[BigMackCam]

The Fro Knows guy checks out the iphone 12.

He’s actually pretty much on point with this one, and the prints do look good. 99 percent of people would never notice they were taken on an iphone.

For a phone camera it's very impressive indeed. Take-aways (stated or inferred) from the video:

- In the right light and in the right hands, it'll take great photos
- The technology is clever but fallible (edge artefacts with bokeh, depth-of-field anomalies etc.)
- Even a qualified photographer is likely to use it in "automatic" modes and merely concentrate on the composition, because...
- ... when all's said and done, it's still a phone with phone ergonomics

It's clearly capable of being a serious photographic tool in the right circumstances, but - equally clearly - it's a very different tool than a dedicated large-sensor interchangeable lens camera, with different applications, advantages and disadvantages. There's crossover in potential use cases, but we should stop comparing the two and simply acknowledge that they're different tools. A combination of use case and individual user requirements / expectations will dictate which is the better tool at a given time...

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Last edited by BigMackCam; 11-02-2020 at 01:01 AM.

[sany]

A work colleague has ordered the new Iphone 12.
Knowing that I use a dslr opens up with " my iphone is better than your dslr ".
Can this possably be ?
It has lots of mega - pickles and is therefore better according to him.
Me I'll wait for real facts.
May the discussion begin

This argument from a new phone owner has always been there and I don't believe this is (as always) not something only new iPhones are bringing into the marketplace. This is the same case with other branded phones as well and in fact those phones have already reached where iPhone is aspiring to be now, mainly the zooms.
Having said that limitations are always there and will continue to be a fact in small form factor. Therefore these can never replace a DSLR at least in near long term. But it is also a fact that, for video production - yes phone cameras have already started to excel and could be a challenge in the near term.

[Benz3ne]

I've personally found that my iPhone 11 (granted, not a 12 as per the discussion) does take lovely photos which can be altered enough to suit a few styles but there's not enough scope for adjustments in my experience. If you boost the shadows too much you get some significant muddying of the details. That said, it does use the computer interface to take HDR style photos very quickly and quite well. The portrait modes leave a reasonable amount to be desired but suit the mass populous.
That said, I've friends who have good phone cameras who often say 'but your camera would've done a nicer/better job of...', which is ultimately why I took my sister-in-law's maternity and baby photos recently.
I agree that video can be the bit where phones excel, especially over DSLR (mirrorless cameras aside).

[ThorSanchez]

I think most people want something that is just good enough. Even looking back at my child hood and I'm sure many others I would bet that most of our parents had the equivalent of the point and shoot 35mm, Polaroid, or 110 camera and being able to have something that they just point in the general direction and worked. Things like the nicer 120 format range finders, and various SLRs were available but always were smaller sellers. Most people just wanted good enough shots and now like then there are devices that accomplish that. Cell phones fill that spot now and produce better results.

The only photos of my family from the time I was born until after the year 2000 were taken with point-and-shoots, 110 cameras, Polaroids and the like. The only exceptions were events with paid professional photographers like school photos. My parents have boxes of 4x6s. There are albums at my grandma's old house, all full of Polaroids and 4x6s. The quality ranges from okay to terrible by today's standards. I have albums of photos mostly taken with Canon APS Elph film cameras in the 1990s through about 2001. Some of the shots are pretty good, many more range from adequate to terrible.

But that was the expectation. My parents have some kind of Canon SLR from the late 70s or 80s. They probably used it 2-3 times and it hasn't been touched in 30+ years, they just went back to 110s. For essentially everyone I knew a personal photograph was a 4x6 developed at the drug store, or a Polaroid. The horizon wasn't level, the colors were kind of weird, the exposure was adequate, and half the roll you took was out of focus and you threw it away. And the whole lot of it has been in the closet or the garage since 1982.

Phones are a lot better than all of that.

[MossyRocks]

Phones are a lot better than all of that.

