iPhone Camera Technology
- Smartphones use computational photography to create photos instead of just taking light inputs
- Older phones use small sensors to collect light information, while newer phones use larger ones
- Tone mapping, noise reduction and HDR processing are used to make the highest quality picture
- The Pixel 6’s IMX363 sensor achieved success when Google got the software tuning with it just right
- Google used the same sensor and same software on the 3, 3A, 4, 4A, 5, 5A and 6A, taking advantage of the combination
- The Pixel 6 used a new sensor and design, shown in its results next to the 6A in the blind camera test
- Pixel 7 was released a year later and returned to the top
- The iPhone 14 Pro is the first phone to use a 48MP sensor, which leads to overprocessing in some photos
- This will be fixed when the iPhone 15 Pro is released a year after the 14 Pro
Software Improvements to the iPhone Camera
- Apple has implemented features such as Deep Fusion and pixel-binning to improve the camera software
- Improvements in the iPhone’s camera can be expected from software updates over time
- All the previous 12 megapixel iPhones have lost out in comparison to other brands in camera tests
What Makes iPhone Camera Technology Different
- Photos taken on iPhones are not necessarily a capture of reality, as the camera software is designed to interpret what it thinks people want reality to look like
- The camera software can identify when photos are of landscapes and can adjust the colours accordingly
- When taking pictures of a human face, the software will try to evenly light the face
- iPhone cameras have a feature called Real Tone which is designed to handle different skin tones properly
Camera Tests
- Pixel 6a won a blind scientific camera test but overall camera system trophy went to iPhone 14 Pro.
- Factors looked at in camera test:
- Exposure and colours
- Sharpness and detail
- Autofocus speed and reliability
- Camera app open & close time
- Things not included in camera test:
- Microphone quality
- Video quality
- Autofocus speed & reliability
- File formats
- Sharpness
- HDR
Representing Different Skin Tones
- Processing is a major factor in the way pretty pictures show up on a phone
- Quality of the way certain skin tones are represented was a big part of why Marques Brownlee liked RED cameras
- iPhones manage to accurately represent a lot of different types of skin tone when they could do better
- Highly considered when ‘blind votes’ were cast
What do you think?
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