[HN Gopher] iPhone 13 Pro: The Edge of Intelligent Photography
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iPhone 13 Pro: The Edge of Intelligent Photography
Author : misterdata
Score : 63 points
Date : 2022-02-06 10:08 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (lux.camera)
(TXT) w3m dump (lux.camera)
| achow wrote:
| I find it really admirable that Halide team writes some great
| articles on Smartphone computational photography.
|
| Those who are interested in this area should check out their
| explainer article on what's iPhone's ProRAW format:
| https://lux.camera/understanding-proraw/
|
| I'm from this field (tech for phone photography) and it was
| really helpful.
| jseliger wrote:
| I've seen friends' pics from iPhone 12s and 13s, and many of
| them work really well straight out of camera (sooc): the work
| Apple has done in computational photography is fantastic. I
| have a Fuji X-T4 and, while it does things and offers a degree
| of latitude phones clearly don't, and likely never will due to
| sensor size disparity, the utility of phone cameras and in-
| camera auto processing keeps going up. The other day a friend
| went hiking, and an iPhone 13 ("Pro," I believe) automatically
| correctly exposed for sky, shadow, and people, and did an
| impressive job with HDR. Remarkable.
| noneeeed wrote:
| I keep being tempted to replace my knackered old Android and
| the current crop of iPhones just seem to reliably produce
| great looking photos, especially of people. That fact that
| the photos come out looking great with almost no effort other
| than basic framing makes me very jelous.
|
| I've been looking at the Pixel 6 too, but the combination of
| much shorter OS support, and what sounds like an endless
| stream of bugs has really put me off. But I'm also wary of
| moving to iOS, I like the way Android works. I think Google
| do a better job with security, while being much worse on
| their own privacy practices. Neither look perfect at the
| moment.
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| I had to return my iphone 13 pro max twice because the pictures
| were blurrier than my iphone X. I don't know if the reviewers and
| prominent users get the tested and calibrated models from Apple.
| Here is a discussion on Apple forums on how bad iphone 13 pro max
| cameras are in the wild.
|
| https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253181534
| kooshball wrote:
| btw that photo of the kid posted by jbenson is the clear
| example of software bug where it used the wrong lense.
| Havoc wrote:
| Did you eventually get one that was fine?
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| Unfortunately no. I abandoned my plan to buy 13 pro after
| comparing pictures to my wife's 12 pro and friends 11 pro.
| Both the new 13 pro max phones I got had horrendous picture
| quality, its not just the computational postprocessing, the
| raw images taken had bad picture quality. It probably has to
| do with the apertures in the lenses as some of the
| photographers in the Apple discussion forums were indicating.
| I don't think Apple tested this enough or paid enough
| attention to the mass production process. Very disappointed.
|
| iPhones are very handy in taking kids pictures when you don't
| have time to go fetch a DSLR. Huawei P50 & Xiaomi seem to
| have better cameras but don't want to go anywhere near them.
| ntSean wrote:
| I have both a 13 Pro and an X. They have changed the
| computation performed, but I hesitate to say it's worst-
| just different. Halide has become my app of choice for when
| I want more control over that factor.
|
| The Apple thread you linked highlights how small changes
| can really make a large difference on quality.
|
| > This is a very dumb check, but I had a screen protector
| that was the full screen into the camera module and made my
| pictures blurry at times. When I removed it, photos were
| perfect.
| kooshball wrote:
| when did you try this?
|
| the 13 pro max camera is insanely good so you're likely
| seeing a bug. I would very strongly disagree it's worse
| than the iPhone x or 11. I had both.
|
| I think it's possible you're seeing a bug where the camera
| is using the wrong lens for the distance. I did notice
| earlier neat launch when I switch between 1x and 3x
| sometimes the software will use 1x and digital zoom to 3x
| instead which obviously produced horrible images. I think
| this got patched as I haven't seen it recently.
| joshvm wrote:
| I have a 13 (not pro), coming from a Pixel 2. I used it almost
| exclusively while tramping around NZ for a month. It's definitely
| good enough to replace a larger camera for day-to-day adventures
| and the ultra-wide is very useful. I put my mirrorless in a
| storage unit for the trip because it wasn't worth the weight, and
| the only thing I missed was the telephoto.
|
| I do find the HDR to be a bit in-your-face, even on "neutral"
| settings. Sunsets are very saturated when you want to take a
| picture of pastel shades. Cloudy or sunny skies are a bit hit or
| miss, often there are blown highlights. The lens also seems much
| more susceptible to flare at night than other phones I've used
| with the dreaded green dot - not something I ever noticed with
| the Pixel. Motion photos are pretty great, really handy for low-
| effort blur on moving water, although you have to use Photos.
| Google Photos will play the clip, but it won't do the long
| exposure/bounce modes. Also a pain if you subscribe to G Cloud
| (which can sync photos fine), because iCloud is incessant about
| not having enough backup space. I tried Halide, but I didn't see
| a significant advantage over Slow Shutter Cam which costs a
| couple of bucks - if you're going to shoot raw, you're going to
| edit it somewhere else anyway. Maybe aperture and focus control
| is worth it? The risk with shooting in RAW and post-processing,
| is that the camera isn't really that good compared to a larger
| sensor and you're relying on a huge amount of computational
| photography to fix those limitations. I did try some
| astrophotography resting the phone on the car roof, but it never
| really worked.
| [deleted]
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