How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations? | Hacker News Reader

How does the iPhone 6s camera compare to other iPhone generations?

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The comparisions in this article are really nicely done, but even better would be to have a shot from a decent DSLR next to it just to get an idea of how a phone image compares to that.

I think it'd be more useful comparing with a "decent" point and shoot, because that's the market being eroded by camera phones. The only people moving from DSLRs to camera phones probably didn't really need the power of a DSLR in the first place.

Yes, a comparison with a decent point-and-shoot camera would be good, but the purpose of including a high-quality DSLR shot in the comparison would be as a reference point for "this is the best that the shot can possibly look", in order to put things on an absolute scale rather than just a relative one. (Obviously, the article text should make this purpose clear.)

The best camera is the one you have with you. Once the moment has passed, having a better camera isn't going to recreate that moment. The iPhone pretty much wins this every time. It's always with you.

If you're in the studio creating scenes, you aren't going to use your iPhone, so it doesn't really matter. If you're going to buy a camera to carry everywhere, you're still not going to use your iPhone. So it's really an academic theoretical issue, in my opinion.

I feel like you are not getting the point.

The point is that the iPhone is technically utter garbage compared to even the cheapest low-end DSLR. Zoom into 100% on any iPhone picture and you're going to see nothing but compression artifacts with whatever remains blurred by pocket lint on the microscopically small lens.

Meanwhile, your DSLR is sitting at home in the closet. Guess which picture wins.

Here are two pictures I took recently, one with the iPhone, when the light was amazing, and one with my DSLR much later in the day, when the light sucked: https://goo.gl/photos/cnMFQaeUNHcBQdVG7

The clouds in the iPhone photo look amazing, and there are no cars in the street cluttering the view. But zoom in and see nothing but sensor noise and blurring from compression and generally poor technical performance of the camera.

Then look at the one taken with my DSLR. You can zoom in far down the street and read signs perfectly. But there is nothing interesting in the picture at all.

The iPhone phone camera sucked. The iPhone photo wins.

(Honestly, the iPhone camera almost ruins the picture, it would have looked amazing with the DSLR. But it was at home on my shelf. Not very useful there.)

Yes but the point is - it's a given that people want better cameras in their iPhones. They want to see DSLR images to see what they are missing out on and what they aspire to. The DSLR is just a sensor benchmark.

Just go to Flickr or look at any picture in the New York Times. That's what DSLR pictures look like.

Upvoted because I completely agree and iterated the same in the parent/grandparent. So many scenarios where I couldn't be bothered to drag my SLR and lenses and was more than happy with the results from my iPhone to the point I now only drag the SLR out for very specific circumstances. Even then I miss the connectivity/social/quick retouching aspect the phone gives me that I can only dream of having on the SLR. A lot of my SLR photos still never leave my memory card/hard drive and get to be seen by the people around me.

"I'm visiting Chicago this weekend; should I bring my big camera or can I save space by taking just my phone?" is not an academic theoretical question for some people.

Bring your big camera. If it's too obtrusive for someone you want to photograph on the street, you have your iPhone in your pocket anyway.

>but the purpose of including a high-quality DSLR shot in the comparison would be as a reference point for "this is the best that the shot can possibly look"

Ever heard of medium format? (and there are other options too).

Commercial medium format cameras are, disappointingly enough, optimized for studio shoots and don't do well in low-light or other challenging conditions. Hasselblad isn't best at everything.

Depends on what one asks from them. They might don't do as well on low light as a Sony high-end mirrorless, but they far exceed what their analogue medium format ancestors did (ISO/noise wise), which is more than enough.

I find this modern preoccupation with crazy ISOs (which one would never use in the film era) a red herring. Especially for landscape work, it's a non issue. What you want there is excellent dynamic range, which those offers.

And there are some such as these that are quite the monster: Pentax 645Z.

It wouldn't be any more absolute than it is now. If anything, it would just open it up to a million other critiques related to the DSLR chosen.

