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This feels like groundhog day. New iPhone [insert model] has the best camera ever! Fast forward two months: new Google [insert model] has the best camera ever

by bspn 9y ago

This feels like groundhog day. New iPhone [insert model] has the best camera ever! Fast forward two months: new Google [insert model] has the best camera ever! I think we're getting to the point where the incremental gains we're seeing with each new phone cycle are almost unnoticeable to the average user who just wants to take photos of their kids to send to Grandma.

taeric 9y ago
Agreed, the article could probably just be "newest camera on flagship phone best to date (won't be as good as next year's)" Alternatively, "progress on camera technology continues to advance, see specifics here."
lnsp 9y ago
I always expect from new products in a line up to perform better than its brothers and sisters, because there is no reason in buying one if it would be worse than my old one.
etchalon 9y ago
I don't know that the incremental gains are unnoticeable, but we've definitely hit a point where no one camera is so vastly better than any other that the "winner" isn't going to change hands before you get a new phone.
teovoinea 9y ago
Most users don’t get each new phone iteration. If they upgrade every 3 or 4 years, those incremental updates add up to a noticeable difference.
litzer 9y ago
Notice that none of these images are zooming in on pixels to get the comparison. The fight for quality among high end DSLR's is nearing the description of unnoticeable difference, but phone cameras are benefitting immensely from new tech. In fact, it's probably the area where we see the most gain compared to any other improvements in iPhone versions. Perhaps your feeling is from the fact that new phones are released in rapid succession. If that's the case, just compare quality in phones a year or two apart instead of a few months.
- Bahamut 9y ago
  Interestingly, the article points it out how far cellphone cameras have come by comparing shots from just various versions of iPhones and you can see how much better the quality has been getting even just from Apple.
- janekm 9y ago
  Actually there is an example in the article, comparing pixel-level detail from the last 4 iPhones in a low-light scenario (“old man” picture). The improvement with the 8 is impressive to say the least.
- overcast 9y ago
  Biggest game in DSLR world right now is low light. The new D850 is pretty crazy in that respect, with a full stop of ISO reduction. No phone camera on this earth is going to help me take better photos in low light restaurants(which I need for a side business). Also, focus stacking!
  - tambourine_man 9y ago
    You can get pretty good results by taking multiple shots and averaging the noise. Specially in raw.
    - overcast 9y ago
      Sure, more work, more time, less $$$.
  - sho 9y ago
    > Biggest game in DSLR world right now is low light As an a7Sii owner I couldn't agree more (the D850 looks great too). Phone cameras are going to have a hard time catching up there. There's only so much light and at some point, sensor size matters. In my GP comment I mentioned being amazed by my friend's iphone 7+ pics, and it's true, I was. But when the sun went down, the a7Sii ruled over everything and captured every good picture from then on. There's a long way to go for the mobiles to be able to compete at night. Nice to know our investments aren't totally useless :P
mozumder 9y ago
You're normalizing progress, and taking it for granted. I'm never not amazed at the state-of-the-art.
sho 9y ago
> the incremental gains we're seeing with each new phone cycle are almost unnoticeable I don't think so. As someone with a whole lot of expensive "real" camera gear, I was astonished - and I don't really say that lightly - with what I saw a friend getting out of her iphone 7+. If three years ago you had shown me some of these images I would have sworn they were taken by at least five grand worth of gear, expertly used. And by all reports the 8 is another giant step up. This techcrunch review tells the story: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/19/review-iphone-8/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/19/review-iphone-8/ I find this all incredibly exciting. It reminds me of the great democratisation of electronic music, where all of a sudden you didn't need $30k worth of hardware synths to make music - a single computer would do. A cambrian explosion of creativity ensued. High quality and highly capable cameras - and video cameras - in the hands of the masses? Bring it on I say! How many thousands, if not millions, of incredible, moving, moment-defining images will be captured now we don't need a pro photographer on hand to do justice to a scene? If we're gonna have cameras in smartphones - and we're gonna - they may as well be good, and Apple is setting the pace - and forcing down the price. Good on them.
- jcmoscon 9y ago
  I agree. The 7 plus camera is amazing!
