[BigMackCam]

ProRaw definately won’t fix the ergonomics or any of the points that are totally valid mentioned in this thread. I’m pretty curious what you think of the files. I actually took a few yesterday thinking I’ll drop them on a google drive then thought they weren’t interesting and didn’t. I self defeated. As you edit/play around with them I’ve noticed that it’s pretty critical to use the Adobe ProRaw profile or they will look terrible. I found a video that explains what Apples doing with them in cooperation with adobe. It’s basically a RAW with built in tone mapping in adobe DNG and the HDR baked in that apple spent a lot of time working on. So it’s a hybrid HDR Raw file?

Apology’s if I came off condescending to anyone in this thread, I don’t mean to do that. There are very valid reasons the smartphones aren’t a fun shooting experience and they’re limited by lack of controls and lens options. They won’t kill DSLR or Mirrorless but I do think they’ll eat into the remainder of folks using them for the image quality advantage as they get closer and closer to final output. I’m mainly excited by the jump in image quality coming so close (for me it’s totally subjective based on your quality standards). I’m a perfect is the enemy of good type in a lot of ways.

...

Pretty curious what you make of the ProRaw files! Here’s a few from yesterday after I ran them through Lightroom mobile. The Z5 in the swamp actually came out worse, of course that is quite possibly me underexposing too much to save the highlights, and the worlds tiniest church seems to look better on the Z5. This is kind of what I’ve been experiencing with the ProRaw files. Sometimes it’s better other times not. But it’s that sometimes that has my grabbing the phone so much more knowing it might get something better. That was NEVER something that happened with the iPhone 8 Plus I had previously. I knew the dedicated camera would be hands down better every time.

There are limits on the phone but the potential is not crossing the lines for me. The 26mm is best the wide and telephoto noticibly worse, because the wide has a different sensor (larger) I guess that’s one of the changes to the 13 is larger sensors/modification on the wide and telephoto. Here’s a few from the other day in some contrasts light, notice the highlight burn on the church that was beyond the limit for both. I underexposed for highlights on the Z5. In hindsight I think I need to do the same for the Iphone but to a lesser extent.

I had a close look at the sample files, all using Apple's embedded profile, in Lightroom. I also looked at your examples vs the Z5.

The first thing I'll say is, Apple has really raised the bar. The image quality - for such a small sensor - is fantastic, and much better than the .heic files I'd previously looked at. BUT...

In both the online samples I found and your own examples above, the ProRaw files do indeed betray the small sensor. A great example is your swamp shot... You feel the Z5 came off worse, but I far prefer the natural look of the leaves compared to the ProRaw shot where each leaf looks like a little daub of paint. In fact, in all the samples I looked at with foliage (always a challenge for phone cameras, admittedly), leaves and grass didn't look good to me, with a lack of any real detail except for the sharply-rendered outlines. Of course, stood back from a print on the wall, this likely wouldn't be an issue... but as a photographer working on the "raw" (more on this in a moment) files, it's pretty obvious to me.

I put "raw" in quotes, because these don't feel like raw files at all Playing around with them in Lightroom, they look like really good quality JPEGs, and respond to adjustments like big, detailed 16-bit TIFF files... and like both file types, any artefacts from the camera's processing are there to stay. Still, there's plenty of tonal information in them, and a good deal of adjustment possible. Impressive!

It's also pretty clear that as ISO rises, image quality quickly degrades. The low-light evening shots I reviewed were fine at small screen sizes, and that they were taken handheld with one click of a button tap on the screen is amazing in itself; but, all fine detail disappears as ISO creeps up. The image processing does a clever job of suggesting detail at a casual glance (as with the foliage I already mentioned), but when you look closely you see in reality it's gone. Much, much better results could be achieved with a DSLR or MILC... but then you'd need to mount it on a tripod due to shutter speed at reasonable ISO levels, and take bracketed shots for an HDR merge, which is a lot more work than simply pointing and clicking. Still, no-one said photography was supposed to be easy, and the best results in a variety of conditions require an equal variety of techniques, creativity and work. The iPhone does a grand job of producing usable hand-held photos in almost any situation, but quality seems quite variable in less-than-ideal lighting, so far as I can tell.

Lest I come across as dismissive of the iPhone 12 and ProRaw, Lee, let me categorically state that I'm really, really impressed with what I've seen... much more so than at the start of this thread. I can understand your excitement. Despite that, based on what I've seen, I don't think the image quality is close to modern larger-sensor cameras. You do, though... and that means some others will too; and maybe a subset of those folks will, eventually, switch to smartphone photography in years to come. So, you could well be right that smartphone cameras will eat away at the remaining dedicated camera market... but I think they'll be nibbling a few crumbs here and there, rather than gobbling up big, juicy chunks of it. We'll have to wait and see...

---

Last edited by BigMackCam; 09-26-2021 at 12:41 PM.

[LeeRunge]

I had a close look at the sample files, all using Apple's embedded profile, in Lightroom. I also looked at your examples vs the Z5.

The first thing I'll say is, Apple has really raised the bar. The image quality - for such a small sensor - is fantastic, and much better than the .heic files I'd previously looked at. BUT...