And it'd be mostly irrelevant anyway, because it ignores all the other advantages of using a DSLR.

I always seem to have my iPhone when I want my DSLR.

The iPhone's metering is suspicious. It seems to average all areas of the frame equally, resulting in underexposure when the background's exposure is different from the exposure you'd use the capture the subject. Of course this will always happen with any camera, by my A7ii seems to be very good at picking a correct exposure. (Of course it has exposure compensation and manual mode, so I can always override its choice, which is all I really ask.) You can see this demonstrated in the "backlit" photo with the article, I think the exposure could go up a little bit more to get some more detail from the shadowy clouds and the boat, with the only side effect of blowing that cloud out more. (It's already gone.)

I also think the iPhone's sensor is capable of collecting more light data than Apple allows it to. It is amazing how much dynamic range modern sensors pick up. When I first got my A7ii I put it into auto bracket mode. By default it does something like -1/3, 0, +1/3. This adds no data. After some more testing, even at +3, 0, -3, you can still recover the other two exposures from any one of the others with no significant loss of detail. So I don't bracket anymore and I've never had to throw away a picture because of the exposure.

That said, that is all with RAW files that capture data that can't be visible in the JPEG. The iPhone tone maps all that data to make a JPEG, and its tone mapping works differently than how I'd manually do it in lightroom. The RAW files off my camera capture so much data that you can ridiculously under- or over-expose and still get something that looks nice on the computer screen. (Not as perfect for the pixel-peepers as the correct exposure of course, but something that would look fine on your wall at 8x10 or shared to G+.) The iPhone's JPEGs are unfixable in Lightroom, the data isn't there and all you can do is make bright stuff brighter or dark stuff darker, which you almost never want to do.

Finally, based on EXIF data, I've found that the iPhone chooses some oddball exposure settings, using overly-fast shutter speeds at high ISOs when it could use a fine shutter speed at a fine ISO to get the same exposure. But I'm sure that's optimized for how people normally use their phone's cameras, not for whatever I happen to be shooting at the moment. I know the interplay between ISO, aperture, and shutter speed. Most people just want a picture of their friend eating dinner. And to be fair, the A7ii on auto-ISO + P mode will choose oddball exposures too. 1/8000s at ISO 32000? Back in my day, we were happy when we had ISO 400 film :P

So anyway, the iPhone camera is disappointing on a technical level, but the best camera is the one you have with you, so I can't complain. I'd rather have an imperfect picture than no picture at all.

Have you looked at the app called "Shoot"? It gives you manual control of ISO, shutter speed, and white balance, among other things. I think it's important to distinguish between the iPhone's camera (sensor & lens) and the iPhone's built-in Camera app.

That said, I do wish it were possible to save raw images in the Camera app.

You know you can tap anywhere in the image in the default iOS camera app to expose for that spot? Or tap, hold and drag up or down to manually adjust exposure. Admittedly, you still don't see the shutter speed or aperture info, but it does give you some degree of control.

The 'Camera+' and '645 Pro' apps are able to save to uncompressed TIFF instead of JPG. They also give you a bit more control over exposure.

Not really RAW, but at least you get all the bits you can.

8-bit TIFF or 16-bit TIFF? If it's 8-bit, then the only benefit you get from TIFF is lack of JPEG artifacts and is identical to JPEG from a JPEG vs. Raw standpoint.

Why? The premise of the article is how the latest iPhone camera compares to previous iphone cameras.

It would give a sense of how far they still have to go.

TBH, the image quality isn't the limiting factor.

The lack of interchangeable lenses, manual control, and RAW files will always limit the appeal of camera phones for pros and more advanced amateurs.

Will always limit? Android supports manual control and DNG raw files. Also, plenty of enthusiast cameras don't have interchangeable lenses.

_Those_ cameras are doomed because the iPhone does what they do, in many cases the iPhone does it better, and the iPhone is cheaper and smaller. At least an interchangeable lens camera will always have the feature that you can put a different lens on it. On the other hand people do make optics for the iPhone, too, so it's certainly not impossible for an "interchangeable lens iPhone" to exist in some way at some point.