- snuxoll 9y ago
  The camera upgrade is really the one thing that has be one the edge of upgrading my 7+ to an 8+, I'll still probably wait until next year's model. I'm still considering getting a full-format mirrorless system someday, because even with as great as smartphone cameras are getting there's only so much you can do with an image sensor the size of a pea - but damned if they don't take good looking pictures regardless.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    DSLRs plus skill plus lenses plus effort still produce the more interesting photos under the broadest range of circumstances. But smartphone cameras definitely should make anyone question purchasing a low-end DSLR with a kit lens that they only use to take pics on full auto.
bad_user 9y ago
I have an iPhone 6s and the camera it came with was noticeably better than the Nexus 5 phone that I had prior to that. And my Nikon DSLR still takes much better pictures than any phone on the market. If smartphones will ever improve to equal the better optics of a DSLR, we shall see, but there's tremendous room for improvement. And most importantly, light is everything and biggest difference between a good camera and a bad one is the ability to make photos in poor light conditions. Improvements matter because I've had many attempts failed due to poor light, which are essentially lost memories.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tlholaday 9y ago
We are at the point where the incremental gains in voice-call quality we're seeing with each new cycle are not even mentioned.
- ballenf 9y ago
  I know a lot of people who make < 1 phone call per day and yet spend hours taking photos. Agree it's a shame. Casting wide aspersions, I feel like it's because you can't get likes/upvotes for phone calls. But, Snapchat shows that ephemeralness is valued, so maybe it's something else behind the war on direct personal real communication.
- gcp 9y ago
  Voice calls are pretty much the least used feature in smartphones for me. Certainly way, waaay below taking photos.
- smileysteve 9y ago
  Ignorance of the masses; Very few people realize when they get an HD Voice call that it's because they're on the same network. It's frankly surprising that people make regular calls anymore because of the inter-network lack of HD voice; you'd think everybody would make hangouts or FaceTime calls. Of course, the other likelihood from ignorance is that few people have good hearing.
  - spike021 9y ago
    The problem with "everybody would make hangouts or FaceTime calls" is that not everybody has unlimited data. Of course it depends how much you use your phone for calling while off wifi and how much data you pay for, but it's definitely not a factor worth ignoring.
    - smileysteve 9y ago
      Probably moreso because LTE might be the first type of network with enough reliability. But, my best example is for doing interview phone screens. (where two people are at fixed positions with high speed networks)
usaphp 9y ago
Not much of a Groundhog Day because the only google phone that was able to compete with iPhone in camera department was the latest pixel. All previous google phones had worse camera than an iPhone
- sahaskatta 9y ago
  Are you sure about that? Check our DxOMark's website from about 3 months ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20170629063431/https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles https://web.archive.org/web/20170629063431/https://www.dxoma... There are plenty of Android phones far ahead of Apple devices.
  - gman83 9y ago
    I think he's specifically referring to the Nexus devices.
- sowbug 9y ago
  DXO rated the Nexus 6P higher than the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus: https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6P-review-Serious-contender-for-mobile-photography/Google-Nexus-6P-vs.-competition-Excellent-photography-scores https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6P-review-Serio...
  - usaphp 9y ago
    Nexus 6p was release more than a year after iphone 6 and 6 plus. Iphone 6s was release around the same time as Nexus 6p and should be the one to be compared to.
    - sowbug 9y ago
      OK, fine, Nexus 6P ranked higher than iPhone 6s as well. Here's the link you didn't bother to include: https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Apple-iPhone-6s-review-Solid-and-compelling-performance/Apple-iPhone-6s-vs-competition https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Apple-iPhone-6s-review-Solid... "Despite our hopes for the new sensor, the Apple iPhone 6s posts an identical overall score as its predecessor."
irrational 9y ago
Wow, your camera can take great pictures of a landscape during the day? I'm impressed. /s So far they all suck at low-light photography or moving subjects (or both at the same time like taking pictures of kids indoors at a birthday party). That would be a real breakthrough.
- maneesh 9y ago
  have you tried the pixel? The low-light is amazing
