iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison | Hacker News Reader

iPhone 15 Pro Max vs. DSLR photos: Real world camera comparison

9to5mac.com

62 pointsCharlesW69 comments

It's an interesting topic and I agree with the conclusions. But I really dislike the testing methodology - the comparison photos have clearly different poses and people/animals moving around. I've done my own smartphone vs. DSLR image quality comparisons, and I photographed a static city skyline, and it made comparing and pointing out the differences much easier and more defensible.

All modern phones use trickery which helps them with still or nearly still scenes. Specifically, the iPhone will take ~100 shots before and after the shutter is pressed to process in software to reduce noise, increase dynamic range, get the focus/whitebalance perfect, and even to do gimmicky features like avoiding people blinking.

If the scene is fast moving, the DSLR has an advantage, because the DSLR captures everything in a single shot, rather than needing to assemble 100 over multiple seconds.

Thats why I think comparisons between the cameras should test real world things which move.

It was weird to me that even the static images would be noticeably different scales (The Chocolate Factory and even the cropped BeatBuilder).

I think that the author was trying to stand in the same position for both photos, but didn't have a wide enough lens on the DSLR to match the iPhone. It's actually much weirder if the two photos were taken from different locations to approximately fill the same amount of the frame with the subject.

The comparison would've smashed the iPhone harder, if they'd used a good longer lens. My last student/amateur photojournalism kit was 2 APS-C bodies with a 70-200/4L and an old (but unusually sharp copy) 17-35/2.8L, plus a 50/1.4 or 28/1.8 in the bag. And very useful gadgets, like lens hoods, polarizers, and the occasional powerful strobe. I used the 70-200/4L for the majority of shots, and it was glorious.

Also, muscle memory on the controls of a pro/prosumer body and lens is real. With a little practice, a lot of the mechanics of framing the shot, focal length, and selecting the autofocus point are automatic and happen in an instant. When a smartphone could do that at all, it would do it poorly, and you'll lose the moment.

Lately, I've made an exercise of using only smartphone cameras -- iPhone and Pixel -- and it usually ends up as uninspiring snapshots, and now I can't be bothered to try.

Then it got worse. A few days ago, I was testing the optically longer camera of a new smartphone, on a car license plate. The phone appeared to be doing bad processing of the sensor, such that what in reality were gentle curves of front of the parked (and cooled-down) car, came out looking like fairly clear shots of something snake-like wiggly. I didn't knowingly have any "AI enhancement" feature enabled -- it just decided to go with lies, rather than deliver a much more useful if blurrier image.

Phone cameras have come a long way, and they a so convenient for quick snaps.

But "big" cameras still dominate in tricky situations. With my Sony mirrorless shooting in RAW mode for low light is basically cheating. I can shoot at 10,000 ISO without seeing grain. This is a single exposure, for example - no stacking, no trickery

https://www.instagram.com/p/CersLuLBfCz/

It's also scaled to 1440x960 and... oddly for Instagram, not compressed to death. I imagine the noise would be more noticeable at full resolution or even printed relatively large and viewed at a reasonable distance.

I just looked at the full res version, I can't see any noise.

Here's a gallery of full res, high ISO with my camera.

Note, it's old now, there are better out there.

https://havecamerawilltravel.com/sony-a7iii-high-iso-sample-...

I looked through that gallery and saw significant noise in all the images. I wouldn't consider it problematic or unusable through at least 12K, but it's there.

Tony & Chelsea Northrup just posted a video on a recent trip to Italy where they generally left their photo gear at home (taking only some 'token' equipment), and where generally not happy with the results. "My iPhone Camera FAILED me!":

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ38JusO-JA

Partly it's because while the 'computational photography' stuff can give good results, if you disable it, and go with a 'raw' format:

* https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211965

so you can do some later post-processing yourself, you're using the 'base' capabilities of a mediocre sensor and lens (compared to a 'real' camera).

The audience of content creators like this is the ever-dwindling number of people buying expensive dedicated photographic gear. The vast majority of photography now is being done by people who aren't photo gear heads, because almost all of the gear is more than good enough.

I don't think that's a fair characterization of the market. $300 point and shoots are indeed dead, but the prosumer photography market is as alive as ever, especially since the pandemic, during which every white collar worker seems to have decided to get a hobby of some kind.

Analog film photography, famously, had a huge resurgence the last 5 or so years, and is quite popular.

