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Whilst I will in fact get this phone, this review unintentionally manipulates you into a favorable opinion. It's not just in the competency of the photographer,
by fleddr 5y ago
Whilst I will in fact get this phone, this review unintentionally manipulates you into a favorable opinion. It's not just in the competency of the photographer, but also in the choice of subjects.
It's near impossible to make ugly photos in Tanzania, even with low-end skills or gear. The subjects, scenery and light conditions are naturally very beautiful on their own. The output will be visually attractive and you'd not easily notice any lack of technical attractiveness.
Compare this to photographing technical test charts or you walking the dog at night. As the subjects themselves are unexciting, it would be better suitable to analyze technical image quality.
Another interesting aspect of analyzing the quality of mobile photography is that counter intuitively, mobile phone screens are drastically superior to most desktop monitors. Mobile screens increasingly are OLED for deep contrast, wide gamut for richer colors, and have a pixel density that is a multiple of desktop screens.
Most photos taken on a mobile phone completely fall apart when viewed on a big screen, as it then becomes obvious how much of a smudge they are.
That said, we've come a long way, and I am impressed.
- m463 5y ago"It's near impossible to make ugly photos in Tanzania" I'll bet I could botch some photos in tanzania. That said, I think in this era of "free" photos due to vast memory, and "choose your effect" postprocessing... hmmm.
- dt3ft 5y agoPlus, all photos shown were shot in proraw and edited with expensive software.
- gpt5 5y agoAdobe Lightroom is free on iPhone (which he claims he used)
- sudosysgen 5y agoYeah it's really really not the same thing as actual Lightroom Classic or Lightroom on an iPad.
- gilrain 5y agoIndeed, as is appropriate; the ability to do both of those things are attractions of the iPhone.
- frakkingcylons 5y agoSo? Isn’t that what most enthusiast photographers would do? Also, there’s plenty of free or affordable software available for editing RAW photos.
- ddoolin 5y agoI wouldn't call Lightroom CC "expensive"...it's less than a Netflix subscription. I guess everything is relative nonetheless.
- rualca 5y ago> I wouldn't call Lightroom CC "expensive"...it's less than a Netflix subscription. The site states $126/year. > I guess everything is relative nonetheless. Right, $126/year might not sound much for someone holding a STEM job in the US, but unfortunately a lot of people live well below that comfort level.
- 1_player 5y ago> unfortunately a lot of people live well below that comfort level This is an article about the iPhone 13 Pro camera. If you can afford it, you can afford $126/year. As GP said, everything is relative.
- stackbutterflow 5y agoYou'd be surprised at the number of people whose monthly income is below the price of an iphone, who own an iPhone in some parts of Asia.
- rualca 5y ago> This is an article about the iPhone 13 Pro camera. If you can afford it (...) Some people who purchase iPhones can't really afford them in the sense of having hundreds of dollars of disposable income, and either save their asses off to treat themselves or take loans. Apple controls a 20% market share of the smartphone market. Do you really think 20% of the whole world can simply spend $1k without batting an eye? Even in the US close to 40% of it's population cannot afford an emergency expense of up to $1k, and the US is one of the nations leading in purchasing power. There is more to life than well-paying STEM jobs in the US.
- geokon 5y agoDoes OLED really give better images compared to a good LCD? I bought a Sony Xperia 5 II - thinking the OLED would give me a better picture - and it objectively looks much much worse than my much older LCD based Xiaomi 5 Note Pro (the camera is also amazingly worse) I then went to the electronics mall nearby, and I noticed that the OLED laptops (from Asus) will have a much less vibrant image than a something like a Macbook or Huawei I dunno if this is just a personal-preference/psychosomatic, or if there is really something to what I've observed. Would be curious if anyone has more info
- smoldesu 5y agoYour mind is probably conflating brightness with vibrance, which makes sense because most electronics malls are quite well-lit which helps you weed out the weaker, 250-nit panels that Asus is trying to scam you into buying again.
