[HN Gopher] iPhone 14 Pro Camera Review: Scotland
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       iPhone 14 Pro Camera Review: Scotland
        
       Author : axg
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2022-09-14 21:50 UTC (1 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.austinmann.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.austinmann.com)
        
       | yodsanklai wrote:
       | I wonder if it's because I'm getting old and jaded, but I really
       | fail to get excited by this continuous flow of new devices (and
       | "stuff" in general). I could get a new iPhone from my company,
       | but I don't even see the point.
        
         | r00fus wrote:
         | My family is excited for it simply because of the hand-me-down
         | supply chain - someone gets a new phone, someone else a few
         | hops down gets a gently used iPhone X and we donate/sell a
         | still functional iPhone6s.
        
         | n8cpdx wrote:
         | Coming from a still enthusiastic tech person who loves iPhone,
         | I don't think it's a you problem. This is clearly another S
         | revision in all but name, for the second year in a row. I want
         | to be excited but there's nothing particularly compelling
         | unless you're coming from pre-2020 (or maybe pre-2019). I'm
         | still loving my 12 mini and will probably use it for at least
         | another year, maybe two.
         | 
         | Compelling upgrades would be: another small variant (or smaller
         | than 14 pro at least), something foldable (maybe, if done
         | really really well), significantly improved battery life, bike
         | computer functionality (CarPlay for bikes), or significantly
         | improved performance (in a few years, maybe the 12 mini will be
         | noticeably slow in 2024).
         | 
         | The curse of releasing devices with hardware that's 3-5 years
         | ahead of the competition in delivered performance (not just
         | feature checklists) is that unless you wait 4+ years, new
         | models don't always feel like upgrades.
        
           | gordon_freeman wrote:
           | I have iPhone 11 and I still don't think it is worth
           | upgrading to 14 or 14Pro yet. I consider myself tech savvy
           | person but I don't see a point to buy a new phone if my
           | current phone takes good enough pics for myself and my family
           | and friends to enjoy. Also if the speed of browsing web and
           | opening and using apps is still good enough then what's the
           | point of buying a new phone and polluting environment? As I
           | see it, the latest iPhones are capable of at least 5 years of
           | use and only may need to do is replace the battery once in
           | that life span and I am happy with this approach.
        
         | taf2 wrote:
         | I agree... but I also think it's a great sign of slow but
         | steady progress. The kind that will really standout in a few
         | years. Comparing todays phone camera to a 2010 phone, makes me
         | feel pretty good
        
         | seanp2k2 wrote:
         | As a ~normal person who uses their phone at least 4 hours per
         | day, it's the single most important tech device in my life. I
         | enjoy getting the best thing out there every upgrade cycle (2
         | years). The progress feels incremental, but going back and
         | using an n-1 gen phone reminds me how much slower things were.
         | All of those extra half-second waits between interactions add
         | up, and I enjoy having a quality camera with me wherever I go.
         | There are also things like phone speaker quality that while
         | hard to objectively measure and promote, have really improved
         | over the years to the point where I don't hate doing things
         | like watching educational or fun YouTube videos in bed in the
         | morning.
        
         | modernpink wrote:
         | So why are you here? Most items on HN, hell, technology itself,
         | is about new stuff.
        
           | mensetmanusman wrote:
           | Maybe he is here to be curious about why other people get
           | excited...
           | 
           | I know I am excited for when stable diffusion/DALLE level
           | manipulation is built into the photo app and iMovie to
           | compile cinema level clips while I sleep.
        
       | supernova87a wrote:
       | I would appreciate if articles reviewing cameras did a better job
       | of explaining why the pixel count is just a single (and highly
       | manipulable) measure of imaging merit.
       | 
       | For all the pixel count, no company ever talks about pixel _size_
       | (physical) and the noise characteristic as a result or the
       | effective resolution. The imaging chip has not gotten physically
       | larger between iPhones, I assume, so the pixels are just dividing
       | the same light into more sites. Is this better?
       | 
       | People who don't know will just assume that 48 MP, well that's
       | better than a Sony A7RIII now, right? Of course not.
        
         | gpt5 wrote:
         | I'm not sure you are right here. The sensor size (and the lens
         | speed) has been one of the key things Apple marketing has been
         | leaning towards in the last few generations. Tech reviewers
         | tend to repeat it back to their audience, which eventually lead
         | to general consensus of Apple's camera system being superior.
        
           | orbital-decay wrote:
           | Sensor size in smartphones is also "highly manipulable",
           | because the smartphones are very flat and have serious angle
           | of incidence issues as the lens is too close to the sensor.
           | If consumers demand larger sensors, sure it can be done - but
           | it will reduce the amount of light that reaches the edges of
           | the sensor, eating the possible increase in image quality.
           | Smartphone cameras are limited by thickness, not by sensor
           | sizes.
        
         | iLoveOncall wrote:
         | The article is very explicitly aimed at photographers, it's on
         | a photographer's website, it's a review about only the camera,
         | the conclusion is titled "buying advice for photographers",
         | etc.
         | 
         | If he was to explain what determines image quality, why not
         | also demand that he explains aperture, focal length, etc.? It's
         | just not aimed at that public.
        
       | iLoveOncall wrote:
       | Quite impressive when they shot at 48MP, but the pictures taken
       | at 12MP just look like your bad, few generations old, non-pro
       | iPhone photo.
       | 
       | As a very amateur photograph that doesn't want to carry his DSLR
       | all the time I considered getting it for the 48MP but after
       | reading the review and seeing what would be most of the pictures
       | I would take (the 12MP ones), it's a hard pass.
        
         | ahepp wrote:
         | I'm upgrading my iPhone 13 mini because having switched from a
         | Pixel 4a, the camera performance is just unacceptably bad. It's
         | a testament to how much I like the rest of the iPhone that I
         | didn't just go back to the pixel. I briefly considered carrying
         | the Pixel around just to take pictures.
        
         | saurik wrote:
         | Yeah... I love my iPhone XS Max, partly because it has 2x
         | telephoto--not 2.5x, not 3x or _4x_ of all the ridiculous
         | things: just a good 2x--and I essentially use that 2x telephoto
         | lens every chance I can. They finally have come up with an
         | iPhone that has brought back 2x telephoto... but as a digital
         | simulation from 1x and thereby only at 12MP, and so it isn 't
         | fundamentally different than my existing phone :/. (I do
         | appreciate that the low light abilities are probably better,
         | and maybe that should be worth it to quickly upgrade before
         | they screw up 2x again.)
        
           | ideamotor wrote:
           | For real. Hardware 2x is instant buy.
        
           | dividedbyzero wrote:
           | What's wrong with the 3x ones on the 13 and 14 Pros?
        
           | MBCook wrote:
           | But the sensor the 2x crop is taken from is better than the
           | old real 2x camera. So it should still be better.
        
       | [deleted]
        
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       (page generated 2022-09-14 23:00 UTC)