8 ms·

iPhone 12 Pro Max Camera Review: Zion NP

01100011 6y ago
I've been considering getting my first Apple phone and this will probably seal the deal. I wish there was an alternative to Apple & Android which provided a cutting edge camera with good performance but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case.
- simonh 6y ago
  A big issue nowadays is that computational photography is now about as important as the camera itself, so the software and computational hardware including ML accelerators are a big competitive edge that’s really only available to the big hitters.
  - 1-6 6y ago
    To purist photographers though, it's a little deceptive to have computers modify the photo. It's hard to turn off all those ML augmentation settings on the iPhone. It brings back the old question of how much Photoshop is too much? Will phone photographers get disqualified from photo contests one day?
    - simonh 6y ago
      Literal photoshopping is an indispensable skill for photographers these days. None of the big photography contests disallow photoshopping in general (there are limits) and winning photos are clearly photoshopped. The phone just does it automatically.
      - bradlys 6y ago
        Indeed but I’d argue it’s always been an essential skill. When it comes to film, people were already doing tricks to modify the image. Many photos people think of as right out of the camera are “photoshopped”. This applies to photos even from the 1800’s... I mean, the famous full body shot of Lincoln standing up is completely fake.
- abc_lisper 6y ago
  sony makes some serious camera phones.
  - 1-6 6y ago
    They also have a phone which has an HDMI input. *Yes, Input! It's great as a field display for DLSRs among other things.
- obarthelemy 6y ago
  There are phones with similar pic quality. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJs_KrPh8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJs_KrPh8A
  - 01100011 6y ago
    Interesting but how up to date is the OS? Can I expect current Android versions to show up over the next few years? Are the vendor customizations good or bad? I tend to stick with Google phones because I like the stock Android experience. I've heard Sony isn't too bad. I really didn't like what Samsung did to Android but I last experienced it over a decade ago.
    - obarthelemy 6y ago
      OEMs these days usually give 3 yrs of OS updates, though usually not as fast as Google. The phone doesn't become a brick after those 3 yrs though, all apps and tools remain updated independently of the OS, actually Androids receive those software updates for longer than iphones. I've got a few very old phones and tablets that are still as useful as on their 1st day, though well behind the current stuff.
      - Yetanfou 6y ago
        Not to mention the fact that AOSP-based distributions like LineageOS can be used to keep the Android version on older hardware up to date for a long time after the vendor has given up on it, providing OTA updates to keep the device current. The real limiting factor ends up being the relatively low amount of memory in very old devices (512KB-1GB used to be common around 2010-2011, Android can still run on this hardware in a limited fashion but 1.5GB or more is preferred).
codemac 6y ago
Beautiful photos, but the decision tree can be shortened immensely to: Do you like big phones? -> Yes: iPhone 12 Pro Max -> No: Do you often run out of battery? -> Yes: iPhone 12 Pro -> No: iPhone 12 mini It's kind of ironic that all the questions about photography don't change what phone you end up with in their decision tree.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  I wonder if the SE is eating into iPhone mini sales. I’ve been waiting for iPhone mini since the 5S, but I got an SE earlier in the year and now I don’t need mini for a few years.
  - 1-6 6y ago
    I'm THAT customer. I purchased the iPhone 12 mini with high hopes but for the price, I didn't feel like I was getting enough. I only had 2 out of 3 rear cameras (of the pro) and I would have preferred telephoto instead of wide. The battery life wasn't quite there either. The only improvement was 5G but coverage is still spotty anyway. I exchanged my purchase for the SE and I'm pretty happy. I still get the smaller easy to reach screen size and the fingerprint sensor is a welcome from the past. I think TouchID > FaceID. I was an iPhone X owner for a number of years until the screen randomly died.
    - amluto 6y ago
      I definitely consider Touch ID to be far superior to Face ID, especially is a world full of masks.
      - 1-6 6y ago
        Pressing one home button is way easier than doing swipe gestures especially when the phone is in one hand. Muscle memory takes over and it's a joy. It's kinda like having a Blackberry side scroll wheel all over again.
1-6 6y ago
A good camera goes a long way in the hands of a skilled photographer. I could use the best camera and still my photos would look like it came from a potato.
- x3iv130f 6y ago