  - imaginenore 9y ago
    Have you tried A7s with a f1.4 lens? Most people who only photograph with phones, even high end ones, don't seem to realize that similar gains happen in the camera sensors as well. And them being always much larger, they will always be ahead in low light and in signal/noise ratio.
- Angostura 9y ago
  I strongly disagree, I was out taking photos with an iPhone 6 the other month. Photos of a night-time street market I took were rather impressive.
- ballenf 9y ago
  So do our eyes, but our brain makes up for it. Out of context, the brain doesn't have enough info (or maybe incentive) to do that job. The optical image stabilisation & object tracking of our eyes is mind blowing. Optical illusions demonstrate the amount of interpolation that our brains to do aid vision / fill in the gaps of image detail coming from the eyes. Not really intending to be an apologist for digital cameras nor disagree that they have a lot of room for improvement, but moreso just put it all in a different light.
- gpmcadam 9y ago
  Low-light has been significantly improved on the 8/8 Plus, not just "small unnoticeable incremental updates" anymore: https://imgur.com/a/YCegK https://imgur.com/a/YCegK Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/71nvj7/low_light_photography_iphone_7_plus_vs_iphone_8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/71nvj7/low_light_pho... EDIT Original source: http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-8-camera-review-india http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-8-camera-review-india
Eridrus 9y ago
I don't really care about cameras - I never really look at the photos I do take - but I feel like you're kidding yourself if you think these changes are small.
romanovcode 9y ago
So you would rather have no progress at all? I don't get it, it seems like you are annoyed but - at what? Reminds me of this: https://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mad.png https://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/...
- kolbe 9y ago
  That's a false dichotomy. The alternative to living in a world where very slight progress gets overblown in the media isn't living in a world with no progress at all.
askdufuga 9y ago
The reviewers don't actually care about which camera is better. According to the author's earlier review of the Pixel, it rates better on every metric.. color, contrast, etc. They just rate the iPhone higher because it's newer.
- gcp 9y ago
  They re-reviewed the Pixel with an updated, improved test protocol and the iPhone 8 is being compared to that. DXO makes the equivalent of Lightroom, they're not a bunch of hipsters.
raverbashing 9y ago
Incrementally the differences are small However, if you jump between generations it's interesting to see the difference. I sometimes see old pictures I've taken with old phones and the difference is much more visible
Mikeb85 9y ago
Dunno, I have the Google Pixel XL, it's the first camera that has made me not take my serious camera (a Fuji X series mirrorless) on trips. The quality of photos it produces is amazing, and the default camera app has some seriously good processing. You can do more with a serious camera, but I'm not sure it'll do much better with quick snaps. You're right though, the constant marketing of phone cameras is kind of funny. I have no doubt the iPhone makes incremental improvements every year, as do other phone cameras.
cooper12 9y ago
Well lucky for you that's exactly the segment the new portrait modes would be enticing for. Also, phone cameras still have room to improve for low-light situations and in my experience they all denoise so heavily to the point of removing detail. This is all noticeable without zooming in as well so would be important for the average user. Also it's a bit presumptuous to relegate all smartphone photography to that of quick snapshots of kids for grandma. Why shouldn't someone be able to take an action shot of their kid playing soccer (requires fast shutter speeds meaning better light sensitivity or wider aperture), utilize depth especially when contrasting between foreground and background, capture the high ranges present in landscape photos, crop out distracting elements and to a pleasing ratio (thus making the pixels important), use flash without washing out their subject or coloring them, capturing rich colors without having to later turn the saturation slider to 100 later, focus right away to catch that moment, etc... If you draw your own artificial line at what people should use their phone cameras for, you can justify any shitty camera, but if you want people to take quality photographs with top of the line DSLRs as benchmarks, and allow them to be creative with them and get the max out of them, there's still so much room for improvement.
dzhiurgis 9y ago
Look at how these cameras progressed. Compare 8 to 4 year old phone: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old_guy_apple_comparison.png https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old...

