>more so than most other Androids

It the old days Apple used to somewhat pride themselves with taking more "realistic" photos. While Android had it the other way around and basically post processes a lot of things as well as colouring. Mostly used for Social Media like Instagram.

And then came iPhone X. They started changing the colour of Sky and sharpening a lot of things. To the point of a lot of Photos taken by my camera looks great but also looked fake.

My hunch is that you'll find more fans of Apple's color profile than detractors. This particular shot may have done it badly (to your eyes, some people prefer the more saturated look) but as a whole I have my doubts.

Color profiles vary per body at the least and are variable based on what post processing you do. I can load up Adobe Vivid and it'll look completely different than Adobe Portrait.

Shoot a Canon, Sony, and Fuji in JPG on the same scene (so same focal length and DOF) and auto white balance. Each body will output a different image.

I get the point… but I would counterargue, perhaps facetiously, that if one needs a professionally color calibrated screen to notice the difference, then it is really not something that would matter for mere mortals.

You’re somehow both reading far too in to my comment (none of my comment is specific to Apple) and not reading my comment enough (because you m missed the point about color profiles)

I’m not defending the default color choices, I’m saying that they’re comparing apples to oranges because they’re comparing an output designed to be opinionated with one that’s designed to be processed after the fact. The iPhone is perfectly capable of outputting neutral images and raw files.

If anyone working on skin color representation try to emulate Agfa Precisa it has with the best skin colors in natural light.

You and most Apple neggers are not really any better by ignoring what all this comes down to, choices and trade-offs. Apple’s primary objective is clearly related to taking photos that provide a positive impact on the user while being as easy to do so as feasible, not accuracy of the image. They likely care more about the most number of users being satisfied, not accurate reproduction of an image.

I would not be surprised if they don’t actually want accuracy in imaging at all, they want a positive impact on the user, and most people don’t want reality. If that means causing “hotdog skin” under some conditions or with some skin tones, or maybe even if most users prefer “hotdog skin”, while having an overall positive photo outcome for most other users; they will likely always choose to produce “hotdog skin”. They are also serving a far greater and, frankly an increasingly less light skinned audience than most understand. Maybe it’s just an effect of “whites” having given away their control over things as ever more “non-whites” become revert increasingly important and an ever increasing number and percentage of Apple’s users. Do Asians and Africans get “hotdog skin”? I don’t know the answer to that.

It is the narrow minded perspective of DSLR purist types that this stuff bothers, largely because they cannot look beyond the rim of their plate. Some platforms are for accuracy, others for impact and user experience.

People should maybe consider stop saying things like “this Apple is an absolutely horrible, awful, no good orange!”

You and most Apple obsessed curmudgeons are not really any better by ignoring what all this comes down to, choices and trade-offs. Apple’s primary objective is clearly related to taking photos that provide a positive impact on the user while being as easy to do so, not accuracy. They want the most number of users to be satisfied, not accurate reproduction of an image. I would not be surprised if they don’t actually want accuracy in imaging, they want a positive impact on the user, and if that means causing “hotdog skin” under some conditions or with some skin tones, while having an overall positive photo outcome for most other users, they will always choose to make you have “hotdog skin”. They are in serving a far greater audience than most understand.

It is the narrow minded perspective of DSLR purist types that this stuff bothers, largely because they cannot look beyond the rim of their plate.

You may want to stop saying “this Apple is a horrible, awful, no good orange.”

Yeah I like to take photos of my cast iron cooking with my S25U, on a black induction glass surface - and I find myself swapping to Pro mode all the time as the colour temperature is often way too warm and or oversaturated.

It's a great camera in automatic mode most of the time, but not for that scenario.

The 2x mode of the wide lens is basically the standard “nifty fifty” of a big camera and what the author should have compared to. The 1x is 24mm equivalent which is a focal length I don’t particularly care for, but I get why they picked it (easy to frame a group of people indoors).

For portraits the ideal length is 85mm equivalent which would be 3.5x, rumored to be on the next iphone pro. At this length there is minimal facial feature distortion without getting the flattening effect you get at longer focal lengths.

Yeah it's disappointing to see photographers getting this wrong. Most of them know better.

It's the _distance_ that causes distortion, not the _lens_. You can prove this by doodling light rays on a sheet of paper. There is no lens that will get you a good photo at 1 meter from a person. They stand back 2 or 3 or more and then say "ho ho fish eye lens". I'm so sick of it

Someone agrees: https://petapixel.com/2021/08/02/lenses-dont-cause-perspecti...

