Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “We tried every iPhone Camera”.
When the original iPhone was announced, the camera wasn’t important at all, barely getting a mention from Steve Jobs. In that legendary keynote you have a two megapixel camera built in. As I said, What mattered at the time was that you could pinch to zoom, and so I can just move them further apart and stretch the image that was amazing and yet over the 15 years. Since then, the iPhone evolved from three devices in one to four. In that time, we’ve seen many new features and improvements leading us to the large 48 megapixel sensor found in the iPhone 14 pro. When I reviewed it last fall. I noticed that photos taken in raw are amazing.
Now photos taken normally look kind of processed, and so it got me curious about the evolution of the iPhone camera. Brandon Lee and I went and took photos with. Every iPhone we could get our hands on my eyes are still burning foreign okay, so I should first confess that this idea is actually the brainchild of Brandon. Lee he’s had an Ever growing interest in capturing light. So obviously he’s curious about the iPhone cameras you want. So badly to have something in your head work out in front of a camera and especially at the beginning, it doesn’t that challenge of like okay, Closer Closer Closer you get a little bit better.
You learn one thing you get a little bit better and then I got addicted to it over the last 15 years. Apple has made 28 different versions of their iPhone camera and that’s not even counting all the software features they add. On top of it, the iPhone is the most used camera in the world. What has Apple chosen to do in the evolution of this product to improve the camera and why? I want to know why, though, as Marcus Brownlee recently demonstrated in his annual camera comparison, the iPhone processing is letting it down compared to the others.
So maybe we can see where and when this trend started. I remember the first camera phones. People were like they put a camera on. It was just amazing that it had a camera to begin with, that’s crazy to think about to do this. We assembled a wide history of 23 iPhones to take three different photos. After a wet West Coast, winter snowfall, they are a daytime photo of a building, a nighttime picture of me working on a frozen MacBook and a portrait of me with portrait mode. We’Re missing two phones, because one was mislabeled on eBay and the other is a diagnostics from an Apple Factory. The first photo we wanted to examine is of the Fort Langley Community Hall in Langley ideal, but boring at the same time yeah yeah.
But I think this is like a very good flat nice flat photo. Everything can be judged pretty easily. Well, let’s take a look at it.
I love how de-emphasize the cameras on this phone, like it’s just a little because cameras weren’t, even common on phones. At that point, all right, one, two three! Oh it’s like looking. You know in an old-timey photo old, tiny, potato old, tiny potato with color.
I don’t even think it’s in Focus, so you couldn’t even it’s probably a fixed Focus. You couldn’t pick your focus. I don’t think anyone thought that the original iPhone was a good camera. Okay, so the first iPhone wasn’t really about the camera. So what about the iPhone 3GS? Because it’s having a bit of a moment which I’ll tell you about after this video sponsor War Thunder? It is a free to play online military combat game that runs on Mac OS by battling it out on over 100 major battlefields from World War II to the modern present day.
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I want to go right in there really get in there. I see artifacting chromatic aberration like a rainbow zero on detail, um moving on every time. I put the four up, I’m so impressed by how much better it looks. Do you think it’s the redness, green or the camera? I mean it was a huge leap from here yeah to here.
That’S pretty it’s a big deal. It was a big deal yeah because it went from 3.2 megapixels to five. I can also see this says Fort Langley, Community Hall 1931.. So what happened next whoa I’ve always been curious, where in the iPhone’s lifespan did that happen, and why did that happen? And why did no one else even stand a chance man that looks good too.
I think that the iPhone 4S hands down is the biggest jump in quality in the iPhone’s lifetime. We already get into photos that are pretty respectable, even when we hit the 4S even compared to stuff. Now, yes, oh wow! Well because now it’s harder, if you weren’t a pro at photos, you could look at this and it would still hold up to some extent what about buying a 4S a 4S for the aesthetic reasons, as opposed to 3GS.