I dunno, my non-interchangeable-lens camera (Canon SX40) has a whole range of features which are important to me and that the iPhone doesn't (and will never) have:

* 30x optical zoom

* optical image stabilization

* tripod mount

* flash hot shoe

* 58mm filter mount

* good ergonomics & no touchscreen

* RAW files

* scriptability of shooting e.g. for thunderstorms (camera triggered by lightning)

* replaceable battery

* removable storage

6S Plus has OIS.

True in general but I disagree on specifics and magnitude. While those -- and other factors, such as exposure -- are limiting factors, and very important, THE primary limiting factor, for me -- who has used multiple dSLRs, POSes, and Androids- and iPhones-as-cameras -- and I suspect many others, has been one thing: time-to-capture.

The time it takes between me pressing the shutter button until the camera records the shot as usable data -- this is the important factor. This is what is holding phones back. On phones, I have to wait sometimes up to 0.25-0.5 seconds or even infuriatingly more between the time when I tap the software "capture" reticle and it records the image. This is what is unacceptable in modern phone cameras. By that time the cat has moved, the play is over, my hand has shaken.

On dSLRs this is refreshingly fast. I half-press to focus, complete-press and now I have the image, nearly instantly from a human perception of time, even given the mechanical slowness of the mirror movement. I know the limiting factor is for all practical purposes my own reflexes. For the phone, I know it's crap hardware/software.

On the flipside, the phone is what you always have with you, in a given moment, and reaching for a device in your pocket is much faster than going back to the car to dig through your camera bag for your massive SLR. I say this as someone who has used and loved SLRs since the film days. I'd love to see the time to capture on the phone approach that satisfying threshold you mention on SLRs, because they already help me capture so many moments I'd otherwise miss.

As an advanced amateur photographer (http://photos.aballs.com/), the iphone getting better and better and better has tremendous appeal. My photos are instantly geotagged, and I can immediately upload them to twitters, IG, and share them directly with people via WhatsApp and SMS.

Every year I get a new camera (along with new features) from Apple for the cost of $200-300 (New Contract Free Price - Selling my old phone used). That is nearly impossible to do with my SLRs.

For serious travel photography, I enjoy using my 5D2, but there really is no comparison between using my full kit, and using my iphone.

I prefer my iphone.

There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space.

I expect noise to get lower and lower and low light performance to increase, leading to sharper (due to less noise reduction) and less noisier images in the coming years, though, due to the small available physical space and small sensor probably always a step behind larger sensors (like the ones one would find in larger cameras).

Maybe it will be possible to close that gap? For many situations that gap is already quite small when, e.g. comparing many typical image viewing situations with images made under good lighting conditions. On close examination images from cameras with larger sensors would typically still be sharper, though, mostly due to them being able to have a higher resolution with lower noise (though, as I said, in many typical viewing applications those differences are, always depending on the photos and in which context it was made, sometimes imperceptible).

What will not be possible are zoom lenses, interchangeable lenses or, really, any kind of freedom with the lenses at all. Probably also unrealistic is a variable aperture and a sensor size that would allow one to play with depth of field in the first place. That is a fundamental difference that cannot be overcome within the physical envelope of a smartphone that is still recognizable a smartphone and not something else, some weird smartphone camera hybrid.

All that DSLR wankery is kind of pointless, though. The goal here is to make the very goddamn best camera that the physical envelope allows for and smartphones have done an astonishingly great job at that. Those are awesome cameras, no ifs and buts about it. Given what they have to work with they are unabashedly awesome.

DSLRs and other large-sensor cameras are fundamentally different beasts. Comparing them or even holding them up as some sort of great goal for smartphone cameras seems kinda … dumb? … I don’t know, pointless? … short-sighted? to me.