  Good photographers spend a lot of time editing and curating their photos. Everyone takes potato quality photos from time to time.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Good photographers may have better eyes/skills/technique. They also put the time and effort to be in the right place and the right time. And, as you say, you see a tiny fraction of what they shoot--after it's all been edited. I'm not remotely in the class of top photographers but my Flickr feed is a very curated version of the pictures I take. (How curated being somewhat a function of why I'm uploading.)
  - 1-6 6y ago
    Apple Photos and Google Photos have started to assemble nice slideshows with music. Now they're doing face recognition. I think there's great potential for ML to curate the photos for me. I hope my phone can one day present to me low quality vs high quality images based on exposure, focus, and composure. I can then swipe left or right to keep or delete. There's nothing more exhausting than having to sort through photos after a vacation :-)
- vel0city 6y ago
  The two main tricks I'd recommend to not take potato-quality pictures are lighting and framing/composing. Asking yourself a few questions about the lighting situation (which way is the light coming from? Is my foreground darker than my background? should I take the shot from the other direction, if possible?) will help a good bit to start. For a quick idea on composing, think about the rule of thirds and the golden ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds https://www.apogeephoto.com/how-to-use-the-golden-ratio-to-improve-your-photography/ https://www.apogeephoto.com/how-to-use-the-golden-ratio-to-i... Just these two concepts will get you started taking much better photos than most unskilled photographers, and at least I find it doesn't take me too much time to give a second or two thought to them. I'd encourage you to turn on a rule of thirds layer on your camera, it'll start to make it really easy to do some quick composition.
altarius 6y ago
I don't know, Austin Mann took some amazing photos in his previous camera reviews, but this time I'm not so impressed. The saturation in the fall tree and water shots is just somehow weirdly off the charts and the night photos look almost like impressionist paintings (nonetheless a great achievement with such a small sensor). His photos from Rwanda with the iPhone 7 just looked so much more natural and "real" [1]. [1] http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-7-camera-review-rwanda http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-7-camera-review-rwanda
- bitexploder 6y ago
  That is honestly a post-processing choice and not entirely a reflection of the camera.
- acomjean 6y ago
  I think apple is compensating because people tend to like saturated colors. Though the iPhones still do poorly in head to head blind reviews. The camera gear is top notch but its the "auto processing" and cool color space choices makes it less likable head to head. Totally unscientific bracket phone comparison: (round up and 20 minute video). https://www.dpreview.com/news/0599221589/video-blind-smartphone-camera-test-highlights-what-people-value-in-smartphone-photos https://www.dpreview.com/news/0599221589/video-blind-smartph...
- tomc1985 6y ago
  Yeah a lot of those images had very flat color/saturation. The composition was good but they definitely looked like they were taken on a phone camera. Overall just very "flat", no pop. There are some points where you can see the sky clips the image out and that scenario stresses a lot of cameras' sensors if not properly mitigated. I would not be happy if these pictures were hanging on my wall.
abc_lisper 6y ago
Two issues - the page is not ssl. My router flags a javascript loaded on the page as malware. The js is xxxx.cloudfront.net/tracker.js
wyldfire 6y ago
Mann refers to an app called "Halide mk 2" [1]. That's an interesting choice of brand name. It matches the language used by some camera processing software [2]. Of course, it's not limited to image processing, just happens to be used there. As best I can tell this is just a funny coincidence. [1] https://halide.cam/ https://halide.cam/ [2] https://halide-lang.org/ https://halide-lang.org/
- sneak 6y ago
  Silver halides were (are?) light-sensitive chemicals used in photographic film and photographic paper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_halide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_halide
  - wyldfire 6y ago
    Of course! Yes, I should have realized. Thanks!
  - samatman 6y ago
    It's kind of amusing to a chemist, since in "silver halide" the silver is the interesting part, table salt is a halide as well. Makes sense though, because if you're a photographer it's the only use of the word "halide" you're ever likely to see, and "silver" is the unevocative part of the name.
nixass 6y ago
It's si incredible that Pixel 2 still has better low light photos than latest iPhone
- zionic 6y ago
  But it doesn’t...
  - nixass 6y ago
    All the nigh shots at the link look like water colors on canvas
sneak 6y ago
I say this as a photographer who has already purchased an iPhone 12 Pro Max: If you're taking a tripod and an iPhone tripod camera mount with you... why not just take a camera camera (struck: "real camera") without a space-constrained sensor/lens? This test suite seems a little... silly to me.