by bspn 9y ago

taeric 9y ago

Agreed, the article could probably just be "newest camera on flagship phone best to date (won't be as good as next year's)" Alternatively, "progress on camera technology continues to advance, see specifics here."

lnsp 9y ago

I always expect from new products in a line up to perform better than its brothers and sisters, because there is no reason in buying one if it would be worse than my old one.

etchalon 9y ago

I don't know that the incremental gains are unnoticeable, but we've definitely hit a point where no one camera is so vastly better than any other that the "winner" isn't going to change hands before you get a new phone.

teovoinea 9y ago

Most users don’t get each new phone iteration. If they upgrade every 3 or 4 years, those incremental updates add up to a noticeable difference.

litzer 9y ago

Notice that none of these images are zooming in on pixels to get the comparison. The fight for quality among high end DSLR's is nearing the description of unnoticeable difference, but phone cameras are benefitting immensely from new tech. In fact, it's probably the area where we see the most gain compared to any other improvements in iPhone versions. Perhaps your feeling is from the fact that new phones are released in rapid succession. If that's the case, just compare quality in phones a year or two apart instead of a few months.

Bahamut 9y ago
Interestingly, the article points it out how far cellphone cameras have come by comparing shots from just various versions of iPhones and you can see how much better the quality has been getting even just from Apple.
janekm 9y ago
Actually there is an example in the article, comparing pixel-level detail from the last 4 iPhones in a low-light scenario (“old man” picture). The improvement with the 8 is impressive to say the least.
overcast 9y ago
Biggest game in DSLR world right now is low light. The new D850 is pretty crazy in that respect, with a full stop of ISO reduction. No phone camera on this earth is going to help me take better photos in low light restaurants(which I need for a side business). Also, focus stacking!
- tambourine_man 9y ago
  You can get pretty good results by taking multiple shots and averaging the noise. Specially in raw.
  - overcast 9y ago
    Sure, more work, more time, less $$$.
- sho 9y ago
  > Biggest game in DSLR world right now is low light As an a7Sii owner I couldn't agree more (the D850 looks great too). Phone cameras are going to have a hard time catching up there. There's only so much light and at some point, sensor size matters. In my GP comment I mentioned being amazed by my friend's iphone 7+ pics, and it's true, I was. But when the sun went down, the a7Sii ruled over everything and captured every good picture from then on. There's a long way to go for the mobiles to be able to compete at night. Nice to know our investments aren't totally useless :P

mozumder 9y ago

You're normalizing progress, and taking it for granted. I'm never not amazed at the state-of-the-art.

sho 9y ago

> the incremental gains we're seeing with each new phone cycle are almost unnoticeable I don't think so. As someone with a whole lot of expensive "real" camera gear, I was astonished - and I don't really say that lightly - with what I saw a friend getting out of her iphone 7+. If three years ago you had shown me some of these images I would have sworn they were taken by at least five grand worth of gear, expertly used. And by all reports the 8 is another giant step up. This techcrunch review tells the story: https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/19/review-iphone-8/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/19/review-iphone-8/ I find this all incredibly exciting. It reminds me of the great democratisation of electronic music, where all of a sudden you didn't need $30k worth of hardware synths to make music - a single computer would do. A cambrian explosion of creativity ensued. High quality and highly capable cameras - and video cameras - in the hands of the masses? Bring it on I say! How many thousands, if not millions, of incredible, moving, moment-defining images will be captured now we don't need a pro photographer on hand to do justice to a scene? If we're gonna have cameras in smartphones - and we're gonna - they may as well be good, and Apple is setting the pace - and forcing down the price. Good on them.