There is somewhere to go, the way technology is going. Phones have done lot's of catching up even if they have long ways to go... Many people that haven't ditched traditional cameras yet could possibly do it now. But either way it's always nice to compare good cameras with convenient cameras.

> Comparing them or even holding them up as some sort of great goal for smartphone cameras seems kinda … dumb? … I don’t know, pointless? … short-sighted?

It seems like the opposite of short-sighted to me; to look beyond the limitations of today's technology and find ways to make the impossible incrementally more achievable over time.

Probably downvote bait, but all I can think of here is the age old saying, the best camera you have, is the camera you have with you.

> There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space.

While true, also false.

Take something like the Sony Nex series; mirrorless digital system camera. Not much larger than a (big) smart phone. Sure, bigger than an iPhone. But it might not be that difficult to fit the "rest" of a smart phone into one of those. In fact, it probably have all the parts: battery, (touch?)screen, microphone, wireless radio (not cellular, but that could be changed), speaker (maybe needs to be added).

But a better way to go would probably be some kind of light-field technology. I think that holds more promise for better pictures in a similar form factor, and the possibility of ease of use.

This. I own a Sony NEX because I want something portable that can take good pictures. I don't care that much about a mediocre telephone, web browser, and GameBoy, unless it's nearly as good at photography.

I saw someone with a really neat camera. It was an Olympus lens + sensor in a package that was hardly bigger than a camera lens, which wirelessly talked to a smartphone for image display and controls. A much smaller add-on than an entire mirrorless camera, acknowledging that most people are already carrying an LCD screen and flash storage.

Olympus Air[1] perhaps?

[1]: http://www.getolympus.com/us/en/air-a01.html

Ah, but the iPhones actually already use Sony sensors. One key difference between its sensor and the NEX/Mirrorless Alpha cameras is sensor size and the lens optics, which is why one might say there isn't much difference to make up (that can be made up) between the phone and cameras.

Also worth noting is that Sony cameras already run a customized and locked-down version of Android, though you wouldn't know from using it.

Look at the lens of those devices … I mean, really, it’s a basic physics problem.

The device itself can obviously be very, very small. Obviously. No one is disputing that. But the lens is the issue if the sensor gets larger and a smartphone with Sony Nex sensor size (APS-C) is impossible.

There is nowhere to go with the available space. Not if you want to keep the smartphone actually smartphone sized.

I was thinking about something like:

http://www.kurtmunger.com/sony_nex_20mm_f_2_8id345.html

Sure, we're definitely talking something bigger than a standard iphone. So maybe not possible in a general market smart phone (I'd love to have the possibility of changing lenses on my phone, even if it wouldn't quite fit in the smallest pockets any more...).

The only other option would probably be some kind of lightfield tech, say a grid of 8x10 VGA resolution cameras that feed into a single software or ASIC processing unit...

There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space.

Where we are now is the "nowhere to go" of not long ago.

I had a Kodak DC-1. The notion of "a digital camera the size of a sugar cube" was laughable. Now we've got something even smaller taking pictures most people can't distinguish from a DSLR.

I expect the next breakthrough will be using the display itself as a platform for a phased-array "light as electromagnetic waves" sensor, allowing a software-defined virtual lens for a large-format imager (and oh so much more).

Nowhere to go? We've done amazing things with that nothing for the last 30 years. We're not gonna stop.

Yeah, but a lot of the limits we're hitting are tied to physics. But hey, we're used to trade offs and will go for slightly lower quality in exchange for ease of use and convenience

Certainly true with traditional optics. I think computational optics will change things though - there's been research into using camera arrays for simulating a large aperture, for example. I don't actually know if this is physically feasible, but maybe in lieu of a single large sensor we simulate one with a ton of smaller ones (cool gifs: http://www.mit.edu/~sysun/MAS531_lightfield.html)

> There is nowhere to go, not with the available physical space.

I think that taking a classical digital still image on a tiny sensor is probably soon going to hit an "ISO-wall", but so far we haven't started doing much trickery with the images apart from simple noise/sharpness/toning treatments.

