The comparison is made more problematic because what the two companies call 24mm equivalent is very different.
In processing, the K-1 files required more work to rescue the shadows, The Apple was not as dark and easier to get right.
My initial shot the was supposed to be 48 MP on the iPhone was only 12 MP on checking the data. Which to me makes the iPhone image even more surprising. I did some more work on the k-1 and Apple images... cleaned them up, made them look more like each other. One note, it was much easier to lift the Apple shadows than the K-1 shadows. These images have with no post processing sharpening or noise reduction. I did alter colour , shadows etc. to make them look as similar as possible.
12MP Apple (with bining, combining 4 pixels into one) ) against 36 MP K-1
I can find areas where both are better than the other, to me it' saw off, but, next time I'll be sure to pay attentions and force 48 MP on the Apple..
To the left of the tall tree, in the distant background, I see the Apple image has bit more detail, but I didn't take the K-1 as far as I could in terms of DoF. A smaller aperture might have resulted in better result. Unfortunately, we've lost our sun..so no more comparisons today, maybe tomorrow.
The key part of the image is the central rock and birch trees. For that part the Apple may be bit better, but in a way that might be correctable in post processing. The big take away for me, is that there is no clear winner. It took time to match the Pentax reds in the dead tree in the left of then image, it was tough to get the Pentax shadow detail to match in the rocks. Each presented its own special problems in the search to even things up... like the final image, a saw off as to which was better.
But it's still pretty impressive when comparing a 12 MP cell phone image to a 36 MP FF image. Mind boggling really. Who'd of thunk it?
The original images would have been processed in Topaz sharpening AI. These are unsharpened, straight out of Apple Photo.
Last edited by normhead; 01-09-2023 at 09:14 AM.