They're still over saturated. Skin tones always have a cosmetic/tanned look compared to real life. Mirrorless camera photos have a lot better output. You can see that even in the first sample comparison. If you look at the photo on the iPhone right when you took it, it doesn't look like the subject you just took a photo of. It's always over saturated compared to real life.

But really, the biggest advantage that mirrorless/dSLRs have over iPhones is the ability to connect a huge, powerful flash that you can directly fire at the subject. That's an absolute game changer for the typical use case of people photos - indoor parties, events, etc... Typically low or medium light situations. The Xenon light on a flash is basically close to a perfect natural light source with a CRI of 100, like the sun, so colors are always perfect. It's why red carpet photographers always use a huge powerful flash directly pointed at the subject.

But iPhones generally have to rely on environmental lighting (the iPhone lamp isn't bright enough to overcome environmental lighting effects).

Environmental lighting is a muddy mess. The subject is lit not only by various mismatching lamp colors with low CRI, but also by lighting reflected off a slightly beige wall or a bright red carpet on the ground.

BTW this is why I hate it when wedding photographers use bounce flash. They're lighting the subject by reflecting light off a beige wall or ceiling, muddying colors up completely. You never see professional red carpet photographers use bounce flash... (yes, I spent years doing red carpet and fashion week runway photography)

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relaxing 7 days ago | parent | next [-]

> connect a huge, powerful flash that you can directly fire at the subject

fucking hell

“fashion photographer thinks all portraits should look like the red carpet” wasn’t on my batshit opinions bingo card.

Wedding photographers use bounce flash because indirect light is flattering and not everyone is supermodel-beautiful.

I don’t know where you’re partying that the ceilings aren’t painted white (they usually are because the problem of color cast on reflected light applies to normal room lights as well) but I’ll take color balance I can fix in post over harsh shadows from direct fill flash.

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vFunct 6 days ago | parent | next [-]

Yah you can't fix color balance from bad color cast.

ALL photos look good with direct flash. Never use bounce flash. And indirect lighting is never flattering. EVER. Fire any photographer that ever uses bounce flash. Nobody wants their muddied color.

I was also a photo editor with thousands of photographer submissions. I can always tell which ones used bounce flash. A sure sign of unprofessional amateurness.

I get that people have a desire to maintain their lazy habits, but my job was to make sure they understood they sucked at photography.

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relaxing 6 days ago | parent [-]

Yah, you can. Get out of the 80s or whatever decade you learned paparazzi style light was a good look.

For anyone reading, soft shadows from indirect light is why professional studio setups use beauty dishes, bounce cards, and big flash boxes or umbrellas with diffusers. Bounce flash is a way to create a little of that magic when you can’t get the entire rig to a shoot, as in wedding photography.

Pointing your on camera flash directly at the subject is the easiest route you can take. How does that make every other method lazy? (Note that I’m not calling direct flash lazy - it still takes skill to balance flash power vs aperture and speed. But every other method takes that and more.)

	▲	vFunct 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Studio lighting isn’t natural lighting nor is it bounce flash lighting. I am specifically talking about amateurish event/wedding photographers that use bounce flash. Which have a iPhone use commonality. (You never use iPhones in studio.)

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dragonwriter 6 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> “fashion photographer thinks all portraits should look like the red carpet” wasn’t on my batshit opinions bingo card.

“Specialist thinks the broader domain should universally adhere to the way things are optimized in their area of focus” is not an uncommon thing to see on HN, though its more commonly seen with specialists in different kinds of programming than photography.

	▲	relaxing 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		I know, and it sucks.

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aikinai 7 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I never use flash and real cameras are still in a completely different league. There are tons of advantages, but I think the biggest different is dynamic range. Faces, hair, etc. look so dark on phone photos. And even if I try to manually push up the exposure and let it blow out the background, it will still never give me bright faces indoors.

Of course then there's the lack of detail and watercolor effect to try to fake detail, distortion, etc.