- 1-6 6y ago
  I've owned 35mm full frame sensor cameras, Micro-four thirds, and the RX100vii. The iPhone with a tripod still seems to me like the most convenient way to travel. The only thing which would 1UP the iPhone would be a camera and viewfinder on the Apple Watch.
- panopticon 6y ago
  The weight savings are very, very nice when you're doing long or technical hikes. The full-frame body and two lenses I hike with weigh almost 6lbs. That's not even including the filters and sturdy tripod designed for holding a "real" camera. By comparison, a good phone tripod and mount clock in at about 1.5lbs. That being said... I enjoy printing my landscape photography. It's worth it to lug out my heavy gear because I can get nice, large prints out of it. But if you're just posting on social media, your body will thank you later for leaving those 6lbs home.
  - zionic 6y ago
    I never appreciated weight until I befriended a technical hiker/climber. They review all their gear in terms of ounces.
  - novok 6y ago
    There are lighter large sensor cameras you can take with you, such as a Ricoh GR III (9oz / 250g) or similar. You can even share tripods with it.
obarthelemy 6y ago
Another "review" that's iphone vs nothing else, or new iphone vs old iphone. Reviews are informative only when they provide actual context, ie comparison to the competition, otherwise it's just pretty pictures. Most comparisons rate the iphone as great not exceptional, there are other phones out there, some significantly cheaper, that produce equivalent or even better pics. See Techtablets on Youtube.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
reaperducer 6y ago
My iPhone wish: A button to turn off all of the image processing. Mobile phones, and especially iPhones, have become useless for taking pictures of skin. The phones try to smooth out blemishes, and overprocess skin. That's great if it's pictures at a tween birthday party, but a lot of doctors and other medical practices are receiving pictures of lesions, bruises, and other skin issues via smartphone these days. It completely ruins diagnostics. I've done my own testing on a recently injured person, and the results are terrible. What was visibly a massive bruise got all the spots and veins magically AI-ed out, and the colors mangled so that some regions of the bruise disappeared entirely. (iPhone 12 Pro) The healthcare company I work for recommends that patients use a laptop camera instead of a phone, if they can. The problem is that so many people don't have computers, and if they do, they don't know how to take a picture of their skin with the webcam.
- nkristoffersen 6y ago
  You are in luck! Apple has been providing RAW image capture APIs for several years which means you can get a pure image with no processing with many 3rd party apps. Either recommend patients to use a RAW camera app, or perhaps create a basic app for the healthcare company. If the image isn’t raw, it is processed in some way, and I can absolutely see how that can mess with diagnostics.
  - reaperducer 6y ago
    You are in luck! Apple has been providing RAW image capture APIs for several years I don't see how that means I'm in luck. Me being in luck would be, "Apple has such a feature, but it's just hidden behind another invisible iOS button." recommend patients to use a RAW camera app You dramatically overestimate the technical ability of the average person. We have to write our healthcare web sites for people with an eighth-grade reading level. perhaps create a basic app for the healthcare company. If we had the money for that, we'd probably hire back some of the doctors and nurses we've laid off over the last six months. Like most healthcare companies, we jettisoned medical professionals in order to stay afloat.
    - 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
sakopov 6y ago
I don't really understand who this post is targeting. It looks like it's landscape photographers but I as one I feel a little bit confused. Let me explain. I'm a hobbyist landscape photographer and I've invested almost a decade into both my craft and the tools I use. You start out learning exposure, aperture, shutter speed and then mastering composition. As you do this you try to get outside and find good spots offering great composition and light which is science in and of itself. Then you start splitting hairs over various lenses and camera tricks to get the right depth of field and the sharpest image and learning about all the different camera settings you didn't even know existed to help you on this journey. I understand that I'm very biased, but I see phone cameras fall short here. Don't get me wrong, you can learn some of these basics on a phone camera, but it will get you a quarter of the way there until you're forced to switch to a proper lens and ultimately a DSLR. I see nothing different in this post. These compositions are great but the quality is lacking pretty severely. You can get a much better quality with a basic kit lens and a cheap body which will cost you half the price of an iPhone.

