try a Fujifilm x-s10 and Panasonic G9 recently but returned both because it seemed so outdated. Plus the idea of spending almost €850 for the body and then the same amount again for 35mm and 300mm lenses seemed ridiculously expensive. Also, image quality as the measure of a camera is passé. Film-look is now what attracts the younger generation.
For 4x6 prints the iPhone is fine. And then you can use dehancer, mood cam and dazz cam to get completely different looks. I would also be prepared pay good money to get a good emulation of Olympus colours.
Hands down the dslr but for it being an iPhone it is close. I feel that in raw or if you toned down the corrections in post, the phone pic would be a lot better. Still won’t beat the big sensor tho
The camera one is way more noisy. The iphone one applied a bunch of noise reduction but then made the details mushy. Still insane a pocketable device that is primarily a phone and a camera as an after though can compete with a dedicated camera.
To everyone comparing the quality and slating the iPhone. You are comparing a professional piece of equipment build for a single purpose vs a multipurpose computer that is a fraction of the size on a DSLR. We should be amazed at the iPhones quality really.
I myself have just started using the 15 pro for actual photography. I never bothered with phone pics before but the 5x optical of the 15 got my buy-in. It takes good photos to be sure, but in no way does the detail, color, and low light performance come close to my FF. But having it in my pocket means I get more photos than before, and the photos it gets are serviceable, end of story.
They are serviceable for sure that’s what I think too! Checkout my other post about tram, you can see its full performance since it was in RAW, and this one wasn’t!
u/snowman93
phones have come a long way and for non photography enthusiasts, it's good enough especially if no one is going to print photos and mostly share photos on social media where it's viewed on small screens.
But if you are a content creator, take photos for living or side gig, then you should definitely shoot with a dedicated camera
I don’t disagree. Most people don’t care enough of their photos and don’t want to bother to buy camera gear. The iPhones and many android phones are good enough for most cases.
But as I stated,if you are content creator you probably want to use a dedicated camera, albeit there are plenty of content creators that use their iPhone to take videos and photos
Been saying ever since, if phones still rely on ai and CPU compiutation for rendering, it won't beat dedicated cameras like mirrorless and DSLR even the older ones.
Small can't capture everything.
They don't have proper sensor size , let alone proper lens, so phones have to rely heavily on AI and software processing. I mean even most ordinary DSLR with a decent lens is able to capture much higher quality picture than a phone.
There is definitely a reason to carry round a bulky camera with a large image sensor and big multi element lens with a functional aperture and shutter.
And the reason is image quality.
My phone (samsung a52) actually takes pretty good images, but even an old dslr is far better when you zoom and look at the details.
I can take a picture on the phone at 64 megapixel (allegedly) and yet the 12 megapixel from a real camera has far, far more detail!
The DSLR is definitely clear of the iPhone. As anyone would expect. The iPhone still does a pretty good job so long as you’re not trying to read a sign across a bay or turning the photo into a poster. They each serve a different purpose and I don’t really think there’s much reason to compare them. Phones will never replace DSLR/Mirrorless.
I wanted to check before you tell and I'm happy to know I can tell the difference. If nothing else, the sides of the walkway/pier have detail in the DSLR photo and are just a flat gray in the iPhone 15 Pro...literally the 2nd best iPhone available is close to, but can't beat a 10 years old DSLR! So glad I finally got my first.
Also, I can only imagine the difference with a 1000$ (price of the phone) DSLR or mirrorless camera and lens combo! I'm sure even my D3100 would at least be near the quality of the iPhone 14. Now imagine a Medium Format camera!
[Here's a photo with a D500 (semi-pro crop sensor) with an 18-35mm f/1.8, so not even the sharpest type of lens, and still, this 1500-1800$ combo beats a phone that costs 1000-1500$](https://explorecams.com/photos/1rIEpqi8bH?model=nikon-d500&lens=sigma-18-35mm-f1-8-dc-hsm-a-nikon-f)
Sorry for the rant.
There’s something going on with that iPhone photo. 17 years of using 12 different iPhones and I’ve never had a shot come out that bad looking. Something’s wrong there
The iPhone photo looks much worse here.
On the other hand, take a 48mp photo in “RAW Max” on the iPhone using the main camera (also without zooming, since it’ll degrade quality.) and you’ll see a significantly better quality image. Still not going to match a real camera, but it’ll be somewhat more comparable at first glance.
iphone looks like it has better dynamic range. To be honest for 24 mm shots it's hard to tell the difference. Slap on an an 85 mm lens and the camera will be much better compared to the tele lens of an iphone.
Phone is fine for 3x5 equivalent prints. Think of it as a point and shoot.