In both the online samples I found and your own examples above, the ProRaw files do indeed betray the small sensor. A great example is your swamp shot... You feel the Z5 came off worse, but I far prefer the natural look of the leaves compared to the ProRaw shot where each leaf looks like a little daub of paint. In fact, in all the samples I looked at with foliage (always a challenge for phone cameras, admittedly), leaves and grass didn't look good to me, with a lack of any real detail except for the sharply-rendered outlines. Of course, stood back from a print on the wall, this likely wouldn't be an issue... but as a photographer working on the "raw" (more on this in a moment) files, it's pretty obvious to me.

I put "raw" in quotes, because these don't feel like raw files at all Playing around with them in Lightroom, they look like really good quality JPEGs, and respond to adjustments like big, detailed 16-bit TIFF files... and like both file types, any artefacts from the camera's processing are there to stay. Still, there's plenty of tonal information in them, and a good deal of adjustment possible. Impressive!

It's also pretty clear that as ISO rises, image quality quickly degrades. The low-light evening shots I reviewed were fine at small screen sizes, and that they were taken handheld with one click of a button tap on the screen is amazing in itself; but, all fine detail disappears as ISO creeps up. The image processing does a clever job of suggesting detail at a casual glance (as with the foliage I already mentioned), but when you look closely you see in reality it's gone. Much, much better results could be achieved with a DSLR or MILC... but then you'd need to mount it on a tripod due to shutter speed at reasonable ISO levels, and take bracketed shots for an HDR merge, which is a lot more work than simply pointing and clicking. Still, no-one said photography was supposed to be easy, and the best results in a variety of conditions require an equal variety of techniques, creativity and work. The iPhone does a grand job of producing usable hand-held photos in almost any situation, but quality seems quite variable in less-than-ideal lighting, so far as I can tell.

Lest I come across as dismissive of the iPhone 12 and ProRaw, Lee, let me categorically state that I'm really, really impressed with what I've seen... much more so than at the start of this thread. I can understand your excitement. Despite that, based on what I've seen, I don't think the image quality is close to modern larger-sensor cameras. You do, though... and that means some others will too; and maybe a subset of those folks will, eventually, switch to smartphone photography in years to come. So, you could well be right that smartphone cameras will eat away at the remaining dedicated camera market... but I think they'll be nibbling a few crumbs here and there, rather than gobbling up big, juicy chunks of it. We'll have to wait and see...

I’m going to add a bit to that google drive link on the previous page today, I’m about to head out to some old plantation that existed in the 1700’s a a botanical garden. No idea if anything interesting is there, we’ll see. *Turns out there are plenty of mosquitos and I took some random vegetation shots to compare the two cameras. Lots of backlit and contrasty light to stress the sensor. The Z5 comes out better from what I see but man that iphone is punching way above it’s weight for a small sensor. The TG-6 has nothing on it.

I don’t disagree with your assessment. At 1:1 on a monitor you can see the iphone isn’t quite there but nobody I show photo’s too looks at them like that. So for my purposes it’s the same as full frame to the target audience. I think the same would come through in most reasonable sized prints as well viewed at a normal distance. For sure if you get right up close they’ll see but who does that? It’s the perfect is the enemy of good thing. What I’m finding is I can use this phone for some shots and not worry that I’ll get a drastically inferior shot than if I use the dedicated camera, which is a transition point for me in smartphone cameras that I haven’t experienced before.

That video on the previous page kind of breaks down what Apple did with those ProRaw files which are like some kind of hybrid file with built in tone mapping information for the highlights and shadows.

Consider ProRaw enabling my phone to get subbed in some of the time, like a really good JV league player that is now starting to get varsity playtime. I’m not sure what a few years will bring for that player. As I head out the door to go check this plantation out I still have the Z5 in the bag. But I plan to use the iphone too, that’s a change for me. I’m also bringing a DJI mini 2 because it shoots RAW and well, it’s kinda fun which is the whole point of photography!

Go figure I just met a professional photographer of 32 years for the military outside the hotel, he gets to have all the fun photo and video for press for all the test events of new systems. Talk about access to all the action shots!

I’ll leave this from a few weeks back from the mini 2, which is the size of my iphone.

[brainwave]

ProRaw definately won’t fix the ergonomics .....Link to google drive with those and others I’ll add in today. Update your browser to use Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Sites, Slides, and Forms - Google Drive Help

Hi Lee, So I was right after all! The raw shots from iPhone are basically slightly improved versions (due to lens, sensor and software) of what Pixel offered in 2017 - DNG files after HDR stacks and denoising (yeah yeah..color toning blending etc also). This is the EXACT computational photography pipeline every phone follows including color toning to expand dynamic range in post (since small sensors have limited dynamic range). Its just , now apple has developed a special editor for low quality raw files from a phone sensor with computational photography built into the editing pipeline as well. Makes sense.

Actually after your linked videos I spent quite a pensive afternoon. Some context - I live in a third world country and incomes here are low enough that I can afford one camera system in my lifetime with a camera and 3-4 great quality lenses. That means, any camera system I choose, I will only be able to get lenses for that and not be able to switch systems at a whim even a decade from now. Many factors play into this. I decided in 2019 to go with Pentax, as videography is no fun for me and image quality from the K-1 ii had rave reviews. I bought the K-1 ii two years back, with 28-105mm kit lens, and am yet to afford a second lens for it. I am still saving up towards a second lens which will be 100WR Macro.