>but the prosumer photography market is as alive as ever,

I don't think you can really mean 'ever' here. Compared to the 1990s? The prosumer market might finally be starting to bottom out, but a lot depends on how much further smartphones improve.

Analog photography is popular, but it is not making large amounts of money for camera manufacturers, as most people are using second hand gear.

To not be too pedantic about "ever", the current prosumer camera market is not shrinking, is growing, and the main manufacturers are increasing the pace of production, as models like the Fujifilm X100v have become highly sought after, but new, cameras that Fuji can't make enough of. Sales of the main full frame shooters Sony, Canon, Nikon, etc. are selling well, and we're getting active R&D on them. And the x100v is a "point and shoot", of course, but far more expensive (the real price for one is >$2k), far better image quality, and far better build quality.

Past the ~2000s these weren't really ever the cameras that laypeople bought anyway. Back when they were DLSRs, the cost and size were always prohibitive once cheap point and shoots were around. Cheap point and shoots are dead (but again, cameras like the x100v or ricoh gr are selling so well they can't make enough of them), but the interchangeable lens camera market is by no means in decline relative to the near past.

There is a certain segment of the market which is booming more than ever, simply because this segment didn't quite exist before. It's partially fueled by a community of social media influencers.

While the camera sales are dwindling down, the really dying categories are old compact cameras, which already have similar image quality to phones.

APS-C and Full Frame systems cater to specific audiences, and they go strong. Sony has VLogging specific APS-C systems for example, and they are way better than phones.

Also, you don't have to be a "Photo Gear Head(TM)" to buy a nice kit for yourself. A couple of good primes is more than enough for most photography.

While I take a lot of photos with my phone, you can't beat a proper camera with a good sensor and good optics.

Photography has gone through the roof in the last fifteen years due to camera phones, sure, but the overall market has increased too. I was at Photopia two days ago and I’ve not seen a better market for photography since the 1980s. Camera phones are simply the new point and shoot, taking their place at the bottom end or convenience end of the market, and many of those people enjoying using those cameras have a great route into photography.

It’s hard to square whatever sense of optimism you got from Photopia with the the actual revenues of major camera companies. For example, here they are for Canon from 2009 to the present:

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/CAJPY/canon/revenu...

I would also point out that the iPhone 15 Pro isn’t comparable to a low end point and shoot. You can buy both a decent cell phone and a decent dedicated camera for the same total cost as an iPhone 15 Pro. Many people are still willing to pay a premium for a good camera. It’s just that for most people, high end smartphone cameras are now the best all round cameras.

It’s consistently been the case in the history of photography that Photographers with a capital P are the last people to transition to new, more compact and more convenient tools. People used to be very snobbish about roll film vs sheet film, for example.

I see the point, but a) Canon make much more than cameras or photo-related, unlike say Nikon, and a bigger market means more players overall. There’s as many manufacturers making pro-level kit now as I recall from the 1980s, and somebody’s buying the stuff to drive the investment - I think.

I also hear you on the point about transitioning to newer tools, but would suggest that photography has always required significant personal investment in money and time, and one must sweat the assets as they say, to make them pay off. Some technologies seem more convenient, like digital, but can end up by funnelling all the effort onto fewer people, instead of throwing the film over the fence to other professionals who could do a much better and faster job of developing and printing.

Sometimes of course, the sweat and toil is all part of the product - as no doubt my mate who built his own camera made from the timber of the woods near his home would tell you - but in the modern world, most people just want to see the image as soon as they can…

> The vast majority of photography now is being done by people who aren't photo gear heads, because almost all of the gear is more than good enough.

And Chelsea said in that video that for around town her phone makes more than adequate shots, and it's an easy way for to simply capture a memory.

But given that they often frame pictures of their trips to help remember them, they won't be printing and hanging up any photos from their Italian trip from their phone.

>they won't be printing and hanging up any photos from their Italian trip from their phone.

Meanwhile, literally hundreds of millions of other people are printing out and framing photos taken on their smartphones.

I thought printing had also gone out of style, as illustrated by Costco shutting down its minilabs even though they’ve been able to print digital photos since at least 2002 (the reason why I became a member in the first place).

Well, yes, I imagine it's true that people don't print photos as often as they used to, for obvious reasons. My point is that most people seem to find smartphone photos perfectly adequate for printing in the scenarios where they do still want to print photos.

In the “just point at something and press the shutter” scenario, phones have been just as good (and in some cases better) than dedicated cameras for a while.

