Iphone Or Digital Camera

I have never taken a photo that I have liked with my iPhone, and that includes the iPhone 12.

 

It is the 12 Pro that I have.

 

I don't think people use their phones ("i" or otherwise) as a conscious substitute for having a camera, I think they use their phones as a matter of convenience in a spontaneous situation. I gotta think that some high percentage of pics taken with phones were only taken in the first place because people always have a camera with them as long as they have their phone. In other words, for all those times we have said "I wish I had my camera with me," now we always do.

I gotta agree that since people already have that digital camera functionality with their phones, they are less inclined to carry a separate camera when going on vacation or for special events even if they own one in the first place. And for those folks who do not currently own a digital camera, again I gotta agree that most won't drop the bucks and buy one, even though a dedicated camera takes much higher quality photos & videos.

I agree with @Ken Anderson regarding the iPhone 12. I got the iPhone 12 Mini a couple of months ago, and I don't think that the pic quality is all that good. The pics seem to be washed out and grainy, compared to the ones taken with my cheap Mototola Moto G6. I noticed it when I took my first pics and dumped them to my computer...it's as though there were a "Low Res/Save Memory" setting on. In fact, I just pulled up the specs and found that the camera resolution on my $250 G6 was 4096 x 3072 (12.6 Mp) while the camera resolution on the $700 iPhone12 Mini is 4032 x 3024 (12.2 Mp.)

That difference alone is not enough to see on a monitor unless you crop/zoom in , and I am not well-versed in camera nomenclature or technology to evaluate the other specs regarding why the iPhone12 pics seem to be lower quality. It could the lens quality, it could be software, etc. But I am pretty disappointed, because I thought I was trading up that specific functionality for that price.

@Yvonne Smith That's a nice picture with that iPhone11. The resolution specs for that camera are the same as for my 12. I took a quick look I could not find and quality or resolution adjustments on mine. Maybe I'll check out You Tube for hints. Or I'll take a wider variety of shots to fully test it.

Here's the full-sized original file of that owl pic I've posted (I usually reduce the size for uploading.) You can see with the naked eye that it's not crisp. Trying to crop/zoom makes it worse. All of my iPhone12 pics look like this.



(Can someone please rotate this? I've never had this issue before with reduced file sizes)

-- Done. It does that to me sometimes, too. I don't know why. -- Ken Anderson

 

I just read a review on the camera in my iPhone 12Mini. Apparently the Pro model camera is much better.

Here's the summary:

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Conclusion
For those looking for a truly pocket-sized smartphone that has a solid camera setup, the Apple iPhone 12 mini is a good bet. It delivers a lot of the same features and quality as the iPhone 12 but at a lower cost and in a smaller form factor.

The fact that it doesn’t have a dedicated telephoto module may be off-putting for some enthusiasts, but setting that aside, the iPhone mini compares very well against other top brands’ camera systems. Its video performance is also excellent across a range of conditions and use cases.

Pros

• Accurate target exposure, Photo and Video
• Fast and accurate autofocus, Photo and Video
• Accurate exposure, ultra-wide module
• Efficient stabilization in Video
• Dolby vision HDR processing is a plus in Video.

Cons

• Dynamic range is limited in Photo, with highlights often clipped
• Blue white balance cast in outdoor conditions, Photo and Video
• Noise visible in low light and indoor conditions
• Artifacts such as flare, color quantization, and ringing can be seen in a range of conditions.

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Flare- Optical artifact produced by the reflection of a bright light source (such as the sun) on lenses. Flare can lead to “ghosts” of the light source or “veiling glare” (loss of contrast) that creates a foggy effect in the image.

Color Quantization- The process of reducing number of colors used in an image while trying to maintain the visual appearance of the original image.

Ringing- An artifact created by an oscillating output signal that fades outwards from sharply-contrasted edges.

I think it's "ringing" as described above that I see in that owl pic, particularly around the sharply-defined leaves of the tomato plant and the plants in the background...although zooming in on the owl gets really blurred for a 12mp camera and a subject that's only 12 feet away.