Today afternoon, after seeing the video you linked, I was thinking here I am, not even started my lens collection properly and it seems I made a terrible decsion. I could have gotten a phone in 2021 thats half the cost of what I paid for the K-1 ii, and could have been done with it. Could have purchased a cheaper DSLR and zoom lens for the birds (lets be honest, rare birds look great even with the most platonic of post processing). I was conflicted between a DSLR (claimed dying tech by many) and a mirrorless when I bought the K-1 to begin with, and now the iPhone 13 video made me feel I had made a very very expensive mistake.

Then, it being the weekend, I took a routine family picnic with my wife to the beach nearby. The sun was SUPER low by the time we were finished walking by the waves holding hands and talking and enjoying ourselves. I thought, well. I have my tripod and camera. Even though the sun was down 40 mins ago and we could see some faint streaks of read in sky and some lights from ships far off, I thought let me take a shot anyway. But just I set up for Bulb exposure, a pack of stray dogs (we have them here in India) started running towards us. Panicked, I shut off the camera and we both removed ourselves from the beach to our car. The end shot was the raw version of THIS jpeg (unprocessed) .



My heart kinda sank, one click at the beach the whole evening and it was that. Anyway, came home, fired up raw therapee, and just increased exposure, saturation, sharpening and lifted up some shadows. The final result (literally less than 2 minutes of editing) was THIS :




I mean......what an EPIC dynamic range. I came back with a TERRIBLE exposure, and a PERFECTLY beautiful image. This dependability, that the camera shows in a TON of situations, is why I use it. By the way, on the way to the beach we spotted a kingfisher and I had only my 28-105mm zoom lens, and around 2 seconds before the bird flew off. This was the raw shot - .

I got only 1 shot at it.

This is the result after AGGRESSIVE cropping, boosting exposure and saturation and lightness, and lifting up shadows like mad -

I mean, how can you help but not fall in love with the K-1 as if you found a friend you needed all along. I am now glad I invested in this and didn't spend so much money buying an iPhone and still feeling limited by the tool in terms of what I could shoot. Today, if I had an iPhone, I would have had 0 pictures of what was a really nice time with my wife. But because I lug around a DSLR, we had a nice conversation about birds, and spent a good deal of time marveling the sky colors in the first picture.

[LeeRunge]

Hi Lee, So I was right after all! The raw shots from iPhone are basically slightly improved versions (due to lens, sensor and software) of what Pixel offered in 2017 - DNG files after HDR stacks and denoising (yeah yeah..color toning blending etc also). This is the EXACT computational photography pipeline every phone follows including color toning to expand dynamic range in post (since small sensors have limited dynamic range). Its just , now apple has developed a special editor for low quality raw files from a phone sensor with computational photography built into the editing pipeline as well. Makes sense.

Actually after your linked videos I spent quite a pensive afternoon. Some context - I live in a third world country and incomes here are low enough that I can afford one camera system in my lifetime with a camera and 3-4 great quality lenses. That means, any camera system I choose, I will only be able to get lenses for that and not be able to switch systems at a whim even a decade from now. Many factors play into this. I decided in 2019 to go with Pentax, as videography is no fun for me and image quality from the K-1 ii had rave reviews. I bought the K-1 ii two years back, with 28-105mm kit lens, and am yet to afford a second lens for it. I am still saving up towards a second lens which will be 100WR Macro.

Today afternoon, after seeing the video you linked, I was thinking here I am, not even started my lens collection properly and it seems I made a terrible decsion. I could have gotten a phone in 2021 thats half the cost of what I paid for the K-1 ii, and could have been done with it. Could have purchased a cheaper DSLR and zoom lens for the birds (lets be honest, rare birds look great even with the most platonic of post processing). I was conflicted between a DSLR (claimed dying tech by many) and a mirrorless when I bought the K-1 to begin with, and now the iPhone 13 video made me feel I had made a very very expensive mistake.

Then, it being the weekend, I took a routine family picnic with my wife to the beach nearby. The sun was SUPER low by the time we were finished walking by the waves holding hands and talking and enjoying ourselves. I thought, well. I have my tripod and camera. Even though the sun was down 40 mins ago and we could see some faint streaks of read in sky and some lights from ships far off, I thought let me take a shot anyway. But just I set up for Bulb exposure, a pack of stray dogs (we have them here in India) started running towards us. Panicked, I shut off the camera and we both removed ourselves from the beach to our car. The end shot was the raw version of THIS jpeg (unprocessed) .



My heart kinda sank, one click at the beach the whole evening and it was that. Anyway, came home, fired up raw therapee, and just increased exposure, saturation, sharpening and lifted up some shadows. The final result (literally less than 2 minutes of editing) was THIS :




I mean......what an EPIC dynamic range. I came back with a TERRIBLE exposure, and a PERFECTLY beautiful image. This dependability, that the camera shows in a TON of situations, is why I use it. By the way, on the way to the beach we spotted a kingfisher and I had only my 28-105mm zoom lens, and around 2 seconds before the bird flew off. This was the raw shot - .

I got only 1 shot at it.

