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