The imperfection is the aesthetic yeah is this: the generation they added the whole color filter thing. The color filter thing actually wasn’t added with the 5S. Specifically, it was added with iOS 7., oh okay, which I still uh, can’t forgive so yeah. What’S going on here, I really don’t like the 5S to be very clear.
This is my subjective opinion of this test that we did. There are obviously going to be situations where the 5S probably can beat the 4S in terms of its detail or whatever. But when I look at this photo: okay, there’s that and then here’s the 4S yeah it’s way clearer. The 5S should be technically a better photo with all these, with even all the specs on it, but it somehow. When I look at the 4S and the 5S, I’m almost disappointed at the 5S, because I would expect the 5S to be better, and this is why I think the 4S is the big jump, the jump, but do regular people agree with Brandon.
Let’S, let’s ask a couple of people: okay, no, definitely the one on the right. It’S a lot more legible when I zoom in you’re noticing it’s clear which one which one for probably the one on the right. What thank you Mark? No, that’s great! That’S exactly the answer.
I wanted. Oh, the one on the left yeah. What matters to you in that photo, then.
I think that the photo on the right is just a bit too bright it it blurry without zooming in whereas the one on the left side. I feel like the entire photo kind of works, a lot better for the five I do honestly. I think I prefer the one on the right.
I think you look more natural. The one on the left looks a little over processed. I can’t really describe it, but it looks maybe too sharp or too not natural. Looking, I guess just to verify you prefer the 5S yeah. I think I do what’s interesting here. Is that Brandon and Mark are the photographers in the group, whereas Brandon and Sarah just take photos? I don’t know how you tell these different. I like do you know what this is? Do you know what this is? That’S a 13 because I don’t it’s a 14 plus.
How do you know that when we look at the 10 we see the 10r yeah, the crunchiness isn’t really there, and then we move on the 11 a little bit. You start to see it because of diffusion. Yeah move on to the 12th and it’s it’s there. It’S like a lie. That’S in your face.
I feel like it’s gon na like come out and attack me. Here’S the 13.! Oh interesting! It’S less! No! It’S very sharp, but it’s not as bright. Oh, they paired it back here.
Well, they paired the exposure back on that it makes you wonder where Apple has moved their processing since then, and the best way to see that is at night [ Applause ]. This situation was really where I noticed the trend in sharpness yeah, it’s like that is really coming out significant, like you really can see it. Most people are gon na pick this one. I think, do I like this trend? I don’t know I will say: I’ve never really been impressed by my iPhone camera. I hate like artificial sharpness in photography, and the right side has a lot of that, like I zoomed into the tree, and it just looks bad, it’s like a lot more manipulated by the software, whereas with the left side here yeah, it feels a lot more like I’M actually staring at this scene, that’s happening yeah, you can definitely tell the one on the right does feel a little bit more over sharpened. I don’t like it.
I like the one on the left for that the left looks more smooth. The right looks more sharp and I don’t like either of those the biggest difference I really see in this photo is sharpness and uh texture. The left one just looks like it’s better: the color temperature and the colors and the dynamic range all look fairly similar. I think it looks a little unnatural on the tree, but everything else I think, looks pretty good and, like I said that my main issue, with the iPhone sharpening from what I’ve seen is usually when it’s just like a close-up photo of someone in like their family Or their face, or something I find it makes her face, look really unnatural. If that makes sense, I picked the newer phone every single time. I think so I guess Apple.
Does their research they’re improving the camera for you yeah, so the processing is getting quite overt. On the newer iPhones, but with the last three Pro Models, that’s not the end of the story. The last thing I want to touch on here. Yes, with this particular 48 megapixels Pro raw, that is where I think Apple, has really changed the game.
That’S much more natural looking and I will be that smile yeah. Look at your jacket. Look at your face, yeah the light here. The range the like this is not even this doesn’t even look like a low light photo anymore.