This is the result after AGGRESSIVE cropping, boosting exposure and saturation and lightness, and lifting up shadows like mad -

I mean, how can you help but not fall in love with the K-1 as if you found a friend you needed all along. I am now glad I invested in this and didn't spend so much money buying an iPhone and still feeling limited by the tool in terms of what I could shoot. Today, if I had an iPhone, I would have had 0 pictures of what was a really nice time with my wife. But because I lug around a DSLR, we had a nice conversation about birds, and spent a good deal of time marveling the sky colors in the first picture.

The K-1 is going to create a lot of good images for you, for one you could never crop in on that bird with an iphone, I wouldn’t have a second thought about thinking the iphone will replace it. This thread is more so how impressed I am with what you can do with it. I just added about 150 RAW images (currently uploading) to the drive folder linked on the previous page of shots warts and all at various exposures if anyone is curious and wants to play around with similar images taken from a 12 Pro Max and a Nikon Z5. The Z5 has a sensor which at low ISO which these were taken at is amongst the best in dynamic range out there.

The iphone is still a smartphone and it’s still got those ergo’s and no interchangeable lenses espiecially telephotos. It’s also extremely hard to photograph wildlife with one or in bright sunlight because it has no viewfinder or tilt screen for low angle shots, all that will hamper the experience. Think of this as a “what can a small sensor pull off” thread. And for me personally it’s pulling enough off that I now actually use it. The first cell phone I care to pull out of my pocket and use with other cameras. Like I wouldn’t be fussed with taking out a telephoto and then just using the iphone for shorter focal length shots on a hike instead of taking a bunch more lenses and weight.

As to the DNG’s I think it’s something like what google did with the pixel but further along. I never saw anything from the pixel that looked as good, but I don’t use android phones so I’m sure they have something like it. Here’s a video from the same guy comparing the two, similar concept with the pixel but lower quality results.

Youtu.be

Youtu.be

Check out the drive folder linked back a few posts, I underexposed a bunch similar to the photo of the bird. I do that with highlight metering on the Z5 to retain highlights and attempted the same on the iphone which seems to overexpose by default. I havn’t looked at the files yet to see how they turned out.

I’m curious for those of you who do take a look in lightroom what you think or if they look like hot garbage. I tried to get some stuff to stress the sensor, backlit and into darker conditions under canopy, but also some in full sun. I’ll add a few around the hotel in typical city dark conditions.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1bG9xv5DwARxa-OptEdsgSVjXbwMxNVZ2

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Last edited by LeeRunge; 09-26-2021 at 05:42 PM.

[LeeRunge]

First two are backlit palms at about 3pm in the afternoon, I’ve got to go out and get some night shots for the rest, here they are. Out in the parking lot palm tree at ISO 6400 on the Nikon, I think it was something like 1 sec night mode on the iphone. Those are at @65mm. The other is using the iPhones wide in the shower with one 40 watt bulb in the other room about 25 feet away with the door to the bathroom open, extremely dark. Basically unusable handheld from the Z5 even at ISO 51200. With an F4 at as low as I can hand hold it, The iphone in these conditions just walks away with it. I’ve done this at home with a F1.8 and it’s basically a similar thing even though you can lower the ISO down to 12800 or or 6400 the iphone retains more detail handheld. You have to put the full frame on a tripod to gain back advantage. All of these are uploading to the drive linked above.

I’ll repeat here it appears the iPhone 12/13 is better handheld in extreme low light than a full frame camera.











Cropped in to the parked vehicles in the lot. ISO 6400 on the Nikon. This is after hitting auto adjust in Lightroom. I think they look about the same if you applied noise reduction to the Nikon image, although probably with some careful adjustment it could sway nikon. Also keep in mind I cropped in to the same on a 12mp sensor vs a 24mp so thats already a big detail disadvantage. We’re talking about a FF camera handheld against a tiny smartphone sensor, nuts. Files are in the drive to play around with as you guys wish.




---------- Post added 09-26-2021 at 07:40 PM ----------

Here’s the drive link if anyone wants to play around in lightroom. There’s a ton of files in there now from some plant life today and then a few night shots around the hotel. There should be a Z5 RAW and ProRaw to match with different exposures to mess around with. I’m curious what all of you make of it. It’s for sure a leap in small sensor capability due to the processing that these phones are capable of.

Update your browser to use Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, Sites, Slides, and Forms - Google Drive Help

[BigMackCam]

I don’t disagree with your assessment. At 1:1 on a monitor you can see the iphone isn’t quite there but nobody I show photo’s too looks at them like that. So for my purposes it’s the same as full frame to the target audience. I think the same would come through in most reasonable sized prints as well viewed at a normal distance.

Right. This ties in with what I said earlier... for a lot of what I do with my images, I could get away with using my 2012-vintage Fujifilm XF-1 compact with its 2/3" sensor. In good-to-reasonable light, shooting raw and with a bit of development, it takes great photos that are easily good enough for viewing on my 17" laptop or even my 24" QHD BenQ monitor. I'm sure it would produce decent reasonable-size prints for viewing at normal distances, too. BUT... I choose to shoot DSLRs with much higher image quality, even though the final destination of my photos rarely needs that.