I've been considering getting my first Apple phone and this will probably seal the deal. I wish there was an alternative to Apple & Android which provided a cutting edge camera with good performance but sadly that doesn't seem to be the case.

simonh 6y ago
A big issue nowadays is that computational photography is now about as important as the camera itself, so the software and computational hardware including ML accelerators are a big competitive edge that’s really only available to the big hitters.
- 1-6 6y ago
  To purist photographers though, it's a little deceptive to have computers modify the photo. It's hard to turn off all those ML augmentation settings on the iPhone. It brings back the old question of how much Photoshop is too much? Will phone photographers get disqualified from photo contests one day?
  - simonh 6y ago
    Literal photoshopping is an indispensable skill for photographers these days. None of the big photography contests disallow photoshopping in general (there are limits) and winning photos are clearly photoshopped. The phone just does it automatically.
    - bradlys 6y ago
      Indeed but I’d argue it’s always been an essential skill. When it comes to film, people were already doing tricks to modify the image. Many photos people think of as right out of the camera are “photoshopped”. This applies to photos even from the 1800’s... I mean, the famous full body shot of Lincoln standing up is completely fake.
abc_lisper 6y ago
sony makes some serious camera phones.
- 1-6 6y ago
  They also have a phone which has an HDMI input. *Yes, Input! It's great as a field display for DLSRs among other things.
obarthelemy 6y ago
There are phones with similar pic quality. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJs_KrPh8A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bcJs_KrPh8A
- 01100011 6y ago
  Interesting but how up to date is the OS? Can I expect current Android versions to show up over the next few years? Are the vendor customizations good or bad? I tend to stick with Google phones because I like the stock Android experience. I've heard Sony isn't too bad. I really didn't like what Samsung did to Android but I last experienced it over a decade ago.
  - obarthelemy 6y ago
    OEMs these days usually give 3 yrs of OS updates, though usually not as fast as Google. The phone doesn't become a brick after those 3 yrs though, all apps and tools remain updated independently of the OS, actually Androids receive those software updates for longer than iphones. I've got a few very old phones and tablets that are still as useful as on their 1st day, though well behind the current stuff.
    - Yetanfou 6y ago
      Not to mention the fact that AOSP-based distributions like LineageOS can be used to keep the Android version on older hardware up to date for a long time after the vendor has given up on it, providing OTA updates to keep the device current. The real limiting factor ends up being the relatively low amount of memory in very old devices (512KB-1GB used to be common around 2010-2011, Android can still run on this hardware in a limited fashion but 1.5GB or more is preferred).

codemac 6y ago

Beautiful photos, but the decision tree can be shortened immensely to: Do you like big phones? -> Yes: iPhone 12 Pro Max -> No: Do you often run out of battery? -> Yes: iPhone 12 Pro -> No: iPhone 12 mini It's kind of ironic that all the questions about photography don't change what phone you end up with in their decision tree.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
I wonder if the SE is eating into iPhone mini sales. I’ve been waiting for iPhone mini since the 5S, but I got an SE earlier in the year and now I don’t need mini for a few years.
- 1-6 6y ago
  I'm THAT customer. I purchased the iPhone 12 mini with high hopes but for the price, I didn't feel like I was getting enough. I only had 2 out of 3 rear cameras (of the pro) and I would have preferred telephoto instead of wide. The battery life wasn't quite there either. The only improvement was 5G but coverage is still spotty anyway. I exchanged my purchase for the SE and I'm pretty happy. I still get the smaller easy to reach screen size and the fingerprint sensor is a welcome from the past. I think TouchID > FaceID. I was an iPhone X owner for a number of years until the screen randomly died.
  - amluto 6y ago
    I definitely consider Touch ID to be far superior to Face ID, especially is a world full of masks.
    - 1-6 6y ago
      Pressing one home button is way easier than doing swipe gestures especially when the phone is in one hand. Muscle memory takes over and it's a joy. It's kinda like having a Blackberry side scroll wheel all over again.