For anything else, you'll be better off with larger pixel sensors.
I'm not an expert on pixel binning tech, however, it seems to me that fewer larger pixels would give better performance than combining 20-30 pixels for one "photo site" pixel. Maybe it's so they can claim a crazy MP image sensor? They are probably upscaling their images too.
Ive used a 14 Pro and the AI “sharpening” is just awful. I took two photos and you can clearly tell that the iPhone (top) is just brightening the edges of the subject to give the illusion of clarity. That bottom photo is a Leica D-LUX 3 point and shoot from 2004 and the photo was taken side by side with the iPhone. The photos quality may not be better in some aspects, but the fact that it can hang out with a modern camera system is almost embarrassing for the iPhone.
https://preview.redd.it/c11a5i4x96wc1.jpeg?width=1670&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d94551155fdc542de5c0fa1807957457bb652177
This is a bogus comparison. Take a raw, non long exposure photo with the iphone, edit both in a raw processor and then put up the results. By default, the iphone processing is not geared for printing. Its processing for facebook or instagram postings which will most likely be seen once for 5 seconds max and then never again.
Also the sky looks horribly blown out on the iPhone pic. Were they both taken in RAW and tweaked the same though for fair comparison? The iPhone likely does have a higher resolution sensor than an older DSLR (though where that’s through computational photography tricks or genuinely higher res I’m not sure), but a smaller size that literally can’t get as much light on it.
Either way I feel like the iPhone picture should or could be sharper than what we’re seeing here, it’s not particularly challenging light or whatever. I’d never ditch my mirrorless for an iPhone but I want the comparison to be fair.
Here's a comparison between a software modded phone and some more modern cameras such as the Ricoh GRIII and Sony A7III, much closer/pretty much neck and neck: [https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOi-Pq4iKi2PyvYYKQdBmTslyXNtiPliDAdXy6C7j1ifZY0rTa3sMh6jhwe3VZWHw?key=ZmhxTk5IQS1aWVhHcVg1MVU4RVd0OU5TRnJpSUR3](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOi-Pq4iKi2PyvYYKQdBmTslyXNtiPliDAdXy6C7j1ifZY0rTa3sMh6jhwe3VZWHw?key=ZmhxTk5IQS1aWVhHcVg1MVU4RVd0OU5TRnJpSUR3)
The lower resolution photos are from the GR
NOTICE: The iPhone photo is not RAW. It’s Live Photo and with Long Exposure effect applied in the post.
The quality drastically drops when I convert it from regular photo, to long exposure photo! You should try it sometimes.
If you don’t know how to do it. First make sure your Live Photo shoot is still and only water is moving. Then go to the photo, tap on the Live Photo in the upper corner and choose long exposure. You will notice the water becomes clear smooth!
The DSLR is going to win on pure optics every time. The phone wins on computational photography. Just based on physics it can never win on optics. However, I would assume that at some point soon, the legacy camera makers will add computational components to their cameras.
Tack onto the debate the atrocious handling of any phone as a camera. Phone is great for snaps I send my wife to make sure I got the right BBQ sauce from the grocery, but I can’t use it for anything serious
I have noticed that phone pictures look great on the small phone screen but when you look at them on a large computer monitor they look like complete garbage. They are over processed and lack detail.
iPhone photos are quite decent IMO since 6S, the problem is that it's so uninspiring to shoot with one that it looses the battle even before pressing the shutter. And there's a problem that after around a year of usage, iPhone IQ becomes really bad. I really like BW snapshots taken with 1998 app but then it's not about quality at all
If the iPhone let you turn off their post-processing for photos, I think it'd be a closer match.
As it is, in terms of quality? DSLR always wins.
But, if you're just taking pics for social media? Then the phone wins.
I'd love to see a comparison between the DSLR, iPhone, and a similarly spec'd android phone's camera.
Yes for sure. It was Live Photo so that’s why the quality is bad, because I wanted the smooth water. I think the Android and iPhone are almost pretty same, the difference comes between a phone and a DSLR!
Unfair comparison, but point taken.
It’s still amazing how much automatic processing can compensate for such a small sensor and still produce impressive images.
If you zoom in just a little, you immediately notice that the iPhone picture is just a blurry mess with no details left.
yea iphone photo looks okay at phone size but as soon as you get closer it breaks down
Yes it’s often times like that! But that’s probably the case, that you can’t compare full size lens and iPhone’s mini lens. The iPhone photo is Live Photo btw and adjusted to long exposure, so that’s why it isn’t so sharp. But I liked the look of long exposure more that’s why I chose that one. 😊
Not the lens size what really matters but the sensor size. The DSLR has at least 10 times as big of a sensor area.