The iphone is still a smartphone and it’s still got those ergo’s and no interchangeable lenses espiecially telephotos. It’s also extremely hard to photograph wildlife with one or in bright sunlight because it has no viewfinder or tilt screen for low angle shots, all that will hamper the experience. Think of this as a “what can a small sensor pull off” thread. And for me personally it’s pulling enough off that I now actually use it. The first cell phone I care to pull out of my pocket and use with other cameras. Like I wouldn’t be fussed with taking out a telephoto and then just using the iphone for shorter focal length shots on a hike instead of taking a bunch more lenses and weight.

I think this is a more balanced view than originally presented Your opening post kind of suggested smartphone cameras have improved so much that they'll kill off what's left of the dedicated camera market, and despite being impressed with the capabilities of the iPhone 12 and ProRaw, I don't believe that's the case at all. I do, however, believe smartphones are now good enough - in terms of image quality, at least - that many enthusiast photographers like yourself might consider using one as part of their kit for certain applications and output requirements. Your iPhone can do some things really well, other things differently, and some things very poorly, which is the case with every photographic tool I own; cameras, lenses, accessories etc. None of them is good at everything; none of them is the right tool for every task and situation.

[Rondec]

Hi Lee, So I was right after all! The raw shots from iPhone are basically slightly improved versions (due to lens, sensor and software) of what Pixel offered in 2017 - DNG files after HDR stacks and denoising (yeah yeah..color toning blending etc also). This is the EXACT computational photography pipeline every phone follows including color toning to expand dynamic range in post (since small sensors have limited dynamic range). Its just , now apple has developed a special editor for low quality raw files from a phone sensor with computational photography built into the editing pipeline as well. Makes sense.

Actually after your linked videos I spent quite a pensive afternoon. Some context - I live in a third world country and incomes here are low enough that I can afford one camera system in my lifetime with a camera and 3-4 great quality lenses. That means, any camera system I choose, I will only be able to get lenses for that and not be able to switch systems at a whim even a decade from now. Many factors play into this. I decided in 2019 to go with Pentax, as videography is no fun for me and image quality from the K-1 ii had rave reviews. I bought the K-1 ii two years back, with 28-105mm kit lens, and am yet to afford a second lens for it. I am still saving up towards a second lens which will be 100WR Macro.

Today afternoon, after seeing the video you linked, I was thinking here I am, not even started my lens collection properly and it seems I made a terrible decsion. I could have gotten a phone in 2021 thats half the cost of what I paid for the K-1 ii, and could have been done with it. Could have purchased a cheaper DSLR and zoom lens for the birds (lets be honest, rare birds look great even with the most platonic of post processing). I was conflicted between a DSLR (claimed dying tech by many) and a mirrorless when I bought the K-1 to begin with, and now the iPhone 13 video made me feel I had made a very very expensive mistake.

Then, it being the weekend, I took a routine family picnic with my wife to the beach nearby. The sun was SUPER low by the time we were finished walking by the waves holding hands and talking and enjoying ourselves. I thought, well. I have my tripod and camera. Even though the sun was down 40 mins ago and we could see some faint streaks of read in sky and some lights from ships far off, I thought let me take a shot anyway. But just I set up for Bulb exposure, a pack of stray dogs (we have them here in India) started running towards us. Panicked, I shut off the camera and we both removed ourselves from the beach to our car. The end shot was the raw version of THIS jpeg (unprocessed) .



My heart kinda sank, one click at the beach the whole evening and it was that. Anyway, came home, fired up raw therapee, and just increased exposure, saturation, sharpening and lifted up some shadows. The final result (literally less than 2 minutes of editing) was THIS :




I mean......what an EPIC dynamic range. I came back with a TERRIBLE exposure, and a PERFECTLY beautiful image. This dependability, that the camera shows in a TON of situations, is why I use it. By the way, on the way to the beach we spotted a kingfisher and I had only my 28-105mm zoom lens, and around 2 seconds before the bird flew off. This was the raw shot - .

I got only 1 shot at it.

This is the result after AGGRESSIVE cropping, boosting exposure and saturation and lightness, and lifting up shadows like mad -

I mean, how can you help but not fall in love with the K-1 as if you found a friend you needed all along. I am now glad I invested in this and didn't spend so much money buying an iPhone and still feeling limited by the tool in terms of what I could shoot. Today, if I had an iPhone, I would have had 0 pictures of what was a really nice time with my wife. But because I lug around a DSLR, we had a nice conversation about birds, and spent a good deal of time marveling the sky colors in the first picture.

The K-1 is an excellent camera that will last for a long time with proper care and continue to give wonderful results. If you upscale the iphone 13 images to 36 megapixels or down-res the K-1 images to 12 megapixels you will find that there is significant benefit to the K-1 in terms of dynamic range, high iso performance, and detail. Maybe a side note is that my experience is that phones don't last. If you want something that will last nine or ten years, a phone is not that something. Obviously Apple won't be supporting the phone in that length of time, but the battery will need to be replaced, it will have been dropped a couple of times and it just won't be functional whereas an ILC probably will be.

I have a Pentax K-01 that I got 9 years ago. It is still functional and works fine to capture images. I have never been able to get a phone to last even half that length of time.