That they are but it still gets to the good enough and as technology marches on good enough improves. In my family my grandma and grandpa on my dad's side were the photo takers, my grandfather always had the "good" camera while my grandmother had a 35mm point and shoot. Yet my grandmother was clearly the better photographer as she had the eye and the patience to slow down and really get the good shot and would shoot a roll of mostly keepers. Because of this I like to split picture quality and image quality out. Picture quality is all about the skill and ability of the photographer while image quality is all about the gear. Someone who is skilled can get good pictures with almost any camera but someone who isn't skilled can get a higher res sharper hot mess with the best gear.

[Wiltshireborn]

I have an iPhone 7 which has a pretty good camera for general snap shots and I have had a Oppo Reno Z Android phone that had a 48mp camera and the photos on that were amazing BUT when enlarged or zoomed in, you can quickly see the difference between a camera phone and a DSLR. Camera phones are very very good and more than enough for most people for capturing anything you want and posting it quickly onto the internet and social media, if that is what you want to do but I will always use a proper DSLR because that is part of the enjoyment of photography for me. In this world of everything being produced faster and faster and everything has to be immediate, I like the slow life, I want to enjoy composing my photo, I want to use a proper viewfinder to see and frame my photo, not squint at a LCD screen that is totally useless in bright light. That's why I like Pentax, they make cameras that are.....cameras! I wear a mechanical self winding watch for much the same reason, it's a watch, that's all I require of it and yes I am in my senior years at almost 62 but I do enjoy technology very too and make use of it when needed

[automorphism]

A lot of people say a phone is an important camera because it's one you always have with you....actually I think that is a negative sometimes. This current society emphasizes capturing everything and sharing it. Personally, I enjoy not having my camera sometimes. In fact, I've had some really cool moments where a capture might be nice but actually not having the ability to capture the scene enhanced it. I think focusing on pressing buttons and working an electronic device can actually take you mentally away from the experience, and just having that experience in your memory and experienced to the fullest is more important than sharing it.

[Lord Lucan]

my grandfather always had the "good" camera while my grandmother had a 35mm point and shoot. Yet my grandmother was clearly the better photographer .... Because of this I like to split picture quality and image quality out.

Different photograhers are good at different subjects too. I happened to be looking through my late parent's photos this weekend; he had a Rollieflex and a Minolta SLR, my mother had a Brownie and a disc camera. He was semi-professional - did weddings and portraits. Yet my mother had much better artistic sense - she knew nothing about technicalities but her compositions and choice of subject were good. Portraits by my father were all "standardised", they were good and the sitters would have been well satisfied, but his other pictures such as on holiday are like amateur snapshots - poor timing, poor composition, although technically OK.

It did not help that he never saw the point of a picture unless someone was in the foreground, one of his holiday group or even a stranger if necessary. So I have lots of pictiures like of a strange man with the Eiffel Tower in the background, another strange man with the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the background, and a strange woman with a lake and a car driving past in the background. Those are all going in the bin

[normhead]

It did not help that he never saw the point of a picture unless someone was in the foreground, one of his holiday group or even a stranger if necessary. So I have lots of pictiures like of a strange man with the Eiffel Tower in the background, another strange man with the Leaning Tower of Pisa in the background, and a strange woman with a lake and a car driving past in the background. Those are all going in the bin

No doubt the fate of my Niagara Falls "take my picture " series.
Lots of pictures o people I don't know.

[vector]

I think focusing on pressing buttons and working an electronic device can actually take you mentally away from the experience, and just having that experience in your memory and experienced to the fullest is more important than sharing it.