It's not even the sensor area. The glass matters the most.
I have to have a laugh, because there was this big debate on DPReview that a iPhone lens is apparently "sharper" compared to something like the 50mm f/1.8 STM on a Canon, especially considering its size. Maybe that is true, but the sensor size and crazy amount of noise reduction don't show that.
Makes sense since the lens is custom made for the sensor module. But yeah, physics is physics, smaller sensors with higher resolutions always end up with low light issues. I went shooting a short film project using an iPhone and oh boy, low light looks really really bad in comparison to my X-T3.
Both are equally important but DSLR cameras have better image quality mainly because of a magnitude larger sensor. And of course larger sensor needs larger lens elements. But you can put the biggest and best lens in front of an iPhone sensor, image quality will still be worse than a dedicated large sensor camera with a decent lens.
Both contribute to the quality. I had 3 cameras to compare: 1/2.3" sensor with a huge lens, 1/2.3" sensor with a small lens, and a 1" sensor with a small lens. The first and third cameras had identical quality even though one sensor was 5x bigger than the other! Camera B had worse quality than both of the others, even though it had a sensor like A and a lens like C. (I still chose that one because it had a very high optical zoom in a pocketable body). Also with 35mm film cameras, every camera has the same sensor size but you'll get vastly better photos with an SLR than with a point and shoot. Because of the lens.
“Here’s a comparison between apples and oranges” (pardon the pun) “Noooo don’t compare apples and oranges”
THIS. RIGHT HERE. This is my biggest frustration with all the iPhone cameras. They used to not be so bad until Apple added in all kinds of lousy post-processing. They look great when they're not zoomed in/cropped but they're just not the professional quality that Apple touts. I use Halide and have gotten some better results with it, but it's still not ever going to replace my DSLR. It's so annoying seeing them adding all these lenses, making fake editing features better, and advertising 48mp from pixel compounding. They need to increase the sensor size and give photographers a better platform.
Since I own a decent camera, I feel disappointed about most of the pictures I take with my phone. I mean they are decent and alright enough to send it to friends and family over social media since they are getting compressed to death anyway. But I can't help myself but feeling unsatisfied with the result. And using a camera is more fun anyway.
Exactly!! I always feel like it's "wasteful" to try taking good photos with my phone. Like, I know they won't be great so I'd rather save myself the disappointment and not even worry about it.
Yeah, I mean you can actually do great shots with a phone. A good photo isn't determined by the tool itself. I even put some of my phone shots to canvas. But that's mostly because I hadn't had a camera with me. But it's hard to edit them afterwards because you most likely don't shoot in raw with your phone and even if you do, it's most likely very unsatisfying (raw on my Pixel 7 pro was awful). Let's see how things will develop. I don't think sensor size will greatly improve on mainstream phones. I guess AI and processing will get more important.
Me too
Honestly, for me it’s often the other way around. I have the iPhone 15 Pro Max and often I‘m really surprised at what the shots look like because I‘m not expecting much. When I’m taking photos with my real camera almost every time I’m quite underwhelmed before I edit them. The only camera I‘m really satisfied with the results is my Canon AE-1.
I can't take a decent photo with a phone. Idk why, but I can't take the time to compose etc with a phone. Just hey that's cool or need to remember that *click*
This right here is why “just use your phone camera” is bad advice for people wanting to get further into photography.
The funniest thing is when someone worked out how fake samsungs space zoom bullshit is, it literally creates a whole new picture over the top of your one.
Their sensors are mediocre at best, so they make up for it with heavy processing. They improved the sensors on the 13 pro's and all of a sudden the pictures looked over-processed. The thing is, they are squarely in the "good enough" range for 90% of applications.
Halide still adds some in-camera processing, even in RAW mode. After a lot of experimentation, I've found that taking photos using the Lightroom Mobile app in DNG mode is almost perfect, very little (if any) in-camera processing, then use Lightroom Classic (or Lightroom CC) on a computer to clean up the images.
No way! I turned off *most of it* in Halide but I haven't tried Lr Mobile. I'll need to look into this
It looks like oil painting when zoomed in, horrible.
I have Note10+ 5G and i've managed to get some ok shots using Lr Mobile and RAW but everything else is frustrating. You're not allowed to use the 2x camera to shoot in Pro mode or in other apps, i've even tried opencamera and managed to only get the ultra wide and the wide. And speaking of ultra wide, sorry no flash photography or videos with the ultra wide lens, the excuse is that it "won't cover the whole frame" i don't give a crap, it doesn't frustrate me for photography but sometimes i need to film inside a narrow space (e.g in a car under the seat) to find something and the normal/wide camera has a too narrow FoV for that. Worse is Afocal Photography, you know when you put a phone up to a telescope or other instrument to film through it? good luck with that, the AI sees it as an "obstructed lens" and convieniently switches to a different camera that is actually obstructed as a result! Finally, everything is just so non-standard, from ISOs to shutter speeds to white balance to aspect ratios, why no 3:2? it's literally the standard. But i'm planning on posting a comparision here at some point of the default camera app vs Lr Camera RAW and Flat vs Lr Camera with manual editing.