The question "iPhone or digital camera" may be larger than that. Apparently the quality of cameras among iPhone models varies greatly.

 

Apple will be having their Fall Apple Event next month, @John Brunner ; so you can see the new models of iPhone and other Apple devices that will be coming out later this fall.
Even though I am not buying anything new, I love watching the Apple Event, and seeing all of the great information about what all can be done with the newest iPhones and iPads.
They usually show a clip from a movie/video that has been made from an iPhone, and some of them are truly amazing !

Both my oldest son and my daughter are shutter-bugs, and besides getting the newest iPhones when they come out, they also have expensive cameras; and use those for family events where they want the very best photo quality possible.
I think that for the everyday person (like myself) the iPhone camera does everything that I need it to do, because I am just trying to take a picture of something, and not create a work of art photo.

I always have the phone with me, and it is easy to carry around; so I do not have to take anything extra like you do when carrying along a camera. When Robin gave me my first iPhone, and I saw how easy it was to take good pictures and have them go right into my Photostream; I gave away my regular camera, a Casio basic model.

A peek into what might be coming upon the Apple Event in September:

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/08/12/2021-fall-apple-event-rumor-roundup/

 

@Yvonne Smith I think if I got the iPhone12Pro, I would be extolling the virtues rather than taking a "wait & see" position. This is the second time I've been disappointed at myself for not doing sufficient research, and with Verizon for not running through each model and explaining the pros & cons.

I found a vid on using the camera in the iPhone12 mini. I've downloaded it so I can watch at my leisure (that's what you do when you have limited slow internet...you save vids you want to watch again to your hard drive rather than opening them up repeatedly & chewing up metered bandwidth.) It seems pretty extensive at 27 minutes. I like this guy's videos because he always posts a table of contents with video time marks.

 

I have the iPhone 12 Pro version and it's better than my iPhone 7 was, but I still describe the photos I take with it as washed out. I have a fairly cheap digital camera, but it takes better photos than the iPhone. It doesn't suck, and since I am no longer taking photos for customers' websites, or even my own, for the most part, the photos are acceptable, but I'm not impressed with the iPhone camera.

 

I am positive that you can get a great trade-in for your Mini12, for either the 12 Pro Max, or the upcoming 13 Pro. Once the new 13’s come out, places like Best Buy will have the 12’s on closeout sales; but the new 13’s might have even better features.

 

OMG, the Apple Trade-Up monster is already chasing me less than 2 months into ownership!!!

But since you raised it, and it seems like you've been part of The Community for a while, what kind of trade-in value have you seen on your Apple stuff? Do they make it easy for you to make the Upgrade decision? How long do you think they'll continue to provide support (operating system upgrades) for the 12 once it's been discontinued?

I did not know the 12s were several years in the market when I bought mine. I guess that's why they were giving such high trade-in values on those switching from Android...if they're gonna discount to get rid of them anyway, they may as well kick in an extra $50 and buy a long-term customer from the competition. They gave me $350 for that used Droid that only cost me $250 or so brand new.

 

I am no help to you on this question, @John Brunner .
Here is how it works in my family. My daughter gets a new iPhone (iPad, etc) and I get her old one. Bobby gets my old one. One of my other family members gets Bobby’s old one.
We continue this cycle, and eventually, it trickles down to where all of us have all of our gadgets and devices.
Robin just got one of the new 2 terabytes iPad 11” Pro; so I got her older one (with only 1 terabyte) . I gave my 10.5 iPad Pro to my grandson, and my son gave me a 12.9 iPad Pro with keyboard, which went to Bobby.
So, everyone is happy with their “new” stuff.
Robin knows that any Apple product is always a welcome gift, and sometimes, I am just gifted something, like the AirPods, and I pass along the earbuds I was using.

So, if Robin falls in love with the camera on the new iPhone 13 Pro Max when it comes out, there is a good chance that her iPhone 12 will be my next phone, and my iPhone 11 will go to Bobby, and then, his will get recycled.

 

“OMG, the Apple Trade-Up monster is already chasing me less than 2 months into ownership!!! “

 

I never thought I would live to see the day when we would say "only 1 terabyte."