I think this is also one of the draws to an optical viewfinder for me. If am observing something and decide to put a camera to my eye to wait for the right moment to snap that picture I would rather still be observing the clear, real to life image through the viewfinder rather than the video reproduction. I have to agree, sometimes it is refreshing just to be there and soak up the scene with no thought or even option to photograph it. But speaking only for myself here, memory fades, but a photograph has a remarkable ability to bring memories to life. Looking back at the old, often out of focus, snapshots from my youth I treasure even the "throwaway" shots just because of what they can bring back for memories. It's a reminder for me that when just photographing life events the shots don't need to be perfect. Everybody having a cell phone camera in their pocket is getting the maximum benefit with the minimum effort when it comes to preserving these moments and there's nothing wrong with that.

[LeeRunge]

For a phone camera it's very impressive indeed. Take-aways (stated or inferred) from the video:

- In the right light and in the right hands, it'll take great photos
- The technology is clever but fallible (edge artefacts with bokeh, depth-of-field anomalies etc.)
- Even a qualified photographer is likely to use it in "automatic" modes and merely concentrate on the composition, because...
- ... when all's said and done, it's still a phone with phone ergonomics

It's clearly capable of being a serious photographic tool in the right circumstances, but - equally clearly - it's a very different tool than a dedicated large-sensor interchangeable lens camera, with different applications, advantages and disadvantages. There's crossover in potential use cases, but we should stop comparing the two and simply acknowledge that they're different tools. A combination of use case and individual user requirements / expectations will dictate which is the better tool at a given time...

I’m impressed with it but like everyone here it’ll never replace a DSLR with ergonomics made for enjoying taking photos. It’s something I’m happy is getting better because I do have a phone with me at all times for reasons other than the camera. But having a good camera in it is icing on that cake.

I personally really don’t like taking photo’s with the phone as it’s pretty awkward.

I agree the phones are only really good like that in certain situations, like really good light. Sure it’ll take “night mode” shots and they look decent on a 6.5” phone screen but they fall apart on my 12.9” Ipad. It’s still cool they can do it.

All the “Can the phone beat the DSLR” posts are more good fun to see what the phone can pull off with some skill.

It’s funny because I’ll be getting an Iphone 12 here in the next couple weeks and will use it to edit my photo’s from my other cameras rather than use the 12’s camera. I’m sure I’ll use it in a pinch but I just end up bringing my larger camera’s most of the time and even still prefer to use a point and shoot like the TG-6 because it’s simply easier to take pictures with. The iphone DOES beat that camera in image quality, even with it’s RAW support. But you can’t beat dedicated controls.

I’ll post up some pictures for entertainment once I get it. I’m most curious about Proraw.

[Rondec]

A lot of people say a phone is an important camera because it's one you always have with you....actually I think that is a negative sometimes. This current society emphasizes capturing everything and sharing it. Personally, I enjoy not having my camera sometimes. In fact, I've had some really cool moments where a capture might be nice but actually not having the ability to capture the scene enhanced it. I think focusing on pressing buttons and working an electronic device can actually take you mentally away from the experience, and just having that experience in your memory and experienced to the fullest is more important than sharing it.

When I am with my family, I usually try to take a few photos to remember an event by and then put the camera away and experience the event with my wife and kids. Constant photo taking does feel like it detracts from real life, but it also feels like younger folks are driven to do it.

[BigMackCam]

I’m impressed with it but like everyone here it’ll never replace a DSLR with ergonomics made for enjoying taking photos. It’s something I’m happy is getting better because I do have a phone with me at all times for reasons other than the camera. But having a good camera in it is icing on that cake.

I personally really don’t like taking photo’s with the phone as it’s pretty awkward.

I agree the phones are only really good like that in certain situations, like really good light. Sure it’ll take “night mode” shots and they look decent on a 6.5” phone screen but they fall apart on my 12.9” Ipad. It’s still cool they can do it.

All the “Can the phone beat the DSLR” posts are more good fun to see what the phone can pull off with some skill.