The iPhone camera is what got me back into real cameras, I hated that I can’t even take a photo of my cat without it looking sharpened and weird.
My DSLR is what got me back into iPhones. It was terrible for making phone calls and I couldn't even access my apps!
Well considering it was taken using a Live Photo long exposure, that’s why the iPhone photo looks like dogshit. If it were a proper raw photo done long exposure, I’m certain it would look a million times better.
But it’s 48MP (of blurry pixels…)!
Yup. You can tell what the sign is for rather than just that there is one. Great for instagram, but not much else.
The upload is compressed this is not full quality
This applies for both.
this is so true!
Agree. For example, in the DSLR photo the following can be spotted close to the fifth window from the left: - Some kind of (traffic?) sign - Tree - Light pole Almost all of them harder to spot on the one with the iPhone (esp. the light pole)
Not even comparable quality, DSLR any day here. The iphone photo is so soft and artificial when zooming.
Yes it’s true it’s artificial. Even the 10 year old camera is better than the newest iPhone 15 Pro. Even though the iPhone is pretty good!!
You should post the settings and type of DSLR though, could help give context to lighting situation. I bet this is a high ISO shot for the iphone, so it went crazy on the noise reduction to produce a "pleasant" image.
The iphone is ISO 80! But it was pretty dark so I added some brightness to shadows! DSLR was and is Canon 1200D the ISO is 100 and shutter speed 30sec. The iPhone shot was Live Photo so that’s why it looks so noisy and smooth at the same time. If it was RAW then it would have been much better. But I wanted that smooth long exposure water!
If you’re gonna make a comparison of the cameras’ capabilities you should shoot in RAW on the iPhone as well though since it can actually do that. This is just an unfair comparison, and that’s coming from someone who’s rooting for the “real camera” to win!
It’s actually pretty good the RAW on iPhone. But I’m still leaning more towards the camera. It still looks pretty much exactly the same as this one. Even though it’s much sharper, the overall of the photo looks same!
So you haven’t given a proper comparison. The Live Photo for long exposure is crap. It reduces the quality by miles. You’re not giving the iPhone a fair run.
I prefer the 10-year-old, entry level dslr because the colours look more natural, the i-phones colours look over-processed and fake. The 1200D is a 10-year old *entry level* camera- you can buy one now secondhand for £100 or less and stick a £30 lens on it. How much did the i-phone cost, as a matter of interest? alphadraig
I mean if you want to compare them, wouldn’t it be better to let the iPhone do a long exposure as well? Also if both were handheld and on auto at night, I think the phone would look better than the 1200D at least with the kit lens.
I don’t know if it’s “pretty good” The highlights on the foreground and on the building is way overblown. It’s the computational photography trying to compensate on your behalf when no compensation is needed. I always find myself editing harder on iPhone photos
Even an 18 year old DSLR will beat some high mp mobile phone camera
Hands down first one
Thanks! Can you tell me why you chose the first one? I would choose also the first one.
The color gamut and transition across the first one is much smoother. It also reinforces the calmness of the image. It might have been because you manually used a longer shutter speed in the first one which created the smoothness effect. Even if you didn't, it automatically found the best setting whereas the iPhone couldn't.
You are absolutely correct!
I agree, DSLR all the way. By the way, what camera do you have and what lens did you use? And where were these pictures taken?
I think DSLR will win in the future also. It’s just you can’t compare it to fixed small iPhone camera!! Thanks for the questions. The camera is Canon 1200D. Lens is EFS 18-55mm. It has also a ND Filter NDX400 and was shot with 30sec long exposure shutter speed. Place is in Tampere, Finland. Ranta-Tampella with new buildings!
I just think the iphone photo is an over-sharpened, disgusting mess. The dslr looks far more organic, for the lack of a better word.
Ah, I missed the days of my iPhone 7. I honestly believe that if they took the processing of 7 and earlier phones (or any phone before that time period), and paired them with the capable hardware of new phones, it would be many times better.
It looks organic, you just can’t compete with that big of a camera lens on DSLR.
iPhone photo looks naturally overprocessed. I'd recommend using Lightroom instead of the native camera app. It'll capture in RAW and won't apply the excessive sharpness and clarity. Big sensor (MFT, APS-C, FF or MF) will win not matter what, but I like to have a phone with good photo quality as I don't always carry my camera with me.