- zokier 5y ago> I bought a Sony Xperia 5 II - thinking the OLED would give me a better picture - and it objectively looks much much worse than my much older LCD based Xiaomi 5 Note Pro (the camera is also amazingly worse) Objectively? How did you measure that? Or did you mean subjectively?
- 1123581321 5y agoPerhaps he meant that it's objective that he disliked it. :)
- eurekin 5y agoSomehow the photos actually came across to me as comparatively bad, esp. because of the noisy and contrasty out of focus areas and oversharpening
- dougmwne 5y agoBack in the old internet days, there was a camera review site that always took the same picture of some toys on a shelf. It was pretty boring photography, but did a great job a highlighting the difference between cameras.
- zrail 5y agodpreview.com is still very much alive.
- dougmwne 5y agoAh, thank you, haven't read one of their reviews in years. Happy to hear they're still fighting the good image quality fight.
- tafda 5y agoLike IMDB, they have solid backing: “ DPReview.com is a wholly-owned, editorially independent subsidiary of Amazon.com.”
- kwanbix 5y agoLoved the knowledge of the community at dpreview, however, the software used for the forum was hideous. It seems they have changed it since last I used it.
- aaroninsf 5y agoThis remains my favorite camera review site.
- goatsi 5y agoArstechnica took a picture of a stuffed Koopa and Goomba in low light conditions with every phone they reviewed for years and years. It was great because they could put together a gallery of images to compare directly between phones. They seem to have moved onto some Ratchet and Clank figurines for the most recent reviews however.
- ISL 5y agoI'll second this notion, in part. It was a revelation that the warm colors and soft morning light I'd seen in National Geographic images of Africa as a child were real. In Ghana during the Harmattan, every morning and evening just look like that; it is incredibly beautiful. With that knowledge, I'm prepared to believe that other places in Africa might be similar. The iPhone 13 review primarily made me want to go travel. Technically, I still prefer the output from more-traditional imaging systems. The ergonomics of phone-cameras don't yet work for me, either. What I was struck by from the article, though, was that the iPhone images were good-enough to be publishable from a photojournalism context. As these imaging systems are generally incremental improvements, that means the camera in your pocket right now can do it, too. Find interesting subjects in compelling light, frame them in a way that says something you wish to convey or remember, and push the button. f/8 and be there.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoFor ergonomics, I use the volume button as the shutter, not the on screen dot:)
- brundolf 5y agoI didn't know you could do that!
- jader201 5y agoFor some reason, I’ve never adjusted to using it. Anytime I try, I either lock my phone (by also hitting the lock button), or it’s off center and/or blurry due to the additional pressure required to hit the volume button (they require considerably more force than a typical shutter button on a camera, especially with some cases). So I just stick to using the onscreen dot (which, as you all have said, has other ergonomic issues).
- wizardofaz 5y agoTotally agreed. It always adds shutter shock to my photos
- dhx 5y agoCompare to a similar compilation of Tanzania safari shots[1] captured at 2160p on a Panasonic GH5 with Leica 12-60mm F2.8-4.0 lens (an example amateur enthusiast choice). Ignoring the obvious difference in lenses, the GH5 has a 225mm^2 sensor size compared to 44mm^2 for the iPhone 13 Pro or Pro Max (approx. 5 times larger) and a much larger individual pixel size. When looking at individual frames mid-motion (anywhere in the videos), the iPhone 13 has a noticeable lack of background detail (blocky and smudged backgrounds). The video shared here proves that photography skills such as using shallow depth of fields, golden hour lighting, fast motion, wide angles, etc can produce a result that hides camera limitations and is potentially more enjoyable than poorly thought out shots on an expensive camera. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7e2fi1EC8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7e2fi1EC8k
- tshaddox 5y agoI think what you say is true, but it seems to imply that this article is saying little more than "this phone camera is uniquely great, because look how pretty these few pictures are." In fact, the content of the article is more about this photographer's experience with this phone camera, and specifics about how he uses it versus how he might use alternative cameras.
- singularity2001 5y agoMy thinking: to a layman's eye this looks like I could have taken these photos with an iphone 6. would be nice to see a comparison of iphone 6 photos with iphone 13 photos of the same subject