[LeeRunge]

Right. This ties in with what I said earlier... for a lot of what I do with my images, I could get away with using my 2012-vintage Fujifilm XF-1 compact with its 2/3" sensor. In good-to-reasonable light, shooting raw and with a bit of development, it takes great photos that are easily good enough for viewing on my 17" laptop or even my 24" QHD BenQ monitor. I'm sure it would produce decent reasonable-size prints for viewing at normal distances, too. BUT... I choose to shoot DSLRs with much higher image quality, even though the final destination of my photos rarely needs that.



I think this is a more balanced view than originally presented Your opening post kind of suggested smartphone cameras have improved so much that they'll kill off what's left of the dedicated camera market, and despite being impressed with the capabilities of the iPhone 12 and ProRaw, I don't believe that's the case at all. I do, however, believe smartphones are now good enough - in terms of image quality, at least - that many enthusiast photographers like yourself might consider using one as part of their kit for certain applications and output requirements. Your iPhone can do some things really well, other things differently, and some things very poorly, which is the case with every photographic tool I own; cameras, lenses, accessories etc. None of them is good at everything; none of them is the right tool for every task and situation.

I do think it’s not over for the dedicated camera market. Telephoto’s are coming and with that likely some wildlife capability. The phones already have very capable autofocus systems and that’ll likely apply to wildlife with those longer lens ability’s. I’m sure the software depth of field will be applied to that as well and it’ll just get more refined over the years.

Oddly my favorite shooting setting for the iphone is low light. It does basically just as well as the Z5 and can focus in even darker conditions. I’m curious what it can do for shooting the Milky Way actually. The noise reduction probably will eat stars though I’m sure. Thats the most impressive thing it does is take shots in conditions so dark my dedicated cameras can’t even focus, handheld. The shot above of the bathroom towels is the Z5 at ISO 51200 looking horrid in comparison. I had to turn the lights on to focus with the Z5, iphone, no problem.

I’m guessing inside 5 years we will see a range of lenses on an iphone from 14mm to probably 200mm, wildlife AF capability, even more low light surpassing whats already extremely good (the 13 likely already improved). Depth of field management in video and photo that’s more convincing and improvements in the lidar AF. I’m sure apple will make 3D photographing an apple feature. Right now you can 3D image a room or household with the lidar and a few apps.

As you said tool for the toolbox, but it’s starting to be like the Leatherman tool of cameras, not as good as the real tool, but good enough to do many jobs and it’s always on you. Sort of a point and shoot that includes low light without much compromise.

[brainwave]

Hi LeeRunge, I took at the ProRaw files you posted using RawTherapee. First I had to convert the proRaw (which is basically processed Raw, debayered already) into normal Raw using adobe dng converter. Here are some observations:

1. The image is grossly underexposed without tone curve adjustments. Basically, your shots Nikon from are easily better exposed than the raw from iPhone (by at least 2-3 stops).

2. However, the details preservation AND noise suppression in the shadows is excellent in the iPhone images. What this means is after you adjust the tone curve, you typically have sharp outlines and overally a well-exposed image. Computational photography works very well to mitigate the limitations of optics of the phone camera.
3. There is also additional image segmentation information in iphone processed raw files. That means, future software could enable you to "select" the various contents the phone detected during the shoot, such as trees, sky, human, eye, pet, etc. It might in future make editing even simpler. Similarly, the depth map is also stored along with the raw file. This is how software bokeh is so realistic already, and can be manually fine tuned ever to create results not possible without high cost, heavy, fragile DSLR gear such as shallow depth of field lenses. Possibilities are endless.
4. Where the iPhone wins by a huge margin is low light photography and scenes that are only possible to shoot with HDR. The shots from an iPhone look way better than a DSLR or mirrorless camera, due to what is known as a "local HDR". Basically, it is dividing images into a narrowly spaced grid, and applying HDR to each grid while blending these across the image. This is not only impossible to do manually, current software does not allow it (as far as I am aware).
5. Due to the content-aware nature of computational photography, iPhone can focus on fast moving subjects quite accurately as its ML/AI algorithms allow it to predict where the subject will be found in the next frames. With shutter speeds as high as 1400 being usual (based on information off of your iPhone files) - it is not a problem at all for the phone to freeze motion.

5. Where the iPhone loses by a huge margin is croppability of the final image. Not always is the composition perfect. Zooming any amount in the Raw files causes loss of sharpness. Additionally, when using Raw Therapee, additional sharpening operations cause the image to start looking artificial right off the bat. This makes sense, you are sharpening what is already a sharpened image.

6. Where the iPhone also loses out by a huge margin is tonal edits to normal scenes not shot in extreme low light scenarios. The reason is, you are already adjusting the tone curve to its maximum just for getting a well exposed image out of what was intentionally underexposed. Therefore, you dont have a lot of margin to move the histogram or spread before the image gets ruined. With the Z-5 however, you have more editing latitude.
7. Lastly, in low light, when placed on a tripod, the iphone images are far inferior to that of the Z5. Noise in shadows is off the charts, and any amount of shadow exposure in low light shots shows an immediate explosion of RGB noise.


Interesting for sure. Is it going to replace my DSLR? Not likely. I will invest into more optics at this point than the latest iPhone (seeing how I have to choose between the two). However, I cannot see how a photographer who wants to use his phone won't be excited by these developments and freedom to shoot with the iPhone and still be okay.