It’s funny because I’ll be getting an Iphone 12 here in the next couple weeks and will use it to edit my photo’s from my other cameras rather than use the 12’s camera. I’m sure I’ll use it in a pinch but I just end up bringing my larger camera’s most of the time and even still prefer to use a point and shoot like the TG-6 because it’s simply easier to take pictures with. The iphone DOES beat that camera in image quality, even with it’s RAW support. But you can’t beat dedicated controls.

I’ll post up some pictures for entertainment once I get it. I’m most curious about Proraw.

It's pretty exciting you're getting the iPhone 12, and with the realistic attitude and understanding you have towards the camera, I think you'll get excellent service from it in appropriate photographic use cases.

I hate phone camera ergonomics, but I don't hate phone cameras - I absolutely see the attraction for most people, and I consider them valid photographic tools in their own right.

Lee, when you take those test photos, I wonder if you might be able to take one of a wall, fence or bush at an angle, using the shallow depth-of-field simulation? I can see from example shots that it works pretty well (if not exactly flawlessly) when there's some distance between a foreground subject and background elements, but I'm really interested to see if it can simulate gradual changes in depth-of-field, or whether it gets confused...

[LeeRunge]

No doubt the fate of my Niagara Falls "take my picture " series.
Lots of pictures o people I don't know.

The next feature in computational photography should be a a long exposure that edits out people when they move until you have an empty scene in crowded locations.

Instagram has destroyed some natural areas as a herd of people try to insta-repeat the same shots for some likes.

---------- Post added 11-02-2020 at 03:00 PM ----------

It's pretty exciting you're getting the iPhone 12, and with the realistic attitude and understanding you have towards the camera, I think you'll get excellent service from it in appropriate photographic use cases.

I hate phone camera ergonomics, but I don't hate phone cameras - I absolutely see the attraction for most people, and I consider them valid photographic tools in their own right.

Lee, when you take those test photos, I wonder if you might be able to take one of a wall, fence or bush at an angle, using the shallow depth-of-field simulation? I can see from example shots that it works pretty well (if not exactly flawlessly) when there's some distance between a foreground subject and background elements, but I'm really interested to see if it can simulate gradual changes in depth-of-field, or whether it gets confused...

For sure. Once I pick it up (I’m waiting for the 12 Pro Max mid Nov) I’ll review this thread for what you guys want and try capture it it. Let me know what you want it compared with, K-3 JPEG/RAWS, edited or not etc. I also have a Nikon D750 which the images will be similar to the K-3 with the few stops ISO improvements but they’re both 24mp. I have a Fuji x100s and a OMD EM 10 ii as I’m a camera nerd obviously. Some people collect tons of cars/firearms whatever I guess I’m addicted to cameras.

One of the things I’m most curious of with it is the HDR quality off the Iphone compared to what I produce from a RAW. It’ll be interesting to expose the files to the same size and post here to see what you guys think. A fun experiment I think. I’m not expecting it to beat any of my dedicated cameras once I edit a RAW image but I do expect it will get some surprising good results with no effort at times.

I’m betting the portrait mode will struggle with fences and other objects with fine detail. We shall see.

I have a variety of software (nerd here) for editing RAW as well. I use Adobe lightroom for Ipad (Ipad Pro) and no longer use the desktop version as I prefer it on ipad now. But I do use DXO Photolab 4 and Luminar 4 on my PC at home. Luminar is very similar in processing to iphone. I tend to think it overdoes it by default but if you pull back the effect with a slider it often does a respectable job adjusting shadows and highlights with very little effort saving a lot of time in post processing. I often export back and forth between DXO and Luminar to get the best out of both in an image.

[MossyRocks]

poor timing, poor composition, although technically OK

That almost sums up my grandfathers photo taking ability except for the technically OK aspect. He would miss the focus far more than he got it right or even close to right, and same with the exposure. He had lots of shots that were horribly back lit and he would expose for the sky, not the subject. I know he had a 35mm Nikon SLR at one point as I ended up with a few of his lenses and had a Walzflex 6x6 that was the last working camera he had.