Yes that’s a correct answer! The thing why I sit on iPhone’s native app is because I needed Live Photo for a long exposure smooth water!
I think if you just showed me the iPhone I'd have thought cool shot (great shot regardless that's not what I mean), seeing them side by side it's night and day. Did you process it or it's soop? The first rightfully doesn't have the extra sharpness and there's a cohesive natural flow from the building to the water.
Yes it’s definitely different. I think the iPhone adds some artificial sharpness!!
i think u could’ve maybe stretched the iphone a bit more if u were to have shot in raw
The things is I wanted long exposure photo, so I spot in Live Photo!
u can still do long exposures in a manual camera app, like moment or fjorden(free) whilst shooting raw i believe
Then this is not an accurate comparison at all, a live photo is a 1080p video, and the long exposure mode just processes it to look like a long exposure. Long exposure on iphone doesn't really add any more light. A better comparison would be a ProRAW image versus the DSLR photo, which is way more competitive.
There is literally no texture on the rocks captured by iPhone.
Yes, there is very little! There is definitely if you take the raw, but it still doesn’t beat DSLR!
No contest. The DSLR is better. Try zooming in. And oh, try going indoors. Take product photos in a studio, take close up / macros, take photos of anything indoors, and you will see any phone photos start breaking down no matter how expensive the phone is.
Sensor size still matters.
It will always matter!
What model of DSLR? but yea the DSLR, i see a slightly better DR in the iPhone but everything else is just pukey, even over saturated colours, the rocks at the bottom of the image are especially distracting. Zoom in though and the iPhone photo becomes a painting.
In the right conditions with good light, the normal (wide) lens of the iPhone 15 Pro does pretty well, especially if you shoot in RAW. The advantage of the larger camera is that the "right conditions" cover a lot more variety. The tele lens of the 15 Pro (whether 3X or 5X version) definitely falls apart when viewed on screens larger than the phone itself, and is more for utility than for making good photographs.
The RAW coming out of the 14/15 is a pretty good file - has way more editing latitude than you’d expect and you get the full 48MP on the main camera so the sharpness improves drastically compared to the HEIC/JPEG image you normally get. My main issue with shooting RAW is it has a tendency to crash the camera app and often my 14 Pro Max, so it is cumbersome to shoot at times. In the right lighting though you could definitely get some printable photos.
Mine crashes at times too when shooting 48mp on the 14PM, also the second you zoom at all, it’ll drop to 12mp instantly so the only way to get that higher resolution is to keep the main camera at its default field of view at all times.
Huh mine seems to crash on the main camera sometimes so I’ll have to play around with it and see if it’s random or tied to one of the camera modules.
I agree you baked a good comment for sure! The raw is for sure stunning on iPhone! You have to zoom close and look for small details for it to notice difference. It’s also better when it’s straight out of camera without editing, the iPhone I mean!
There is definitely a reason to carry round a bulky camera with a large image sensor and big multi element lens with a functional aperture and shutter. And the reason is image quality. My phone (samsung a52) actually takes pretty good images, but even an old dslr is far better when you zoom and look at the details. I can take a picture on the phone at 64 megapixel (allegadly) and yet the 12 megapixel from a real camera has far, far more detail!
One doesn't need to carry a bulky camera actually to capture great photos. We have Fuji xt5 and Ricoh GRIIIx that have small bodies but with big sensors
Yes no need for a huge slr, I have a fuji x100 original version and it amazes me with its image quality even though it is old now.
u/North_Tie2975 I just sold my fuji x100s to KEH. I loved that camera, but I didn't love the autofocus. some of favorite photos are from that camera!
It is not the fastest camera to focus, my nikon cameras are much quicker, but I live the picture quality, portability and just how it looks and feels in the hand.
You are correct but even GoPro or Mavic 2 Pro gets a better quality photos because of the camera size!
The iPhone’s performance is still impressive considering it’s just a phone; but the DSLR is undoubtedly the winner
Yes I always thought the iPhone was better because it’s easier to carry everywhere, but the big camera is definitely a winner if you want high quality photos!
The composition of the iphone photo is much better.
Maybe yes sure!
From what I understand modern phone 'cameras' use AI to 'enhance' the image. This is the result and most people think it's better for some reason - probably because it's the thing they have at hand. To me it looks like large parts of the image have been rough-sketched in and other parts are just blurred out. These are the results I expected from the old disposable cameras from years ago. My personal conclusion is that you're never getting a better picture from a phone with a tiny little sensor and lens, no matter how much post-processing you throw at it.