For me, the main reasons for using a dedicated camera are ergonomics and creative control. I rarely hold the device at eye level when taking a photo, since it makes for more interesting compositions. Somehow my fingers are always in the wrong position when I want to press the shutter button. And once you try to adjust some settings manually in a dedicated app like Halide, it gets extra fumbly and (to me) just takes all the fun out of it.

The big benefit of the phone is that it’s always with me of course. I’m contemplating the purchase of a Ricoh GR, which is a great camera that is just as pocketable as a phone but with much better ergonomics.

In contrast, I recently tried Halide on my older iPhone 13 Pro Max. Just taking some simple pictures here around the house of our cats, our furniture, my own feet, etc... and comparing those to pictures taken with the built-in iPhone camera app. Halide repeatedly gave me worse quality pictures with more noise, and also larger in size.

I'm really struggling to find the benefit of something like Halide. Can anyone recommend tutorials on how to make the best of a program like this, and actually demonstrate value over the built-in iPhone app? I've tried the company tutorials, and they didn't cover anything I didn't already know about photography.

iPhone has an impressive camera (set) for its size, and puts out nice images, yet it still fails to capture the dynamic range of an old DSLR in many cases.

The difference will be much more noticeable when compared to a latest generation full-frame sensors (Sony A7, Nikon Z, Canon R families), both in dynamic range, and color accuracy.

While I'll not be carrying a full frame mirrorless everywhere, it's evident that both devices will have its place.

To close, I'll be probably carrying a iPhone 15 or 16 in my pocket next. Knowing what I'm going to get is a nice plus.

Aren’t there small wireless accessories to trigger the shutter?

Apple would say ‘Apple Watch’, with a real camera it gets called a ‘remote shutter release’ or similar based on a quick search.

Yes, there's stuff like this: https://shop.fjorden.co No idea how well it works in practice, but it looks like it could alleviate some of the ergonomics issues.

I use wired earbuds and press the volume button.

This sounds like something from Get Smart.

The article seems to praise the iPhone a lot for some reason, but to my eyes all its images immediately pop out as worse, except for the case where high depth of field is desired.

> The article seems to praise the iPhone a lot for some reason

It's an Apple news and rumours site, so not really unbiased.

> but to my eyes all its images immediately pop out as worse, except for the case where high depth of field is desired

Can only do so much with limited glass and computational photography. Dedicated cameras are always going to win in the image quality department, simply by virtue of having much larger photo diodes to capture more light with.

Smartphones will also never be able to match the bokeh, as the shorter the physical focal length, the more depth of field you have. Can't beat the laws of physics. They're great for flat-looking everything-in-focus photos, though. Can't replicate that with a DSLR / DLSM, unless it's an (almost) static composition and you do focus stacking in post

Personally I don't like the color cast of the iphone images, but just as clearly it's good enough for most people. I still don't see phones replacing dedicated cameras for people that are serious, but that's more a matter of optics and form factor. Phones are terrible for shooting a stable image. OM-1 shows where I'd like to see larger sensor cameras go: high resolution image stacking, smart motion correction, etc.

I think iphones and similar phone cameras make sense for video in broad daylight if you're not too serious about it--no need for built-in ND filters, the stabilization is pretty good, especially if you put it on a gimbal, etc.

Once conditions get rougher is where the tiny sensor and plastic optics are going to let you down though.

Unreal performance from the iPhone.

But that’s an old camera. I bought the latest, cheapest mirror-less Canon a year ago, and it was CAD 1600 with a 28-105mm lens. It’s got a full-frame (ie, much larger area) and more advanced sensor than the DSLR in the article.

No smartphone is going to match it, possibly ever.

It’s incredible - but still, if I was doing professional photography, I’d have a professional camera if only to avoid the generic “iPhone look” that can’t quite be quantified. Also because, if I showed up to a shoot with an iPhone… my reputation would be suspect.

I mean, you'd also probably want to shoot at something other than 26mm. The image quality from the "telephoto" lens and wide lens on the iPhone (and any other flagship) is so bad it's distinctly noticeable even on an iPhone sized screen, compared to just the iPhone's main shooter, let alone a discrete camera.

Traditionally, the "default" focal length, for being close to the amount of distortion the human eye has, is 50mm - so quite a lot tighter than the iPhone's main shooter.

The iPhone look is a combination of extremely deep depth of field, not particularly pleasing bokeh, and digital sharpening and smoothing. Image stacking can make up for the lack of light on a tiny sensor with a slow lens, but it can't make up for the depth of field.