[BigMackCam]

1. The image is grossly underexposed without tone curve adjustments. Basically, your shots Nikon from are easily better exposed than the raw from iPhone (by at least 2-3 stops).

For some reason, RawTherapee doesn't seem to pick up the embedded profile in the ProRaw files. I tried loading them in RawTherapee, Darktable and Lightroom, and only RawTherapee experiences this problem. In Lightroom especially, the file looks perfectly exposed when you choose the embedded profile...

[brainwave]

For some reason, RawTherapee doesn't seem to pick up the embedded profile in the ProRaw files. I tried loading them in RawTherapee, Darktable and Lightroom, and only RawTherapee experiences this problem. In Lightroom especially, the file looks perfectly exposed when you choose the embedded profile...

Its (mostly) by design. adobe released DNG 1.6 the day apple released its iPhone 12 pro max, and this is a new, linear dng format. Apple "ProRaw" is more like processed raw. Typically raw files have information in a bayer array that needs to be debayered before display. Raw therapee typicall (out of the box) ignores the embedded JPEG and displays the raw file processed with its own selected profile. This is how I and most raw therapee users prefer it, as it exposes the flaws in the image. For instance, if you have underexposed shadows but the "bright" profile selected in the Pentax camera lifted shadows up a little, both lightroom and darktable will show you the embedded JPEG. Raw Therapee will render its own.


However, the apple pro raw files already have been debayered, and thus when raw therapee does what it usually doesit ends up "splitting" the info back into RGB pixels, although now offset. Therefore, the file just looks like a big matrix of RGB values, all messed up.

Once bayered again with adobe DNG converter into the "actual" raw spec, raw therapee works fine.

[LeeRunge]

I noticed going through those files that the ones on the iPhone I intentionally underexposed similar to what I would do with the Z5 to pull up shadows don’t have that kind of range to recover. Best to only slightly underexpose as the iPhone applies the smart hdr to it before anyway. So techniques have to change for it. The colors are too warm as well for the most part for my tastes and seem a bit washed out. The iPhone doesn’t burn highlights with the smart hdr so the need to underexpose isn’t there to begin with.

Still very happy with what it can do compared to the 8. The night stuff handheld is what impressed me the most about it. Limited case scenario there where it can beat the full frame in certain conditions. Pretty nice for walking around in a low light town for example and delivers pretty close results to what you get after applying noise reduction to the Z5. Although a F1.8 will help a bunch with that which I’ve tried as well in comparison. It’s very impressive from a small sensor.


I wish I could see what that processing would accomplish applied to the Z5s sensor, would we see those kind of gains beyond what it can typically do like how we are with the small sensor on the iPhone compared to point and shoots without computational techniques?

---------- Post added 09-29-2021 at 09:22 AM ----------

For some reason, RawTherapee doesn't seem to pick up the embedded profile in the ProRaw files. I tried loading them in RawTherapee, Darktable and Lightroom, and only RawTherapee experiences this problem. In Lightroom especially, the file looks perfectly exposed when you choose the embedded profile...

They definately need the profile to work correctly. The same thing happens with the Dolby vision video from it, it looks washed out and pastels if you edit it in something that doesn’t support that format. It looks gorgeous on a 4K TV that supports it.

[brainwave]

I noticed going through those files that the ones on the iPhone I intentionally underexposed similar to what I would do with the Z5 to pull up shadows don’t have that kind of range to recover. Best to only slightly underexpose as the iPhone applies the smart hdr to it before anyway. So techniques have to change for it. The colors are too warm as well for the most part for my tastes and seem a bit washed out. The iPhone doesn’t burn highlights with the smart hdr so the need to underexpose isn’t there to begin with.

Still very happy with what it can do compared to the 8. The night stuff handheld is what impressed me the most about it. Limited case scenario there where it can beat the full frame in certain conditions. Pretty nice for walking around in a low light town for example and delivers pretty close results to what you get after applying noise reduction to the Z5. Although a F1.8 will help a bunch with that which I’ve tried as well in comparison. It’s very impressive from a small sensor.


I wish I could see what that processing would accomplish applied to the Z5s sensor, would we see those kind of gains beyond what it can typically do like how we are with the small sensor on the iPhone compared to point and shoots without computational techniques?

---------- Post added 09-29-2021 at 09:22 AM ----------



They definately need the profile to work correctly. The same thing happens with the Dolby vision video from it, it looks washed out and pastels if you edit it in something that doesn’t support that format. It looks gorgeous on a 4K TV that supports it.

The problem is Lee, that as on date, nothing, and absolutely nothing exists in DSLR or Mirrorless world to replicate what is done on smartphones. To do the kind of computational photography being done on smartphones, you would have to have a very high end image processor (since instead of 12 it has to process over four times the images from these full frames). Additionally, the technology first needs to land on the laps of camera manufacturers. These phone companies have monstrous budgets, thanks to the millions of units being sold every month, while DSLR and MIrrorless makers are in red ocean of an industry, with every player bleeding unimaginably fast. In 10 years, the industry has shrunk to 1979 levels (almost). Unheard of. So you need to innovate and do "even more" than a phone, in a rapidly shrinking industry where you are struggling to stay afloat, when you didn't have computational photography technology to begin with. So mostly the manufacturers have stuck to what they know - refining the optics. And we don't lose out with this approach. Computational photography is essentially a way to work around limitations imposed by optics. But full frame systems are already designed with the best optics in mind, so there is really not much to work around - you have the real, more reliable deal.