I think smartphones will lead the development of "cheats" to get better images. Imagine taking a portrait of 3 people in low-light by exposing a 1 second film (maybe including a couple of flashes). The processor then works (very hard) to build together single frame in which everyone's eyes are open, the moving subjects are frozen and sharp, and the shadow detail is pulled from the dark background by averaging out the noise from the thousands of frames.

I think the accelerometer should be used to trace the movement during this exposure, which can be used in combination with the anti-shake blur removal algorithms which are being introduced into various programs now.

Add to this some other technologies like deep learning that can be used to "guess" what's in a region of an image where we have noisy, obscured or OOF data.

I'm optimist, I think we will see not better classical images, but just better images. There will be lots of crazy "three-eyes"-artifacts produced by this, just like we see when programs try to stitch panoramas. Also, it will upset photography purists to no end. It will question the entire notion of what a photograph is.

Well, it depends how you use the available space. With a simple stack of sensor and lens pointing out of the phone, there's very little height available. But if you were to arrange the optics down the length/width of the phone, you'd grant yourself rather more space. This patent talks of external add-ons, but the same principle would be applicable internally:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/14/01/28/apple-granted-two-...

And then there's the option of having multiple cameras taking the same shot, with different focal lengths (whether fixed or zoom) on each. You're still limited in dynamic range by the photosite size, but as we're seeing now, that's often not so huge a problem in many scenarios. One startup working on such a principle is Light:

http://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2015/04/18/photo-startu...

It gives context to the improvement. Just think of those misleading graphs that have a Y scale of 700-720, focusing on the local delta and hiding the greater context to exaggerate the data

And shots from the best Android phone cameras as well. An iPhone-only comparison is like saying "compare the writing scores of this 8-year-old child vs. when she was 7, 6 and 5 years old!"

> "compare the writing scores of this 8-year-old child vs. when she was 7, 6 and 5 years old!"

Which would be useful to see how the scores have improved or not improved, much like how this article is demonstrating the progress of the iPhone camera.

It's 100% valid and perfectly clear to not include "the best Android phone cameras" as that is not the goal.

Our team (RYOT) got the opportunity to film a documentary short in Haiti with the new 6S+, results were lovely. Feel free to check out the film in 4K: http://www.ryot.org/watch-the-first-documentary-filmed-on-an...

also for fun there's a behind the scenes on the same link that shows how the shots came together.

How did mounting canon lenses on the front work for your needs? I would be very keen on that if its practical.

From what I heard, it's still pretty rough but gets the job done. Lots of 3d printing and trying new hardware that's coming out in the filming circles (that I'm not part of, heh).

This is really impressive, and the result is beautiful.

How is the lens attached to the iPhone? How is the focus controlled?

A lot of the equipment is 3d printed in house since most all of this tech is still so new. The directors really like manual focus for much of their work, so I'm pretty confident there's no auto-focus ability. Similar to when you add a conversion between manufacturers with rigs and lenses. Hoping we can post more soon on the fun stuff the team is creating!

I'm on a 5S. This might sound like melodramatic consumerist envy, but I've been struck over the last year by how many emotionally stirring pictures I've seen amateurs take with the iPhone 6. My phone can take a pretty sharp photo of a baby/puppy/landscape, but there's something about the 6 generation that almost triggers that sense of "presence" people bring up in regard to VR. I think you can see this pretty vividly in the jump from 5S to 6 in the author's self portrait - I can call the improvements incremental on a lot of levels, but somehow she's "there" looking me in the eyes on the 6.

Are you sure it's not just postprocessing? Many of my friends and I all have DSLRs but my photos are always the best because I know how to use Lightroom.

As a very amateur photographer, do you use lightroom on every photo? What sort of photo enhancements do you do?

Very often you just need to adjust levels and white balance to see a significant improvement on many photos. You don’t even need Lightroom for that, even more basic photo editors like OS X Photos work fine.