No yeah, we went from it’s been a long time ago, yeah to here man. This looks really good Pro raw plus the 48 megapixel is now where the iPhone shines. The most most people are gon na pick this one, I think full of software gimmicks on the iPhone. The most photographic is portrait mode.
Okay. So what we’re doing right now is I’m sitting on Ice to try out uh portrait mode which is introduced on the iPhone 7 plus and provides kind of a simulated shallow depth of field which you would get in a DSLR camera with a much bigger sensor. So this clearly Sean on the Sony A9 Mark II, very expensive, mirrorless camera.
This is the Baseline. This is where you’d want it to be to be ideal situation. So, with its introduction of the 10r, they had the main camera only, but they wanted to give portrait mode a chance, and so they introduced an algorithmic-based portrait mode which reads that I’m a person tries to figure out my outline and then apply this.
You know bokeh effect around that it uses the main wide camera which contradicts have portraits, have been traditionally taken with a more telephoto lens. So it certainly has a look because you have to move the camera closer and then you get Barrel Distortion which is unflattering to the face. How close does the iPhone get? The iPhone is capable of producing something that could dupe somebody? This is a very clear issue.
Right here this is an improvement, still some trouble here. That is a really it’s just a very hard spot. I don’t think any of them got it here, yeah, but the fall off on your hood is much better because it was just like a vlog, which is what makes you look Photoshop.
This is portrait mode on the wide, oh, my goodness. So this is what I mean. I place the tripod down you, we stood you in a spot and then you weren’t close enough. The use case for it is slimmer because of the practicality you have to meet Apple’s parameters for the ideal shot. Yeah from what I pick, I don’t know, the left side just has a bit more of a blurred background on the right side and then yeah on Zoom. The right side is a bit sharper I’ll, say the right side this time, not a lot like the right side is just a bit cleaner.
Do you use portrait mode uh? Sometimes when I’m taking pictures of my dog? Very specifically, I find portrait mode looks very unnatural. I would say initial Impressions, I don’t see a huge difference. It seems like the one on the right is doing better with the little fur on your coat like it’s sharp and then it goes to blurriness, whereas the one on the left, it’s just all the same amount of blurriness, so you prefer the one right yeah.
They look very similar, so it’s almost like they tried to make it shallower depth of field on the one on the right, but then they have this transitional blur so that it doesn’t look as like immediate. I like aspects about both of them yeah, I would say the one on the left, but I do like what they’re doing with the one on the right a little bit, I feel like the one on the right is the newer phone and the one on the Left is the older one? Would you ever use portrait mode? I had issues with the clunkiness of portrait mode in the app the quickness of it. I don’t think will ever beat a new or normal camera and it doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence, because I know that it can probably fail right, and so that probability would refrain me from using it regularly.
I think I just used my normal camera in terms of doing this whole experience. What’S been the biggest takeaway, I think to me they’re, trying to cement the belief that you don’t need anything else, especially now with what you know about the 14 pro. Would this be enough to make you switch back to iPhone with my knowledge of how to use the portrait mode on top of it and the video features and the pro raw and the fact that you could color correct the image and manipulate it? However, you want, because it is a raw photo that you’re getting.
I don’t like iOS Jonathan, what I’m still strongly considering it, because I do need to upgrade my phone soon. Even after all this, you would say uh if you, if you care about pictures fire real camera, it is really cool to see the evolution of a product like this, because it is so historical. You really do see that between the seven plus and the 11, the difference isn’t that drastic and now we’re at the 14 pro the 48 megapixels is a big jump, but then do they really make another big jump after that, we’ll see we’ll find out next year. Yeah, thanks for comparing every single Mac address video, if you like, looking at many photos, give this video a like, and if you want to see more photos, get taken you might as well subscribe. Now I’m curious what iPhone camera did you find the best? Is it always the latest one or was there an old iPhone camera? You really developed an affection for like those tick, tockers .