> The issue is, cameras on phones are not for taking a photo of what you see, but a way to share your life, and sharing your life in a more glamorous way is to get liked around people.

Is nothing new.

When film was mass market almost no one developed their own photos (particularly colo(u)r). Instead almost all printing went through bulk labs who optimised for what people wanting to show to their family and friends.

What is different now is if someone cares about post processing to try and present their particular version of reality they can do it easily without the cost and inconvenience of having to setup and run a darkroom.

And this is why I have an Olympus Pen-F in one pocket and my iPhone in the other pocket. I love my iPhone, and I use it for taking snapshots day-to-day like receipts for my expense report, but any time I care about capturing something I see I have an actual camera in my pocket. Micro 4/3rds for size/weight, unfortunately, but while I have a FF camera I am not lugging it around with me everywhere, a Pen-F literally fits in my pocket with lens attached.

Every hardware have it's limitations, my DSLR don't fit in my pocket for instance. But that wouldn't be a fair point when comparing photo quality against a smartphone.

Comparing quality with non equivalent focal lengths is as pertinent as to mount a fisheye on the DSLR (because you can!) and then claim that the smartphone have less distortion.

I’m sorry, if you’re going to argue it’s completely off base at least make a statement that isn’t easily dismissed by looking at the back of a phone.

My iPhone pro has 3 lenses of 15,24 and 77mm equivalents. This is far fewer than many Android phones.

Even the cheapest iPhone 16E has a super sampling sensor which allows a cropped 50mm equivalent. (And yes that’s a digital crop but that’s why I mention a super sampling sensor)

So yes, unless they were shooting on a budget phone or a much older iPhone, they have a choice of focal lengths that would better match whatever camera they’re comparing to.

I'm not sure I get your point.

Most appropriate length for what? Some iPhones have multiple focal lengths, just like some "real camers" have fixed lenses with a fixed focal length (Fuxji x100 and the medium-format one whose model I can't remember, Leica something-or-other, Sony R1).

Plus, for what is a traditional camera "just better"? It's highly usage dependent.

I have both a bludgeon, which can be used as an interchangeable lens camera, and an iPhone. The first doesn't fit in my pocket, so sometimes the latter is the one I grab, since it's "better" for that specific use case.

Yes and no. Modern phone cameras are strong enough that you can crop out the centre and get a passable image as if taken with a longer focal length.

Which I’m personally failing to witness consistently by the “evidence” in this article.

Most of the photo examples here were somewhere between “I can’t tell a significant difference” and “flip a coin and you might find people who prefer the iPhone result more.”

Even less of a difference when they’re printed out and put in a 5x7” frame.

Keep in mind the cost of a smartphone camera is $0. You already own one. You were going to buy a smartphone anyway for other things. So if we are going to sit and argue about quality we still have to figure out what dollar value these differences are worth to people.

And the “evidence” is supposedly that people aren’t getting their phone photos printed out. But let’s not forget the fact that you literally couldn’t see your film photos without printing them when we were using film cameras.

I think you can get RAW on iPhone? I don't own one so I can't confirm.

On my Pixel RAW is also available, even moreso with the non-standard camera software.

https://www.lux.camera/introducing-process-zero-for-iphone/

Usually it's "FOV equivalent", e.g. scaled to a full frame sensor size. Tiny sensor size means you maybe have a 10mm focal length, but the size of the sensor relative to 10mm makes it the FOV of a 70mm lens on a full frame camera.

You see similar when people are comparing APS-C, micro 4/3, or medium format lenses.

I specifically said “equivalent focal length”. Equivalent focal lengths are relative to a 35mm sensor unless otherwise specified, and the actual focal length reduces with sensor size providing the same fov.

By having a tiny sensor, the current iPhone pro has a range of 15-120mm.

Yes, periscope lenses are fairly common on phones. 10x "optical zoom".

Some of the distortion shown in the article is call "Volume Anamorphosis". It's a distortion that strongly deform face and person. This deformation is really visible for short focal lens.

Disclaimer: I work for a photo processing software.

Please note that I specifically said “equivalent focal length”.

A 24mm equivalent will have almost the exact same perspective on any sized sensor, because that’s what equivalent means. It’s a relationship of sensor size to actual focal length.

A 16mm on a 1.5x APs-c is a 24mm equivalent on a 35mm. The iPhones base lens is something like 1.5mm but when related to its sensor, it’s roughly a 24mm equivalent.

There’s no cropping that needs to happen.