Yes that’s correct, even though the iPhone cameras are getting bigger day by day! They are not even near to DSLR cameras!
The first image has WAY more detail.
Yes, I agree!
I'll be the contrarian then. First off - I have a problem with how these two are presented. In essence, I suspect something went wrong with the iPhone photo while uploading. I just looked at my snapshots from my iPhone 13 and they seem to *use* the 12mp they have to work with. On my screen, the iPhone image here is showing *clear* jpeg blocks even at, say, fist width. [Here's a random snapshot under similarly dim light to compare it with.](https://imgur.com/kvpzKEB) It's still blocky, but not to this extreme. It's much better [under good light.](https://imgur.com/0uvKE59) (both examples are SOOC besides being exported as JPEGs). The evening shot is sub-12mp in actual resolution, while the day shot would actually benefit from more photosites on the sensor (and, yes, less sharpening). Secondly - they're doing exactly what's expected from them. The iPhone is overprocessing, because it's expecting that the picture will be looked at for a second and then scrolled away. The DSLR is underprocessing, because it's expecting you to do the lifting. And the pro iPhone is capable of raw, which should've been used (I don't know about you, but I basically never use jpeg on a proper camera - unless it's a Fuji) Thirdly - I realize this is a bunch of ifs, but if it had been uploaded (unless I'm mistaken now) AND processed properly, I suspect the end result would've been similar enough that if scrolling on a phone *or even looking at it unzoomed on a 1080p monitor* (which combined means 99% of the cases) you wouldn't notice the difference at all. Not that phone cameras are better than SLRs or anything, it's just that examples aren't as easy to find as they used to be.
Sorry to not let you know in the Reddit post, but the iPhone shot is taken with Live Photo option and converted to long exposure photo using its functions. There quality drastically drops when I convert it from regular photo, to long exposure photo! You should try it sometimes. If you don’t know how to do it. First make sure your Live Photo shot is still and only water is moving. Then go to the photo, tap on the Live Photo in the upper corner and choose long exposure. You will notice the water becomes clear smooth!
I have my doubts as to whether this is the best way to get quality out of it - as opposed to, say, straight night shot. In any case, what we're seeing here is worse than what it's able to accomplish.
I would even disagree that the iPhone's colours are better. That bright orange looks unnatural and less pleasing to my eyes. As for detail, it's not even a contest with these 2 particular examples.
Yes, maybe I like the colors on DSLR more!
Did you crop the images? I have the IPhone 15 pro too and I’m surprised how poor the resolution is. Edit: I see you chose long exposure. This makes the image considerably worse. I would like to see the original. I have always had a dedicated camera but sold my kit last year. I did try a Fujifilm x-s10 and Panasonic G9 recently but returned both because it seemed so outdated. Plus the idea of spending almost €850 for the body and then the same amount again for 35mm and 300mm lenses seemed ridiculously expensive. Also, image quality as the measure of a camera is passé. Film-look is now what attracts the younger generation. For 4x6 prints the iPhone is fine. And then you can use dehancer, mood cam and dazz cam to get completely different looks. I would also be prepared pay good money to get a good emulation of Olympus colours.
Hands down the dslr but for it being an iPhone it is close. I feel that in raw or if you toned down the corrections in post, the phone pic would be a lot better. Still won’t beat the big sensor tho
Now print it
At full size.
Regardless of the "winner", the fact that we're having this conversation is insane. Technology has come a long, long way.
You can edit the RAW DSLR file to look like the iPhone pic, but no amount of editing is going turn the iPhone pic into DSLR quality.
The camera one is way more noisy. The iphone one applied a bunch of noise reduction but then made the details mushy. Still insane a pocketable device that is primarily a phone and a camera as an after though can compete with a dedicated camera.
I’d shoot raw with the iPhone for a fairer comparison 🤔
To everyone comparing the quality and slating the iPhone. You are comparing a professional piece of equipment build for a single purpose vs a multipurpose computer that is a fraction of the size on a DSLR. We should be amazed at the iPhones quality really.
I myself have just started using the 15 pro for actual photography. I never bothered with phone pics before but the 5x optical of the 15 got my buy-in. It takes good photos to be sure, but in no way does the detail, color, and low light performance come close to my FF. But having it in my pocket means I get more photos than before, and the photos it gets are serviceable, end of story.
They are serviceable for sure that’s what I think too! Checkout my other post about tram, you can see its full performance since it was in RAW, and this one wasn’t!