On my DSLR taken photos I white balance/color correct, level, and crop all photos I'm going to keep. Photos that have particularly good subjects, I may get artistic and play with other settings until I see something I like.

Mostly boosting shadows. When your shoot outdoors, it's usually best to properly expose the bright regions, then fix up the dark ones afterwards.

I'm talking about off the cuff pictures taken by my sisters, who have no knowledge of Photoshop.

Out of curiosity, how does one learn to use lightroom?

The same way you learn anything, YouTube and Google Searches!

There are some great tutorials on Lynda. You can try it free for 10 days, which is more than enough time to get up and running with Lightroom. You shouldn't need more than 3 hours of watching videos and few more hours uploading, editing, and looping through photos to have basic proficiency. The most useful parts of the tutorial in my opinion are best practices on how and where to save photos. A lot of the development stuff can be picked up easily by playing around with the sliders and watching other online tutorials.

http://www.lynda.com/Lightroom-training-tutorials/450-0.html

Not to be a smartass, but usage. Take a bunch of photos and go figure out how to manage and improve them in LR. Google and youtube are awesome ways to find out specific things, but nothing beats playing around.

I learned by watching Antony Morganti's tutorials [1]. They're freely available on youtube and they cover everything you need to know.

Watch the first 3 videos I linked, play with Lightroom, and then come back and watch again. You'll learn more now that you're familiar with the tool.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLllFqBuTM0WI0fC_PujkG...

Thanks, I've never seen lightroom before, but I've used photoshop extensively. I have a Sony A6000 and shoot jpeg as I'm a novice and probably won't bother modifying all of my vacation photos (the A6000 applies corrections for things like barrel distortion for the attached lens automatically when set in jpeg mode).

I watched the first three videos and it actually turned me off to lightroom a bit or at least the workflow that was demonstrated. For example, when the author used the clone stamp tool it was painful to me that he just left those duplicated clouds in the final image without attempting to merge them in more gracefully. The final post-processed images look really amateur to me - overly artificial but not in a tasteful way. But all the youtube comments seem to be very positive so take my comments with a grain of salt.

I always assumed lightroom was used primarily to correct mistakes made by the photographer in exposure settings but it's use here seemed more artistic in nature... more like a fancier version of Adobe Elements. For example, one of the final steps in the author's workflow is to select a Camera Calibration which essentially applies some filter to the entire image like "Vivid" - which I thought negated all the effort to manually adjust all the individual colors, contrast, saturation, etc.

If you're shooting JPEG, then your camera has already done a lot of corrections for you. The heuristics that the camera use are limited, and one can always do better than that by doing the post processing manually on Lightroom.

Try shooting RAW + JPEG and see the differences between the pics.

Personally, I believe that doing the post-processing myself is part of the experience of photography, and I find it fun to tune each photo according to my tastes. But I do understand that's not for everyone.

I used to think "I know photoshop well, I don't need lightroom". Now I rarely, if ever, open photoshop (only for extensive clone/stamp stuff as you mentioned).

Anything you can achieve in lightroom you can achieve in photoshop. So why lightroom?

Firstly, it's optimised for the type of things you want to do to photographs (compared to the scope of what's possible in all of digital image manipulation i.e. photoshop). Editing functionality, UI and additional tooling/features are all focussed (pun not intended) on this, so it's a much more pleasant experience when working with hundreds (or even tens!) of photos

Secondly, lightroom is as much about editing photos as it is about managing collections photos. You might want to tag photos, rate them, search for "photos taken in this date range, with this lens, rated above 4 stars". You will have a hard time doing this by other means.

Don't dismiss it because you know photoshop, or because you don't like that guy's style. Shoot RAW, give lightroom a go, you'll be surprised how much you can recover photos which would otherwise go in the trash if shot as JPEG. Lightroom also has lens profiles built-in, so it knows how to correct vignetting, distortion etc for each lens

I think the largest difference in that portrait is the warmer white balance.

It seems to me like the 6/6s does something to the skin tones. Less details, but warmer.