jcmoscon 9y ago
I agree. The 7 plus camera is amazing!
snuxoll 9y ago
The camera upgrade is really the one thing that has be one the edge of upgrading my 7+ to an 8+, I'll still probably wait until next year's model. I'm still considering getting a full-format mirrorless system someday, because even with as great as smartphone cameras are getting there's only so much you can do with an image sensor the size of a pea - but damned if they don't take good looking pictures regardless.
- ghaff 9y ago
  DSLRs plus skill plus lenses plus effort still produce the more interesting photos under the broadest range of circumstances. But smartphone cameras definitely should make anyone question purchasing a low-end DSLR with a kit lens that they only use to take pics on full auto.

bad_user 9y ago

I have an iPhone 6s and the camera it came with was noticeably better than the Nexus 5 phone that I had prior to that. And my Nikon DSLR still takes much better pictures than any phone on the market. If smartphones will ever improve to equal the better optics of a DSLR, we shall see, but there's tremendous room for improvement. And most importantly, light is everything and biggest difference between a good camera and a bad one is the ability to make photos in poor light conditions. Improvements matter because I've had many attempts failed due to poor light, which are essentially lost memories.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tlholaday 9y ago

We are at the point where the incremental gains in voice-call quality we're seeing with each new cycle are not even mentioned.

ballenf 9y ago
I know a lot of people who make < 1 phone call per day and yet spend hours taking photos. Agree it's a shame. Casting wide aspersions, I feel like it's because you can't get likes/upvotes for phone calls. But, Snapchat shows that ephemeralness is valued, so maybe it's something else behind the war on direct personal real communication.
gcp 9y ago
Voice calls are pretty much the least used feature in smartphones for me. Certainly way, waaay below taking photos.
smileysteve 9y ago
Ignorance of the masses; Very few people realize when they get an HD Voice call that it's because they're on the same network. It's frankly surprising that people make regular calls anymore because of the inter-network lack of HD voice; you'd think everybody would make hangouts or FaceTime calls. Of course, the other likelihood from ignorance is that few people have good hearing.
- spike021 9y ago
  The problem with "everybody would make hangouts or FaceTime calls" is that not everybody has unlimited data. Of course it depends how much you use your phone for calling while off wifi and how much data you pay for, but it's definitely not a factor worth ignoring.
  - smileysteve 9y ago
    Probably moreso because LTE might be the first type of network with enough reliability. But, my best example is for doing interview phone screens. (where two people are at fixed positions with high speed networks)

usaphp 9y ago

Not much of a Groundhog Day because the only google phone that was able to compete with iPhone in camera department was the latest pixel. All previous google phones had worse camera than an iPhone

sahaskatta 9y ago
Are you sure about that? Check our DxOMark's website from about 3 months ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20170629063431/https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles https://web.archive.org/web/20170629063431/https://www.dxoma... There are plenty of Android phones far ahead of Apple devices.
- gman83 9y ago
  I think he's specifically referring to the Nexus devices.
sowbug 9y ago
DXO rated the Nexus 6P higher than the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus: https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6P-review-Serious-contender-for-mobile-photography/Google-Nexus-6P-vs.-competition-Excellent-photography-scores https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Google-Nexus-6P-review-Serio...
- usaphp 9y ago
  Nexus 6p was release more than a year after iphone 6 and 6 plus. Iphone 6s was release around the same time as Nexus 6p and should be the one to be compared to.
  - sowbug 9y ago
    OK, fine, Nexus 6P ranked higher than iPhone 6s as well. Here's the link you didn't bother to include: https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Apple-iPhone-6s-review-Solid-and-compelling-performance/Apple-iPhone-6s-vs-competition https://www.dxomark.com/Mobiles/Apple-iPhone-6s-review-Solid... "Despite our hopes for the new sensor, the Apple iPhone 6s posts an identical overall score as its predecessor."

irrational 9y ago

Wow, your camera can take great pictures of a landscape during the day? I'm impressed. /s So far they all suck at low-light photography or moving subjects (or both at the same time like taking pictures of kids indoors at a birthday party). That would be a real breakthrough.