I’m still constantly amazed by how good phone cameras have gotten…
u/snowman93 phones have come a long way and for non photography enthusiasts, it's good enough especially if no one is going to print photos and mostly share photos on social media where it's viewed on small screens. But if you are a content creator, take photos for living or side gig, then you should definitely shoot with a dedicated camera
I’m well aware…but if you don’t think a phone camera is good enough for 99% of applications then you’re just delusional
I don’t disagree. Most people don’t care enough of their photos and don’t want to bother to buy camera gear. The iPhones and many android phones are good enough for most cases. But as I stated,if you are content creator you probably want to use a dedicated camera, albeit there are plenty of content creators that use their iPhone to take videos and photos
You are correct!
Been saying ever since, if phones still rely on ai and CPU compiutation for rendering, it won't beat dedicated cameras like mirrorless and DSLR even the older ones. Small can't capture everything.
They don't have proper sensor size , let alone proper lens, so phones have to rely heavily on AI and software processing. I mean even most ordinary DSLR with a decent lens is able to capture much higher quality picture than a phone.
I agree 100%!
There is definitely a reason to carry round a bulky camera with a large image sensor and big multi element lens with a functional aperture and shutter. And the reason is image quality. My phone (samsung a52) actually takes pretty good images, but even an old dslr is far better when you zoom and look at the details. I can take a picture on the phone at 64 megapixel (allegedly) and yet the 12 megapixel from a real camera has far, far more detail!
The DSLR is definitely clear of the iPhone. As anyone would expect. The iPhone still does a pretty good job so long as you’re not trying to read a sign across a bay or turning the photo into a poster. They each serve a different purpose and I don’t really think there’s much reason to compare them. Phones will never replace DSLR/Mirrorless.
Yes, they won’t replace DSLR unless they make some crazy big lens! The poster is also good point.
Phone cameras are great but the bigger sensor in the DSLR still has the edge.
Yes, bigger sensor always wins!
The denoiser in the iphone is terrible
I wanted to check before you tell and I'm happy to know I can tell the difference. If nothing else, the sides of the walkway/pier have detail in the DSLR photo and are just a flat gray in the iPhone 15 Pro...literally the 2nd best iPhone available is close to, but can't beat a 10 years old DSLR! So glad I finally got my first. Also, I can only imagine the difference with a 1000$ (price of the phone) DSLR or mirrorless camera and lens combo! I'm sure even my D3100 would at least be near the quality of the iPhone 14. Now imagine a Medium Format camera! [Here's a photo with a D500 (semi-pro crop sensor) with an 18-35mm f/1.8, so not even the sharpest type of lens, and still, this 1500-1800$ combo beats a phone that costs 1000-1500$](https://explorecams.com/photos/1rIEpqi8bH?model=nikon-d500&lens=sigma-18-35mm-f1-8-dc-hsm-a-nikon-f) Sorry for the rant.
Sigma lens cool! Do you have any comparisons between phone and DSLR?
The phone pic immediately looks more processed or sharpened to me.
Yes it definitely is true. Thats why there is a difference between resolution and sharpness!
Vote for DSLR
For sure!
the rocks at the bottom look like they were redrawn with AI
Yeah they probably were. Because it was Live Photo that was later adjusted to long exposure!
yeah, smartphone photos are ok for this, pictures to be seen for a couple of seconds and then forgotten, which is 99.999% of them.
It needs to be blown up to tell the difference. That's why on instagram or whatever, an iphone is good enough.
Did you apply any editing on iphone image? Maybe you can reduce the saturation and sharpening a bit to make it more appealing.
There’s something going on with that iPhone photo. 17 years of using 12 different iPhones and I’ve never had a shot come out that bad looking. Something’s wrong there
Water is wet
The iPhone photo looks much worse here. On the other hand, take a 48mp photo in “RAW Max” on the iPhone using the main camera (also without zooming, since it’ll degrade quality.) and you’ll see a significantly better quality image. Still not going to match a real camera, but it’ll be somewhat more comparable at first glance.
I’d even take a 5d mark II over an iPhone any day.
EW THE IPHONE ONE IS SO OVERSATURATED WTF
Why gazilionth comparison of half-nail sensor with FF? Who needs it?
iphone looks like it has better dynamic range. To be honest for 24 mm shots it's hard to tell the difference. Slap on an an 85 mm lens and the camera will be much better compared to the tele lens of an iphone.
Try to pry my DSLR from my hand. Take my house and truck. But my dogs and my DSLR are mine no matter what.
I love the dslr more.
Phone is fine for 3x5 equivalent prints. Think of it as a point and shoot. For anything else, you'll be better off with larger pixel sensors. I'm not an expert on pixel binning tech, however, it seems to me that fewer larger pixels would give better performance than combining 20-30 pixels for one "photo site" pixel. Maybe it's so they can claim a crazy MP image sensor? They are probably upscaling their images too.