Mix of their color temperature skewing and various smoothing (skin, moles etc) & surface processing

It's impressive. My only complaint would be that the article is mainly focusing on pretty good conditions. I'd be nice to see the same thing with crap lighting.

An ideal test would involve tough situations (poor lighting, low shutter speeds, high ISO), and post processing later to be professional. For better or worse, they'd only be one winner in such a test, and by a long shot.

Personal anecdote, when I got my first google pixel I was enamored by all the power of GCam I had heard about, especially at night. Unfortunately 20 minutes into my first photography night out I quickly learnt all about the hardware limitations of my Pixel 5. Still a great camera, but by "smartphone" standards.

I ditched all my cameras 5 years ago in favour of convenience. I’m a bit disappointed that the difference is still so large. I was convinced phones were going to approach crop sensor quality but it’s not even close, the 80D completely smoked it.

> There is a notable drawback for the iPhone 15 Pro Max in the 3X to 4.9X range (~72mm to 119mm full frame equivalent), as it’s stuck using the main sensor, rather than switching to the telephoto.

I’m super glad Apple couldn’t figure out the tech to get the 5x lens in the non-Max models. I make way more use of 3x than 5x. Cropping the main sensor up to 5x is a bad call IMHO. This is the equivalent of walking around with a 24mm and 120mm prime. Who’s doing that? MaxTech dropped a vid today and the 4.9x shot is atrocious; the 3-5x range is basically unusable on the 15 Pro Max models.

I quite often find myself in situations where I'm wishing I had my Sony HX400V. Despite having a recent iPhone that can take stunning shots, it absolutely falls down when trying to take photos of dramatic landscapes or low light (try taking these[1] photos of the moon on an iPhone!).

I may have to just keep a normal camera charged and sitting in my car for when I'm out.

[1] Some random photos I've taken of the moon https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjAVLCE

There's only so much you can do with a tiny sensor and mass produced plastic optics. The design going into the optics is incredible but big glass is coveted for a reason.

You say 'mass produced' and 'plastic' as if these were obviously bad things, but why?

Mass production brings down costs and makes it economical for manufacturers to spend more on R&D. If Apple was selling only as many iPhones as Cannon sells cameras, you'd be paying through the roof for all the advanced technology that goes into the iPhone camera system. I'd also point out that all modern lenses and cameras are mass produced. The lenses are not hand-ground!

Plastic moulded lenses enable aspheric designs that would be impractical or impossible to make out of glass. Given the size constraints imposed on smartphone camera lenses, the lenses would probably perform worse, not better, if they were made out of glass (which would require totally different optical designs).

> I was convinced phones were going to approach crop sensor quality but it’s not even close, the 80D completely smoked it.

What is the size of a crop sensor (either APS-C, or even m5/4), and what is the size of the typical phone camera? How functionality do you have with aperture with a camera lens versus that of a phone (which often isn't real/physical, but may be simulated aperture)?

What’s the size of a photon? You seem to be suggesting that the limiting factor is the physical size of the sensor, which is totally absurd. Photography optics are not even close to approaching the limits of physics.

> Photography optics are not even close to approaching the limits of physics.

The relationship between aperture sizes, pixel sizes, and diffraction sizes certainly do effect the quality of images:

* https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/diffraction-phot...

* https://fstoppers.com/science/closer-look-lens-diffraction-5...

* https://www.edmundoptics.ca/knowledge-center/application-not...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airy_disk

Wrong. Silicon image sensors are benchmarked by their "quantum efficiency" - the number of electrons generated by a photon. That number is something like 0.5, which isn't far from 1.0. There is very finite room for improvement in sensors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_efficiency

Now, the following point is not well-known, but the most important thing that determines image quality is simply the frontmost piece of glass in a camera system. Not the sensor size, not the ISO. The front glass determines how many photons you receive per second, how much the depth of field is, and how noisy the image is.

For example, shoot with a certain lens on a full-frame sensor. Now take that lens, put a "speed booster" behind it, and shoot with a crop sensor. Both images will come out essentially the same in terms of field of view, depth of field, and noise. Again, the front glass is what matters, and everything behind it in the optical system are just technical details.

Also as a reminder, shot noise is proportional to 1/sqrt(n), where is n is the number of photons. There are a very finite number of photos you can collect per pixel per aperture per second in real-world shooting situations, and that number is something like 10000. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_noise

> "quantum efficiency" - the number of electrons generated by a photon. That number is something like 0.5, which isn't far from 1.0.

