At my latitude in Brisbane, Australia 27 degrees that translates to about an extra 40 minutes of shooting at dusk before the phone starts to lose picture quality by turning up its ISO. Those 40 minutes are enough to reach the dim, interesting light that forces DSLRs onto a tripod if you want a lot of depth of field. If you live closer to the poles, you'll get even longer. Just for fun, I wondered how the iPhone 5 would compare against a full-frame DSLR when you want everything in focus and hand-held.
By creating a test with all the conditions stacked in the favour of the iPhone, how would it compare against a Nikon D3? Yet still it couldn't match the the depth of field from the iPhone, nor achieve the same exposure. Score one to the iPhone 5. This represents an extremely narrow set of circumstances in a contrived test.
The iPhone falls behind in quality the moment you bring a tripod into the equation, or change the lighting, or if you want any of the things an iPhone alone can't do: a different focal length, different aperture, raw files, or flash. But to see that there is any overlap between them in quality in any situation surprised me. For reference, here is the same shot on a tripod with the Nikon D3 in raw, processed and sharpened in Adobe Lightroom 4 and Photoshop. The image quality is in a different league to the other images, but it can only be shot on a tripod.
With the right camera app, the iPhone shot will also be improved on a tripod. The iPhone doesn't offer you any control over aperture, shutter speed or ISO, so you might expect that you'd feel like a "passenger", with the phone making all the decisions and you just along for the ride.
I get that feeling when shooting a dedicated camera on automatic. But I've never had that feeling when shooting with iPhones. That's because iPhones are entirely predictable, and you quickly get to know what result they'll give you.
That leaves just two things for the camera to juggle as the light changes — shutter speed and ISO, and it plays with them in a predictable, simple way that has barely changed since the iPhone 4. The graph below tells the story:. How the iPhones pick ISO and shutter speed in various levels of light.
Note the steady drop in the lowest ISO with each subsequent model. In bright light, it changes just the shutter speed, and in dim light, it changes just the ISO. And the tipping point to swap between the two is the typical indoor brightness. Essentially, if you're outside during the day, the phone only changes the shutter speed.
When you're indoors, it only changes the ISO. Outside by day, the iPhone 5 leaves the ISO untouched at its base of 50 to give the best picture detail. If the light dims below EV7. The "flash" on all the current iPhone models isn't really a flash; it's a bright LED. And while it's very bright for an LED, it's nowhere near as powerful as the strobe flash found on a dedicated camera, so it only reaches a couple of metres from the phone.
On the iPhone 4s and earlier, it's placed so close to the lens that photos are plagued by red-eye. On the iPhone 5, the flash has been moved 3mm further away, but that doesn't seem to be far enough, as red-eye is still runs rampant. The LED flash is not as neutral in colour as a camera flash - the flash on my handset has a slight green tinge.
While many cameras set their white balance to match the colour of the flash when it fires, the iPhone doesn't, so photos faithfully record any colour bias from the flash. I see hundreds of iPhones on our courses, and I've found lots of difference in the colour of the flash between handsets from the iPhone 4, ranging from neutral with a green tinge, to noticeably orange. The LED flashes that we've seen on iPhone 4s handsets have been more consistent.
The panorama mode instantly creates single-row panoramas as you smoothly rotate the camera through up to degrees. It's easy to use, and the the detail and resolution it gives is impressive.
It builds-up the panorama in real-time, piecing it together out of thin strips. This gives a number of differences to traditional panoramic apps that stitch together adjacent photos:. To a photographer, the lens on the iPhones seems horribly exposed, with no protection from the elements or the keys and change in your pocket. The iPhone 5 has a new covering made of sapphire crystal, which Apple claims will better resist scratches.
Pointing it directly at the sun, I couldn't see any extra lens flare compared to an iPhone 4s. In fact, the flare was well-controlled - just a small central spot, and some purple flaring of lights that are just immediately outside of the field of view. Management of your photos unfortunately appears unchanged on the iPhone 5 with iOS6. Apple seems to want your computer not your phone to be the centre of your digital universe, and Apple limits your ways to organise photos directly on the phone.
Apple seems to be gently reminding you that iTunes is meant to be the boss, and handle all the syncing and exchange of photos for you. This may not be practical for photographers, and it is possible to use Lightroom 4 to import iPhone photos onto computers, and simply treat the phone as an over-sized memory card with a camera attached.
There is no star-rating system nor keywording for images in the camera roll, so organisation becomes a challenge once you have lots of images. Some apps offer it, but only by duplicating all of your photos and then rating and keywording the new copies. Battery life is the bane of iPhone photographers — constantly feeding electricity into a thirsty phone.
Apple claims slightly longer battery life, and this was borne out by fully-charging both an iPhone 5 and 4s, and doing the same things with both through the day in airplane mode. In natural light, the colours are similar between the iPhone 4s and the iPhone 5. Reds appear a little more vivid on my iPhone 5, but the difference is slight, and you couldn't tell that by looking at the display, because the display on the iPhone 5 shows all colours more vividly.
Mine is also noticeably warmer more amber than that of my 4s. In part 2 of this review, we'll look at these issues further, and how they affect editing photos in apps. Under artificial light indoors, the iPhone 5 occasionally does better at removing the orange colour to the lights, but I couldn't provoke it to do this consistently. Any differences in overall brightness, contrast or exposure in the images from these two phones are small enough not to worry about.