1-6 6y ago

A good camera goes a long way in the hands of a skilled photographer. I could use the best camera and still my photos would look like it came from a potato.

x3iv130f 6y ago
Good photographers spend a lot of time editing and curating their photos. Everyone takes potato quality photos from time to time.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Good photographers may have better eyes/skills/technique. They also put the time and effort to be in the right place and the right time. And, as you say, you see a tiny fraction of what they shoot--after it's all been edited. I'm not remotely in the class of top photographers but my Flickr feed is a very curated version of the pictures I take. (How curated being somewhat a function of why I'm uploading.)
- 1-6 6y ago
  Apple Photos and Google Photos have started to assemble nice slideshows with music. Now they're doing face recognition. I think there's great potential for ML to curate the photos for me. I hope my phone can one day present to me low quality vs high quality images based on exposure, focus, and composure. I can then swipe left or right to keep or delete. There's nothing more exhausting than having to sort through photos after a vacation :-)
vel0city 6y ago
The two main tricks I'd recommend to not take potato-quality pictures are lighting and framing/composing. Asking yourself a few questions about the lighting situation (which way is the light coming from? Is my foreground darker than my background? should I take the shot from the other direction, if possible?) will help a good bit to start. For a quick idea on composing, think about the rule of thirds and the golden ratio https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds https://www.apogeephoto.com/how-to-use-the-golden-ratio-to-improve-your-photography/ https://www.apogeephoto.com/how-to-use-the-golden-ratio-to-i... Just these two concepts will get you started taking much better photos than most unskilled photographers, and at least I find it doesn't take me too much time to give a second or two thought to them. I'd encourage you to turn on a rule of thirds layer on your camera, it'll start to make it really easy to do some quick composition.

altarius 6y ago

I don't know, Austin Mann took some amazing photos in his previous camera reviews, but this time I'm not so impressed. The saturation in the fall tree and water shots is just somehow weirdly off the charts and the night photos look almost like impressionist paintings (nonetheless a great achievement with such a small sensor). His photos from Rwanda with the iPhone 7 just looked so much more natural and "real" [1]. [1] http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-7-camera-review-rwanda http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-7-camera-review-rwanda

bitexploder 6y ago
That is honestly a post-processing choice and not entirely a reflection of the camera.
acomjean 6y ago
I think apple is compensating because people tend to like saturated colors. Though the iPhones still do poorly in head to head blind reviews. The camera gear is top notch but its the "auto processing" and cool color space choices makes it less likable head to head. Totally unscientific bracket phone comparison: (round up and 20 minute video). https://www.dpreview.com/news/0599221589/video-blind-smartphone-camera-test-highlights-what-people-value-in-smartphone-photos https://www.dpreview.com/news/0599221589/video-blind-smartph...
tomc1985 6y ago
Yeah a lot of those images had very flat color/saturation. The composition was good but they definitely looked like they were taken on a phone camera. Overall just very "flat", no pop. There are some points where you can see the sky clips the image out and that scenario stresses a lot of cameras' sensors if not properly mitigated. I would not be happy if these pictures were hanging on my wall.

abc_lisper 6y ago

Two issues - the page is not ssl. My router flags a javascript loaded on the page as malware. The js is xxxx.cloudfront.net/tracker.js

wyldfire 6y ago

Mann refers to an app called "Halide mk 2" [1]. That's an interesting choice of brand name. It matches the language used by some camera processing software [2]. Of course, it's not limited to image processing, just happens to be used there. As best I can tell this is just a funny coincidence. [1] https://halide.cam/ https://halide.cam/ [2] https://halide-lang.org/ https://halide-lang.org/

sneak 6y ago
Silver halides were (are?) light-sensitive chemicals used in photographic film and photographic paper. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_halide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_halide
- wyldfire 6y ago
  Of course! Yes, I should have realized. Thanks!
- samatman 6y ago
  It's kind of amusing to a chemist, since in "silver halide" the silver is the interesting part, table salt is a halide as well. Makes sense though, because if you're a photographer it's the only use of the word "halide" you're ever likely to see, and "silver" is the unevocative part of the name.

nixass 6y ago

It's si incredible that Pixel 2 still has better low light photos than latest iPhone

zionic 6y ago
But it doesn’t...
- nixass 6y ago
  All the nigh shots at the link look like water colors on canvas

sneak 6y ago

I say this as a photographer who has already purchased an iPhone 12 Pro Max: If you're taking a tripod and an iPhone tripod camera mount with you... why not just take a camera camera (struck: "real camera") without a space-constrained sensor/lens? This test suite seems a little... silly to me.

