Optical or Digital: Minimum focusing distance on iPhone 15 Pro Max 5x camera
davidnelson.net
davidnelson.net
Generally, people don't care if the phone uses expensive 5x lens or not. I don't really know who does. :) They are at some position and want to quickly take a picture - phone refusing to take a photo or taking an out of focus one would be terrible for them and cause outrage. Image Quality is somewhat important, but 1000x less important than capturing the right moment. If you miss the moment - it's gone forever.
I worked as a researcher at the Google HDR+ team, developing algorithms for Pixel 2/3/4/5/6 camera. And consistently we would get both user studies/bugs/feedback, as well as guidance from PMs that responsiveness/latency and "taking any usable photo at all as fast as possible" was more important than the Image Quality. I'll admit, we didn't always deliver and often compromised (doing in software what everyone else was doing in hardware back then is HARD), but this principle blocked some cool IQ improvements from launching - and I think was the right call, even if some of those were mine (like high quality multi frame super res in every photo).
The author didn't claim that iPhone has it wrong, just that their personal expectation and preference is different.
> Generally, people don't care if the phone uses expensive 5x lens or not. I don't really know who does. :)
That's a strange claim. I know many people who value decent quality zoom, even if they're not otherwise photography geeks.
> we would get both user studies/bugs/feedback, as well as guidance from PMs that responsiveness/latency and "taking any usable photo at all as fast as possible" was more important than the Image Quality
What I don't like about these studies is that it collapses different user groups and different use cases into one average "taking any usable photo at all as fast as possible". The reality is much more colorful and often depends on a situation. When taking a photo of an animal then quick shutter speed is indeed important. But when I'm taking a photo of a static subject, esp. in challenging light conditions, I care more about quality.
We were not conflating user groups, just that if one group is literally 95% of the market and all photos taken, then you optimize the default app and the default mode for them and make the experience super polished. The remaining 5% of power users can use dedicated apps...
I'm not sure if this is directly relevant to the original problem of camera switching on its own, but to bite - there's certainly something possible in between super quick photos and those which need multiple seconds.
> The remaining 5% of power users can use dedicated apps...
One thing to consider is that for those 5% of power users the camera is a more important consideration in their buying decisions than the rest.
Another issue here is that you can't really use a different app without losing a lot of the Google Camera specific functionality.
They also never claimed that what they want is the ideal behaviour for everyone. Wanting a different behaviour from the "good enough, works for most people" solution is perfectly valid, and doesn't necessarily imply that you think the default is bad.
> Generally, people don't care if the phone uses expensive 5x lens or not. I don't really know who does
I'm not sure the author does really. They just want the option to be able to chose to step back to get a higher quality photo. Camera quality is a big selling point for iPhones, so it's not too surprising that some people think their phone should help them take higher quality photos instead of letting them make bad choices.
They said that they want the 5x option to only use the 5x lens, but their bigger complaint is that they can't see what it's doing until too late. I'm sure they would be satisfied with an option to turn on an indicator of which lens is being used, or an unobtrusive message which says "move back 10cm for a better photo".
Heck, the google camera even does this, when prompting you to turn on night sight if it's too dark for the normal mode. That's a very similar trade-off.
The stock camera app does not interpret the user tapping the 5x button as wanting the 5x camera; it interprets it as the user wanting the highest quality photo at 5x magnification that the system (thinks it) can deliver, because there are a lot of potential tradeoffs to be made.
It's a subtle distinction, but it's there. If you want a behavior like you describe, use a "pro" app like Halide or Obscura.
My expectation is that when I consciously choose that zoom factor, it does use the hardware I paid for, otherwise why buy the hardware to start with ? And in this case the hardware part is the main feature you spend more money for, it is not a side-feature. If nothing else I would expect this as a configuration item, by default using the actual hardware with an option of "turn this AIblah thing on for the phone to select the best possible camera for you for any zoom level", could even extend it to more mambo jumbo (or not) wording but you get the point.
Taking it one step further, where does this stop? I get the 24kBTU air conditioning unit but can't actually fully use it because when you put it at max the AC decides on its own that it will send the "proper amount of cool air for the environment, outside temperature etc" and you can't override it. I know, a bit stupid example but you get the point. And I'm all in for the many cases that device calculated decisions can bring a lot of benefit compared on what the user chooses BUT give the explanation and the option to turn it off and don't assume things
So rare that adding more complexity in the form of “do you want what you asked for, or do you want to exercise the capability that sounds like what you asked for” is going to do more harm than good.