The HDR feature of the camera - where it takes three photos at different brightnesses and combines the best parts of each to make a single optimised image - works in just the same way as it did on earlier models Both phones give the best HDR result if you tap on a darker area first. The iPhone 5's camera is an evolutionary — not a revolutionary — step forward for iPhones.
Whether or not you like it will depend more on your goals from photography than on its particular performance or features. Compared to the iPhone 4s, the biggest difference is its speed.
The 5 feels faster and more responsive, with a much shorter shot-to-shot time. It feels clunky to go back to using a 4s after using the 5. Its photos also show more aggressive noise reduction, but at the cost of smearing away some of the finer details.
Personally, I prefer the look of pictures from the iPhone 4s, but the speed of the iPhone 5 has already seduced me too effectively to consider going back. If getting the best technical quality is one of your main concerns, then the compromises inherent in using any vintage smartphone camera will probably not be attractive to you. But technical quality is only one type of quality. If you agree, consider playing with a smart phone camera for a while. If you normally shoot with an SLR, you might be pleasantly surprised by the freedom to get lots of depth of field without a tripod — even at dusk.
You might like using a small, silent, discreet camera. The flexibility added by apps and instant processing and sharing is addictive. And in daylight, the picture quality may not be as far behind your DSLR as you might expect from its size.
But you probably won't like the grain or smearing that becomes noticeable in hand-held shots below about EV5 standard indoor brightness. You won't like its inability to get shallow depth-of-field, to zoom, to shoot raw files, or to shoot at all in light dimmer than EV Smartphones are a different type of brush for painting photos. They have obvious drawbacks compared to dedicated cameras, and a handful of niche advantages too.
I like using different brushes for different pictures. The diversity makes it an exciting time to be a photographer. Want to get the most out of your iPhone camera? Please let us know. Apple iPhone 5 Comparisons. Apple iPhone 5 Competitors. Apple iPhone 5 User Review and Ratings 3. Displaying of 83 reviews. I have used other smartphones with OS based on Android, BlackBerry and Windows, but no other Smartphone comes closer to iPhone5 from Performance and looks point of view.
I have applications present on my iPhone along with almost songs, 76 videos and photos but i have never ever experienced performance lag on my phone while using apps, watching videos. The looks ,exterior built and finishing of iPhone is excellent and at just gm its so lightweight that gives a great feeling and grip while handling the phone and it feels worth of every penny spent to buy the iPhone 5. Next thing best in my iPhone is the sound quality which is best i have heard in all the phones i have been using.
The Airplay feature is absolutely great which i use to view the videos and movies on my Apple TV. The ease of use that iOS 7. Integration with iCloud just makes all the things available with ease across my iPhone 4 as well as my iPad device. The security is also great and i never ever felt like installing an Anti-virus software on my iPhone during the use.
The 8 MP camera gives excellent image during day and night time and while viewing the clicked images on PC or TV, the quality of image itself speaks for iPhone. Speaking of the Battery life, i have always heard negatively about battery life from other users of iPhone but i have never ever faced that issue with my iPhone.
It gives me a great battery backup of almost days when i use only Wifi and no 3G or 2G which can be termed excellent compared to other smartphone battery life. The only feature that disappoints me is the use of iTunes to copy and sync all the music, videos, photos etc to my iPhone. This limits me to sync my device to another system which has another set of songs and videos where iTunes is installed as syncing this will erase the data that is already present on my iPhone. So all in all, i have none of the complaints with my iPhone and continue to and will always be proud owner of my Apple iPhone.
Is this review helpful? Do not r. Apple Iphone 5 the samrt thing which is available. Iphone 5 is the best smartphone i come across. Integration with iCloud just makes all the things available with ease across my iPad device.
It deserve 5 stars for its security, performance, camera almost everything. It is best to the young generation who wants thier all work in one go. Even with low specs on paper this phone is very snappy and smooth, this is because the OS is specifically made or the Iphone. Same goes for the apps, they are specifically made for Iphone, all apps open in a snap! No sluggishness or lag whatsoever. The Apple ap store has maximum number of apps and no need to worry if certain app will work well, or if certain game will run smoothly on the Iphone.
They are made for the Iphone so no problem. Software updates are easily available as they are released by the manufacturer Apple itself. The screen, though small, is a delight to the eyes. I myself feel no strain when reading on this. Maybe thats the reason its called a retina display.
Quick navigation from lock screen to camera app. The camera is excellent in any kind of situations..
It also acts like a status symbol, if you don't have an Iphone you don't have an Iphone :P I wish the display was a little larger and the price a little lower. Fact of iPhone. I am using iPhone from past when it lunched The original iPhone, now i am using iPhone 5 till now i didnt faced any issue in Apple iPhone.
Who used iPhone in his life will never back to any other device like Android etc. I have a experience of 5 years, i have tried to go back but can't loss my money in Android.
Dont think to buy iPhone. Apple is the one and only brand which is best in industry. An Icon. Had bought it soon after it was launched and faced no issues initially. But once it got wet in a rain it took 2 weeks to get back to normal functioning and is till now subject to occasional erroneous functioning. Access to the best app store is a huge plus point. But many of these plus points are in other android devices at a lesser price but they aren't lPhones. Review : iPhone 5.
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