Apple iPhone 14 Pro Camera test

I only shoot RAW, it does require post-processing to get social media looking photos if that's your bag. (Normies want the pop, not the accuracy; nice it has both.)

The G9 X has a "one inch" sensor, which is about as big as you can get in this size, like the RX100. The bigger sensor and the bigger / nicer the optics, the better your pictures. Like you are saying, when you get it right these small point and shoots can easily out perform the phones.

Honestly for the family shots, even though the camera was nice and small, I didn't end up getting it into the diaper bag or backpack as much as I thought I would, I ended up with my phone a lot of the time. Then, I got back into prime lenses on an old Nikon and then new Fuji, and there's no comparison (for me) between a fast prime and a point and shoot, no mater the number of fancy features on the latest RX100. The Fuji 56mm spoiled me.

I think it depends on what you want - I have managed to get some absolutely fantastic video out of it, especially with the 30mm sigma lens

These crazy HDR, face smoothing and fake background blur are objectively ugly, but sure you can take good pictures with them, the pictures would be better with proper tools though

One big advantage you have with dedicated hardware also is the reduced need to have a virtual interface (though UX is quite often in dire need to be improved on them, especially for advance configuration). A bit like knob are better in a car in a general way.

But to be honest, at the end, it's clearly a difference of philosophy. I'd wager that the smartphone maker have better understood the market than the camera maker for a while.

People confuse the post processing that Apple and Google do in the phone with the quality of the camera. It's impressive what they do and the quality of the raw images is actually not as bad as it used to be on most phones. But it's still a noisy mess compared to any decent pro-sumer camera of the last ten years or so. You don't need the same trickery to make those photos look good.

It's amazing what Apple and Google can do with the relatively limited form factor, sensor, lenses, etc. that phones have but when it comes to sensors, bigger is simply better and bigger requires more distance between the lens and the sensor. It's not the number of pixels that counts but their size and noise level.

My Fuji is fine as an entry level camera but the real deal here is full frame sensors and expensive lenses. It makes all the difference. Some of the lenses on the market today are so good that it's pointless owning them unless you can pair them with a very high end camera and sensor. Phone lenses are comparatively not really worth talking about. Owning such a lens almost automatically means you probably want to have full creative control. So, typical owners of such cameras and lenses are not looking for point and click cameras but are deeply into controlling all aspects of their photography.

Most manufacturers have put dslr development on halt or at least on the back-burner. The high end stuff is almost exclusively mirror less at this point.

Cameras can't do that, because their bigger sensors take longer to read out. There'd be too few frames, and too much gap between frames.

Big sensors are slowly getting faster, too, with stacked sensors and the like. But they're not quite fast enough yet for phone-style computational shenanigans.

Sports is the example I had on hand because it's one of the things I do most. But kids, pets, portraits, architecture, wildlife...

It was unreal, like someone had switched on the sun for a second. It’s grainy from the high ISO, but you can see full details in full colour and with the naked eye it’s as dark as a pool of black ink.

This. My 2016 Olympyus Pen-F does this (a small m43 mirrorless body). It takes 4 captures at different exposures and combines them in-camera. I don't usually use this mode, but the results aren't bad at all for snapshots.

It can also take up to 7 different exposures, but the user needs to combine those manually. This is the mode I use most often, since it allows me to tweak the result how I want.

Stills, IMO, would be even more of a disaster.

I don’t like carrying god knows how many pounds of weight on my shoulders with two cameras, 3 lenses, and often two speedlights on me all day. I also bring two Pelican cases of lighting equipment, a camera bag full of batteries and lenses, and an “oh shit” bad with backup cameras and lenses. That’s what I need to do a good job in any condition.

Phone camera photos look good on your phone. If you have absolutely perfect lighting they may even look good blown up to a somewhat reasonable size. Good luck getting anything useful in a dim church, on the dance floor, etc.

It’s pretty often that a mom comes along to a senior photography shoot and takes photos with their phone of me at work and then sends them to me. The quality is utterly laughable compared to what I’m capturing at the time when actually viewed on something that’s more than 6 inches diagonal.

Photographers might make silly YouTube videos trying to get clicks where they use phones on a pro shoot but that’s where it ends.

So your point really stands here.

However for anybody just a little bit involved the difference is huge. Simple things like depth of field can only be faked on small sensor because if physics.

HDR on phones also often look fake, imperfect and artificial. To the point that I think in 50 years people will try to fake it to get that "2020 look" as nowadays we try to get "film look of 60s".

Sometimes people just don't have "a feeling" on why professional photos look like professional photos. It is all about composition, angles and stuff. Sensor size is not so important if you are taking a photo of landscape and showing it on instagram.

They are barely 1/2" in actual size. The iphone 14 pro sensor for example is 9.8x7.3mm.

When they call them "1/2 inch" or "3/4 inch", they refer to the diameter of a glass tube (ultra old measurement from the CRT days), not the physical size of the sensor. They only continue to name it like that to make people think their sensor is somewhat close to the Full-frame or APS-C that you get in a professional camera.

And you never really know which photo will turn out so nice you later want to print it. Someone taking photos only on their phone won't have that option.

In the wall behind me I have a 4-foot wide print of a photo I took on vacation. It's a crop of a section of the photo that later (a few years later) I realized would make for a great print on the wall. Glad I took it with the DSLR, so a cropped section printed out to 4 feet looks stunning.