On the other hand, anyone with thousands of dollars blocked in full frame systems with lenses is very likely to have a tripod, which kind of offsets the night time shooting to a "large" extent, at least in most situations where a photographer is taking time to create an image and not just taking snapshots.

So yes, in a niche situation the smartphone is better than the dedicated camera by virtue of being a fundamentally different approach to photography. Even my Pixel 2 takes better night time shots hand-held compared to my K-1 ii, and it has since Google debuted night sight in android sometime around 2018.


Excited to see hand-held night time images from mirrorless systems, but I dont mind just using my android or ios device for those rare situations where I don't have access to it or I am too lazy to setup a tripod.

If you are interested, there is KandaoRaw+ software, which performs computational photography on 16 raw images, and then churns out 1 raw file (equal in size though, not times 16). In high ISO, you will find this to drastically reduce noise in low light. Try it out.

[LeeRunge]

The problem is Lee, that as on date, nothing, and absolutely nothing exists in DSLR or Mirrorless world to replicate what is done on smartphones. To do the kind of computational photography being done on smartphones, you would have to have a very high end image processor (since instead of 12 it has to process over four times the images from these full frames). Additionally, the technology first needs to land on the laps of camera manufacturers. These phone companies have monstrous budgets, thanks to the millions of units being sold every month, while DSLR and MIrrorless makers are in red ocean of an industry, with every player bleeding unimaginably fast. In 10 years, the industry has shrunk to 1979 levels (almost). Unheard of. So you need to innovate and do "even more" than a phone, in a rapidly shrinking industry where you are struggling to stay afloat, when you didn't have computational photography technology to begin with. So mostly the manufacturers have stuck to what they know - refining the optics. And we don't lose out with this approach. Computational photography is essentially a way to work around limitations imposed by optics. But full frame systems are already designed with the best optics in mind, so there is really not much to work around - you have the real, more reliable deal.


On the other hand, anyone with thousands of dollars blocked in full frame systems with lenses is very likely to have a tripod, which kind of offsets the night time shooting to a "large" extent, at least in most situations where a photographer is taking time to create an image and not just taking snapshots.

So yes, in a niche situation the smartphone is better than the dedicated camera by virtue of being a fundamentally different approach to photography. Even my Pixel 2 takes better night time shots hand-held compared to my K-1 ii, and it has since Google debuted night sight in android sometime around 2018.


Excited to see hand-held night time images from mirrorless systems, but I dont mind just using my android or ios device for those rare situations where I don't have access to it or I am too lazy to setup a tripod.

If you are interested, there is KandaoRaw+ software, which performs computational photography on 16 raw images, and then churns out 1 raw file (equal in size though, not times 16). In high ISO, you will find this to drastically reduce noise in low light. Try it out.

I’ll check out KandaoRaw, thanks for that heads up.

It’s just crazy what that computational stuff can do at night. Those RX100 series cameras don’t stand a change against it. They’re basically obsolete with all the other point and shoots save maybe waterproof cameras. The iPhones waterproof as well but good luck with that touchscreen in the rain. I still have a TG-6 for that reason as you can’t beat a couple buttons for controls. That’s probably phones in a nutshell, you’ll never beat a well thought out button and dial layout.
.

[beholder3]

I have done some comparative shooting with multiple devices which had new price differences higher than factor 30x between them.
Both for a landscape shot and a candlelight shot.
Normalized to 8 MPx, which is more than any watching person can resolve at normal viewing distance.

Neither "details" nor "dynamic range" were something anyone of my non-photographer friends judged to advantage of the ILCs involved.

I myself see differences and feel the cheapest camera lost out visibly, but I do think that for "normal" people image quality is a complete non-issue and you do not need a phone costing more than $400 to fulfill 100% of requirements for "normal" watchers for 90% of genres.

What even I myself - who does invest in clunky ILC - will admit is that shooting handheld in very dark places (think of dimly lit caves where you may not use tripods at all) my Xiaomi phone with Samsung sensor clearly won against more current iphones and ILC and that is even with JPG.

One has to be honest about the statistical relevancy of areas where phones really have issues.
Basically that is only long tele and very fast shutter due to moving subject applications.
I would venture to say that of the general population who likes shooting photos more than casually this doesnt represent more than 2% of use cases.


And while I also love fast lenses I do think that the weakness of software simulating shallow DoF with more complex depth maps is not really relevant to 99% of image consumers.
Not the least that is because such compositions are not common even for shallow DoF shooters with ILC. Most samples where people brag about the shallow DoF the subject is very clear cut from everything else and this could have been done in software easily in a phone.

One of my favorite private shallow DoF shots is a phone shot which I like as much as some 50/1.4 and 85/1.2 shots.

On the other hand all this will not stop me from continueing to want to buy ILC.
In a nutshell the drivers here are: a) OVF experience and b) physical buttons and c) nicer bokeh.


All these toys have good reasons to exist.