maneesh 9y ago
have you tried the pixel? The low-light is amazing
- imaginenore 9y ago
  Have you tried A7s with a f1.4 lens? Most people who only photograph with phones, even high end ones, don't seem to realize that similar gains happen in the camera sensors as well. And them being always much larger, they will always be ahead in low light and in signal/noise ratio.
Angostura 9y ago
I strongly disagree, I was out taking photos with an iPhone 6 the other month. Photos of a night-time street market I took were rather impressive.
ballenf 9y ago
So do our eyes, but our brain makes up for it. Out of context, the brain doesn't have enough info (or maybe incentive) to do that job. The optical image stabilisation & object tracking of our eyes is mind blowing. Optical illusions demonstrate the amount of interpolation that our brains to do aid vision / fill in the gaps of image detail coming from the eyes. Not really intending to be an apologist for digital cameras nor disagree that they have a lot of room for improvement, but moreso just put it all in a different light.
gpmcadam 9y ago
Low-light has been significantly improved on the 8/8 Plus, not just "small unnoticeable incremental updates" anymore: https://imgur.com/a/YCegK https://imgur.com/a/YCegK Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/71nvj7/low_light_photography_iphone_7_plus_vs_iphone_8/ https://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/71nvj7/low_light_pho... EDIT Original source: http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-8-camera-review-india http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-8-camera-review-india

Eridrus 9y ago

I don't really care about cameras - I never really look at the photos I do take - but I feel like you're kidding yourself if you think these changes are small.

romanovcode 9y ago

So you would rather have no progress at all? I don't get it, it seems like you are annoyed but - at what? Reminds me of this: https://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/mad.png https://www.poorlydrawnlines.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/...

kolbe 9y ago
That's a false dichotomy. The alternative to living in a world where very slight progress gets overblown in the media isn't living in a world with no progress at all.

askdufuga 9y ago

The reviewers don't actually care about which camera is better. According to the author's earlier review of the Pixel, it rates better on every metric.. color, contrast, etc. They just rate the iPhone higher because it's newer.

gcp 9y ago
They re-reviewed the Pixel with an updated, improved test protocol and the iPhone 8 is being compared to that. DXO makes the equivalent of Lightroom, they're not a bunch of hipsters.

raverbashing 9y ago

Incrementally the differences are small However, if you jump between generations it's interesting to see the difference. I sometimes see old pictures I've taken with old phones and the difference is much more visible

Mikeb85 9y ago

Dunno, I have the Google Pixel XL, it's the first camera that has made me not take my serious camera (a Fuji X series mirrorless) on trips. The quality of photos it produces is amazing, and the default camera app has some seriously good processing. You can do more with a serious camera, but I'm not sure it'll do much better with quick snaps. You're right though, the constant marketing of phone cameras is kind of funny. I have no doubt the iPhone makes incremental improvements every year, as do other phone cameras.

cooper12 9y ago

Well lucky for you that's exactly the segment the new portrait modes would be enticing for. Also, phone cameras still have room to improve for low-light situations and in my experience they all denoise so heavily to the point of removing detail. This is all noticeable without zooming in as well so would be important for the average user. Also it's a bit presumptuous to relegate all smartphone photography to that of quick snapshots of kids for grandma. Why shouldn't someone be able to take an action shot of their kid playing soccer (requires fast shutter speeds meaning better light sensitivity or wider aperture), utilize depth especially when contrasting between foreground and background, capture the high ranges present in landscape photos, crop out distracting elements and to a pleasing ratio (thus making the pixels important), use flash without washing out their subject or coloring them, capturing rich colors without having to later turn the saturation slider to 100 later, focus right away to catch that moment, etc... If you draw your own artificial line at what people should use their phone cameras for, you can justify any shitty camera, but if you want people to take quality photographs with top of the line DSLRs as benchmarks, and allow them to be creative with them and get the max out of them, there's still so much room for improvement.

dzhiurgis 9y ago

Look at how these cameras progressed. Compare 8 to 4 year old phone: https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old_guy_apple_comparison.png https://cdn.dxomark.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/asian_old...