Downvotes without any explanation are weird.

And how it compares to other Android flagships:

http://androidcommunity.com/android-flagships-may-have-margi...

tl;dr first time it doesn't beat them.

Upvoted you because I think it's relevant. My initial knowledge was that iPhones beat even flagship Androids when it comes to photography, but I was surprised to learn the difference only recently.

Odd that the header image displays an iPhone 6 rather than an iPhone 6S.

One thing I miss from that comparison are indoor moving subjects (ie. kids). My iPhone 5 seems to go for pretty long exposure times (1/15s). Of course, that makes for great stills, but many of the photos I take of my kids end up blurred. I'd prefer grainy but sharp.

Totally agreed. I wish camera reviews would compare average exposure times between phones for the same shots. I'm a guy who would prefer my phone get me the best shot it can at 1/60th, rather than a low ISO shot that's blurry.

It looks like the 4S had the biggest improvement over its predecessors. Each modal before and after the 4S look like they only slightly improved upon the previous model.

To my eyes, the 3Gs was the biggest improvement

3Gs was the first generation that seemed to take the camera seriously, speaking as a 3G owner who looked on enviously at the time.

The original iPhone's camera (and thus the iPhone 3G's, since the 3G changed almost nothing besides the case and the cell radio) seemed to exist mostly to tick the "has a camera" checkbox. It was pretty awful at doing much beyond existing. It didn't even have the ability to change focus!

I still use a 3Gs and the camera certainly isn't horrible, but the biggest issue with it and other early iPhones - which this review doesn't cover - is that it lacks any flash. That's a bigger deal than megapixels since it rendered earlier iPhones inadequate for spontaneous photography in many of the social situations people wouldn't consider bringing a proper camera to.

4S was indeed a big leap. When I broke my 4S, I temporarily downgraded to a 4 but missed the faster, better camera so much that I once again upgraded to the 4S.

Really? Looks to me like the 3G to the 3GS is the biggest jump, the improvement there is ridiculous

I'd agree, but the 4S is probably the first one to really compete with a good point-and-shoot, and it also seems better then the 5 and/or 5S in several of the shots.

Agree, 4 was a good improvement, but 4S made it it really usable one. I've updated from 4S to 6S and this weekend had a chance to capture some scenic ocean cliffs. The difference is definitely noticeable and I've got some very nice shots, but nothing to rage about. I would have happily kept using 4S if not lack of RAM made it's use hellishly slow.

Just a quick glance, but it seems to me from these sequences that the 3GS and the 4 series were very good, even in respect to the next versions. What do you think?

Very nicely laid out. I love that you can compare small pieces side by side and then expand the relevant ones. (smooth animations too)

> smooth animations too

Thanks, this was my first crack at doing something with Canvas! For last year's we did it in CSS animations but with it never had great performance.

I know it's not new, but there is still something quite powerful about the fact that a photograph taken by a pocket-sized device has enough quality to clearly show the outline of the photographer in the subject's eye.

Yup. And these photos are all gorgeous. I think we're at a point were the limiting factor is not the camera, but the photographers' skill.

True in bright conditions, but smartphone cameras still suck in low light.

Great article, and the comparison of the different models cameras are perfect examples of how far Apple have come to be reckoned as one of the leading brands. In overall, I think the price for the iPhone 6s is outrageous...

What really blows my mind is the difference between the iPhone 3 and 3GS. I think that it may even have the most eye pleasing camera of the lot. The other generations are marginal compared to 3->3GS

I can't find big difference between iPhone 6 and 6S.

Yeah, the moral of this story was "Well, there goes one reason to upgrade"

It would be nice to see how the 6s Plus compares as well since it has better image stabilization hardware.

Sad to see they still have the cranked noise reduction, which really ruins faces. If you look at the enlarged portait pics and compare the 4s and 6s you'll see what I mean: the 4s has details in the skin, the 6s has a near-impressionist blurred mess.

does iOS let you shoot raw yet?

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