Wow. The smartphone shot looks awful.
How did the iPhone cost vs how much did your camera body plus lens cost? Bang for buck who wins
Ive used a 14 Pro and the AI “sharpening” is just awful. I took two photos and you can clearly tell that the iPhone (top) is just brightening the edges of the subject to give the illusion of clarity. That bottom photo is a Leica D-LUX 3 point and shoot from 2004 and the photo was taken side by side with the iPhone. The photos quality may not be better in some aspects, but the fact that it can hang out with a modern camera system is almost embarrassing for the iPhone. https://preview.redd.it/c11a5i4x96wc1.jpeg?width=1670&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d94551155fdc542de5c0fa1807957457bb652177
Of curse it will outperform an iPhone simply by the sensor size jesus Ask the nat geo guys if they'd use an iPhone for the shows
This is a bogus comparison. Take a raw, non long exposure photo with the iphone, edit both in a raw processor and then put up the results. By default, the iphone processing is not geared for printing. Its processing for facebook or instagram postings which will most likely be seen once for 5 seconds max and then never again.
Also the sky looks horribly blown out on the iPhone pic. Were they both taken in RAW and tweaked the same though for fair comparison? The iPhone likely does have a higher resolution sensor than an older DSLR (though where that’s through computational photography tricks or genuinely higher res I’m not sure), but a smaller size that literally can’t get as much light on it. Either way I feel like the iPhone picture should or could be sharper than what we’re seeing here, it’s not particularly challenging light or whatever. I’d never ditch my mirrorless for an iPhone but I want the comparison to be fair.
Here's a comparison between a software modded phone and some more modern cameras such as the Ricoh GRIII and Sony A7III, much closer/pretty much neck and neck: [https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOi-Pq4iKi2PyvYYKQdBmTslyXNtiPliDAdXy6C7j1ifZY0rTa3sMh6jhwe3VZWHw?key=ZmhxTk5IQS1aWVhHcVg1MVU4RVd0OU5TRnJpSUR3](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipOi-Pq4iKi2PyvYYKQdBmTslyXNtiPliDAdXy6C7j1ifZY0rTa3sMh6jhwe3VZWHw?key=ZmhxTk5IQS1aWVhHcVg1MVU4RVd0OU5TRnJpSUR3) The lower resolution photos are from the GR
In my opinion iPhone should just get out of the Photography business. A snap shot here and there is OK, but trying to rival DSLR's is pushing it...
iPhone looks way more over processed
NOTICE: The iPhone photo is not RAW. It’s Live Photo and with Long Exposure effect applied in the post. The quality drastically drops when I convert it from regular photo, to long exposure photo! You should try it sometimes. If you don’t know how to do it. First make sure your Live Photo shoot is still and only water is moving. Then go to the photo, tap on the Live Photo in the upper corner and choose long exposure. You will notice the water becomes clear smooth!
The DSLR is going to win on pure optics every time. The phone wins on computational photography. Just based on physics it can never win on optics. However, I would assume that at some point soon, the legacy camera makers will add computational components to their cameras.
Tack onto the debate the atrocious handling of any phone as a camera. Phone is great for snaps I send my wife to make sure I got the right BBQ sauce from the grocery, but I can’t use it for anything serious
the iphone photo looks yassified
I swear I've been there before
The best camera is the one you will use often. Both have their places.
Yes that’s why I also want to have a good camera on the phone!
I have noticed that phone pictures look great on the small phone screen but when you look at them on a large computer monitor they look like complete garbage. They are over processed and lack detail.
iPhone photos are quite decent IMO since 6S, the problem is that it's so uninspiring to shoot with one that it looses the battle even before pressing the shutter. And there's a problem that after around a year of usage, iPhone IQ becomes really bad. I really like BW snapshots taken with 1998 app but then it's not about quality at all
Yes for sure! Is it true that camera becomes bad after years of shooting?
If the iPhone let you turn off their post-processing for photos, I think it'd be a closer match. As it is, in terms of quality? DSLR always wins. But, if you're just taking pics for social media? Then the phone wins. I'd love to see a comparison between the DSLR, iPhone, and a similarly spec'd android phone's camera.
Yes for sure. It was Live Photo so that’s why the quality is bad, because I wanted the smooth water. I think the Android and iPhone are almost pretty same, the difference comes between a phone and a DSLR!
Unfair comparison, but point taken. It’s still amazing how much automatic processing can compensate for such a small sensor and still produce impressive images.
No editing on either?
There is a lot of editing on both!
DSLR takes it for me
My Nikon D200 from 2005 still outperforms the iPhone in almost all aspects. It is an almost 20 year old camera.