If you’re really happier controlling products at that level of detail, DIY is probably the way to go.
If enabled, it displays an icon when the lenses are auto swapped and pressing it swaps them back.
I figured if I can drag my mirrorless camera half way across the world I can chuck it in my bag when I'm out. And that allows me to buy a considerably cheaper phone.
Pixel 6A output is a fine example of where digital processing goes awry: https://imgur.com/a/YLNyYnb . I regret not retaking that photo with my mirrorless but I learned to use the right tools for the job there.
But then things seemed to get weird. I had a Samsung S21 Ultra, and while it did some neat party tricks, I tended to dislike most of the photos, especially if you get anywhere near 100% view. Just so much automatic editing that maybe looks OK for a compressed web photo, but is not a high quality photo.
I'm on a OnePlus 9 Pro and I am back to loving taking photos with it. They aren't as "impressive" as the 10x zoom photos, but they look good and do not look massively overworked. But it makes me nervous for when I need a replacement and have to come forward on this arc.
At the end of the day, they are all tools with pros and cons. Use what works for you.
For a professional setup it’s not great. But to capture nice memories and stay light at all times it’s perfect. I really prefer the quality of my dslr but it’s so cumbersome to carry around and to process photos then share them that it’s a compromise I’m willing to accept. It’s a nightmare for me to process thousands of picture from my dslr.
I don't need a pro camera.
If it was an unprocessed crop it'd be workable into something that doesn't look like an oil painting by Dall-E
Your picture looks pretty good when looking at it zoomed-out (small picture), it gets really bad only when you zoom in. But then this was likely heavily (digitally) zoomed, so even the original RAW crop likely wouldn't be usable in anything other than small format.
The wide is supposedly f1.8 while the telephoto is supposedly f2.8. the wide has pixels 4 times bigger, so the effective sensor size is about 2/3 on the wide for this field of view. So I think the telephoto gets roughly half the light as the wide if I'm doing mental math correctly.
I wish they had 4 cameras at 0.5x, 1x, 3x and 10x like Samsung does.
Also, the resolution of the photo is mostly limited not by the number of megapixels, but by optical resolution of the lens.
All this contributes to complexity and lack of control, and it makes me use my digital camera more. Since this workaround works for me, I’m not interested in upgrading my phone, at least not because of camera improvements.
https://www.dpreview.com/news/1686332610/sony-s-xperia-1-and...
They should be taking a photo from both lenses and computationally merging them. Sure - very close shots will mostly use the output of one lens, and distant shots will mostly use the other, but there should be no sudden switchover and there is no situation in which there is no value from extra data collected from the other.
The idea is quite simple, but it's rather difficult to implement in practice. The lenses have each different character, optical flaws, color rendering and naive merging would look pretty bad. But it does sound like something AI tech could handle.
The iPhone 15 Pro cameras are fantastic, but professionals shoot with real cameras, despite what Apple’s marketing says. (Professional vloggers/vertical video tiktokers notwithstanding.)
Yes, Apple did that as a marketing tool. But the fact that they were able to use the phone instead of the usual Arri/Blackmagic etc. does show that “pros” can make great looking products with it. Plus, I like the fact that Apple is dogfooding high end camera use. The more internal feedback they get the better. We’ll see if they keep using iPhones in their videos going forward.
I’ve shot log prores on my 15PM last month too; I knew what it can do even before their stunt.
If you’re already using this workflow, however, there’s little reason to use an iPhone, given the fact that you already own lenses and sensors that take much better images. Phones don’t have good lenses in them because of space constraints, and the sensors are small. It was a stunt, like a race driver taking a stock Civic around a track.
Yes, it’s possible. No, no working professional does that for real. (MKBHD tried it as a test for the Rivian/Amazon electric cargo van review video he made. That’s a much more real-world test than the Apple event—and it shows. The quality is surprisingly good for a phone but it’s still not anywhere near “professional” level.)
The “pro” on AirPods and iPhones (and 32GB MacBooks) is just branding.
For photos instead of video you can find tons of amazing pictures that people took on iPhone pros. People take the picture in raw and then process it themselves like they would if it was from a DSLR and they come out incredible.
Yeah the stock camera app meant to be point-and-shoot doesn’t re-create the same results as a professional spending a bunch of time in Photoshop, but what do you expect? Apple does a pretty good job of making very good photos under incredible constraints of tiny sensors, possibly low light, and every other condition that someone might whip their phone out in.