QE is a ratio as described by your Wikipedia link. There is a massive difference between a ratio of 0.5 and 1.0!

0.5 to 1.0 is just one F-stop in photography. If you make your sensor 2× better, that's not going to overcome a 100× reduction in front glass area when moving from a DSLR to a phone.

No, I’m saying you have completely misunderstood QE. 1 is the upper limit - 100% efficiency. You can’t just say 50% is very close to 100%!

DSLR (and now mirrorless) will always prevail because of the amount of glass they can work with.

But there is a saying more important than the above fact: the best camera in the world is the one you have on you in the moment. And that will - more often than not - be the smartphone in your pocket.

One thing to note about these photos is that the close-up shots were taken with the 24-70mm f/2.8L lens, which is one of Canon’s best lenses.

The iPhone 15 Pro Max being capable of taking shots that are that close to the output from that lens is unbelievable.

I think the iPhone would have nailed the bokeh on the crane shot in Portrait mode, which the camera can now detect automatically and switch to with near-zero latency with a single tap on the viewfinder.

That said, a comparison of night-time shots would have been more valuable. This is where DSLRs shine, especially in non-flash high ISO conditions.

These are incredible. The engineering and software that goes into making such a miniaturized product with this fidelity. My teenage self would have been in awe.

I'm no longer interested in smartphone photography where everything is tuned to appeal to the lowest common denominator. The ergonomics, image quality, and customisability of dedicated cameras still put them leagues ahead. Even an Rx100 with its tiny 1 inch sensor is more enjoyable to use, and you can take it everywhere too.

We get these kind of comparisons since almost 15 years, even though it was for long obvious that it is never about quality - DSLRs will still take the lead for a long time - but what device you will carry. This was true the same way for the N95, iPhone 3GS or Galaxy S3.

Has anyone discussed the so-called "spatial video" (and presumably photos) yet, and how those might look or work? That's the most compelling upgrade to the iPhone to me. I'm generally satisfied with the quality of my photos now, but as someone with a 2yo and 2 week old, I'm eager to enter the "grainy 80s VHS home video" era of a new medium. Like, yeah, those old home movies were bad quality, but home video was a whole new thing and gives an insight into childhood that photos didn't. (And probably something similar for black and white to color photos, but that was before my time.)

I don't know what spatial video is but it sounds like a gimmick.

Get a good mirrorless and take 4k videos with good lenses. They will document the memory so much better than crappy phone videos.

I got a Sony mirrorless recently and the video (and audio) quality is superb - broadcast quality.

The DSLR looks quite a bit better in all of those examples, however maybe that's me looking as a photographer and seeing the background blur from a larger sensor, better dynamic range and color, less highlight clipping, less noise, less processing 'smoothing' things, and so on.

In reality none of that really matters for day to day photos, I take casual photos to have memories of places and people, and a smartphone does just fine for that.

Sensor size matters and it’s not included anywhere in the specs (red flag)

Along with all the other comments in this thread and based on the media outlet that published this, this is clearly a rigged comparison

I mean, the pixel size and resolution of the iPhone 15 camera are public information, so a little bit of math will get you the dimensions of the sensor if that's of interest for some reason.

You'd also need the distance between the pixels.

What happens if you take a picture of a noisy (or grainy) photo print using an iPhone?

Would it remove the noise?

Mid-day photos viewed on a mobile screen or maybe a desktop: iPhone is ok

Sunrise / Sunset photo for printing purposes: not even close.

these comparisons are always amusing. no one takes their DSLR everywhere, so the "real world" comparison would be iPhone vs nothing.

heck, even if you had your full frame DSLR in a bag with you all of the time. Unless you're photographing something "slow" like a sunset, you would lose your shot by the time you get to your bag and pull out your camera.

It’s not unusual to take a camera on vacation and keep it handy whenever possible.

> the "real world" comparison would be iPhone vs nothing.

Or iPhone versus being-there-in-the-moment-yourself.

It's especially amusing when people watch entire live performances through the screen of their phone.

Compare it to a modern missorless camera like the Nikon Z9 or Z8.

Zero comparison aside from cost. These silly tests never end for clicks, it's like comparing mcdonalds for a hamburger vs a chef, same result but one took significantly more time where quality means something to the creator. Convenience is nice but it's never close to full potential. fwiw, I've shot the z9 and it's incredible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com