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I can't remember which generation exactly had this shift, but yeah around the iPhone 12 they went really heavy on the processing, so instead of a noisy but shar

I can't remember which generation exactly had this shift, but yeah around the iPhone 12 they went really heavy on the processing, so instead of a noisy but sharp image you got a smudgy mess. Later generations improved on that but you still see this when zooming in or in low light. The processing pipeline also started imposing its own opinions on your photos, adjusting the brightness of dark areas and bright areas to even things out, increasing saturation, etc. This has generally trended towards more processing over the years. In a picture from a standalone camera (or an old phone back when the processing pipeline was basically just debayering, white balance, chroma denoise, and a gamma curve), you'll actually have contrast between shadows and highlights, which, when done well, looks great. When done poorly, it looks terrible (blown highlights, noisy shadows), which is the whole point of the processing pipeline -- on average (random user, random scene), you're better off reducing the overall contrast in the image with local adjustments, even if that turns some excellent photos into boring ones, because it'll turn a lot more bad photos into acceptable ones.

cosmic_cheese 2mo ago
I recently picked up an old Olympus OM-D EM-1 to play with, along with a couple of prime lenses. The photos it produces aren’t as high-resolution than those of my iPhone 16 Pro Max, but they look a lot nicer regardless. Part of that is due to the larger sensor which no phone is going to be able to compete with, but it’s also because it allows contrast to exist and photos don’t turn into smudge/blotch soup when zoomed in a little. Thanks to that, its photos capture mood better and feel closer to what I see (or remember seeing). I’ve toyed with alternative camera apps (of which many exist on iOS) and those are a bit better, but still fall short of an decade+ old standalone camera.
- foldr 2mo ago
  You can avoid a lot of the smudgy processing on an iPhone by shooting ProRAW with the default camera app, or using something like Halide to take a single shot RAW.
wkjagt 2mo ago
I used to adjust exposure a lot on phones like the iPhone 5s, so I would, for example, get the highlights exposed properly and have the rest be nice and dark. Can't do that anymore, or not as well at least, because my modern phone will bring those shadows back to make it all even. I really miss those older phone cameras.

cosmic_cheese 2mo ago

I recently picked up an old Olympus OM-D EM-1 to play with, along with a couple of prime lenses. The photos it produces aren’t as high-resolution than those of my iPhone 16 Pro Max, but they look a lot nicer regardless. Part of that is due to the larger sensor which no phone is going to be able to compete with, but it’s also because it allows contrast to exist and photos don’t turn into smudge/blotch soup when zoomed in a little. Thanks to that, its photos capture mood better and feel closer to what I see (or remember seeing). I’ve toyed with alternative camera apps (of which many exist on iOS) and those are a bit better, but still fall short of an decade+ old standalone camera.

foldr 2mo ago
You can avoid a lot of the smudgy processing on an iPhone by shooting ProRAW with the default camera app, or using something like Halide to take a single shot RAW.

wkjagt 2mo ago

I used to adjust exposure a lot on phones like the iPhone 5s, so I would, for example, get the highlights exposed properly and have the rest be nice and dark. Can't do that anymore, or not as well at least, because my modern phone will bring those shadows back to make it all even. I really miss those older phone cameras.