1-6 6y ago
I've owned 35mm full frame sensor cameras, Micro-four thirds, and the RX100vii. The iPhone with a tripod still seems to me like the most convenient way to travel. The only thing which would 1UP the iPhone would be a camera and viewfinder on the Apple Watch.
panopticon 6y ago
The weight savings are very, very nice when you're doing long or technical hikes. The full-frame body and two lenses I hike with weigh almost 6lbs. That's not even including the filters and sturdy tripod designed for holding a "real" camera. By comparison, a good phone tripod and mount clock in at about 1.5lbs. That being said... I enjoy printing my landscape photography. It's worth it to lug out my heavy gear because I can get nice, large prints out of it. But if you're just posting on social media, your body will thank you later for leaving those 6lbs home.
- zionic 6y ago
  I never appreciated weight until I befriended a technical hiker/climber. They review all their gear in terms of ounces.
- novok 6y ago
  There are lighter large sensor cameras you can take with you, such as a Ricoh GR III (9oz / 250g) or similar. You can even share tripods with it.

obarthelemy 6y ago

Another "review" that's iphone vs nothing else, or new iphone vs old iphone. Reviews are informative only when they provide actual context, ie comparison to the competition, otherwise it's just pretty pictures. Most comparisons rate the iphone as great not exceptional, there are other phones out there, some significantly cheaper, that produce equivalent or even better pics. See Techtablets on Youtube.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

reaperducer 6y ago

My iPhone wish: A button to turn off all of the image processing. Mobile phones, and especially iPhones, have become useless for taking pictures of skin. The phones try to smooth out blemishes, and overprocess skin. That's great if it's pictures at a tween birthday party, but a lot of doctors and other medical practices are receiving pictures of lesions, bruises, and other skin issues via smartphone these days. It completely ruins diagnostics. I've done my own testing on a recently injured person, and the results are terrible. What was visibly a massive bruise got all the spots and veins magically AI-ed out, and the colors mangled so that some regions of the bruise disappeared entirely. (iPhone 12 Pro) The healthcare company I work for recommends that patients use a laptop camera instead of a phone, if they can. The problem is that so many people don't have computers, and if they do, they don't know how to take a picture of their skin with the webcam.

nkristoffersen 6y ago
You are in luck! Apple has been providing RAW image capture APIs for several years which means you can get a pure image with no processing with many 3rd party apps. Either recommend patients to use a RAW camera app, or perhaps create a basic app for the healthcare company. If the image isn’t raw, it is processed in some way, and I can absolutely see how that can mess with diagnostics.
- reaperducer 6y ago
  You are in luck! Apple has been providing RAW image capture APIs for several years I don't see how that means I'm in luck. Me being in luck would be, "Apple has such a feature, but it's just hidden behind another invisible iOS button." recommend patients to use a RAW camera app You dramatically overestimate the technical ability of the average person. We have to write our healthcare web sites for people with an eighth-grade reading level. perhaps create a basic app for the healthcare company. If we had the money for that, we'd probably hire back some of the doctors and nurses we've laid off over the last six months. Like most healthcare companies, we jettisoned medical professionals in order to stay afloat.
  - 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

sakopov 6y ago

I don't really understand who this post is targeting. It looks like it's landscape photographers but I as one I feel a little bit confused. Let me explain. I'm a hobbyist landscape photographer and I've invested almost a decade into both my craft and the tools I use. You start out learning exposure, aperture, shutter speed and then mastering composition. As you do this you try to get outside and find good spots offering great composition and light which is science in and of itself. Then you start splitting hairs over various lenses and camera tricks to get the right depth of field and the sharpest image and learning about all the different camera settings you didn't even know existed to help you on this journey. I understand that I'm very biased, but I see phone cameras fall short here. Don't get me wrong, you can learn some of these basics on a phone camera, but it will get you a quarter of the way there until you're forced to switch to a proper lens and ultimately a DSLR. I see nothing different in this post. These compositions are great but the quality is lacking pretty severely. You can get a much better quality with a basic kit lens and a cheap body which will cost you half the price of an iPhone.