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When the first iPhone came out, the camera was an afterthought, only tossed in to feature match its competitors. Fast forward four years and it’s an entirely different story, Apple has made it a point of emphasis and the camera in the iPhone 4S sh-sh-sh-shines.
But how much has it really improved? Lisa Bettany took the same picture with every iPhone (that’s the original, 3G, 3GS, 4, and 4S) to see the differences and PetaPixel stitched ‘em together to show you how each new generation improved upon the previous model (aside from the original and 3G, that is). And it’s a HUUUGE difference. Like seeing the world for the very first time again different. The 3GS was the first big jump in camera quality but then it just went up from there with the lovely 4 and the king of the hill, stupidly detailed 4S.
Maybe you needed a point and shoot cam back when the first iPhones came out but if you have a 4S now, you’re just lugging around a needless brick. Check out Camera+ to see more comparison photos with the Canon s95 and 5D Mark II. [Camera+ via PetaPixel]
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It’d be nice if we could compare all the latest phones (4S, Razr, GS II and Nexus) once they’re out.
Maybe a nice first comparison article for Giz UK?
Someone already compared the GSII and 4S and found the GSII to be marginally better…
I despise camera comparisons since they’re always under perfect conditions but real life smartphone pictures never are taken under such conditions. They are taken in low light, fast, moving conditions.
This is truly a terrible article. Sorry Casey, but how is this good journalism? Even if it wasn’t about something contentious like a phone, it would still be ridiculous.
The pictures from the Original and 3G aren’t focusing on the same object. This is not a measure of camera quality at all. If anything it’s a measure of camera features. But really it’s just shitty journalism.
All the journalism surrounding the 4S’s camera is ridiculous. The fact it’s 8 megapixels. I mean really? I thought we all realised in about 2004 that megapixels are a marketing gimmick that mean literally nothing? I only bother to save out shots from my real dedicated cameras at about 5MP. Let alone my phone. Saving them out at 10MP or 14MP is just a waste of disk space unless you’re trying to make a poster, and even then if you blow up a photo from your phone into a poster, you’re in trouble.
Ultimately, the iPhone 4S camera is not better than it’s contemporaries’ cameras (GS2 I’m looking at you), but as usual Apple is getting praised for a standard feature. Meanwhile all the other manufacturers who have had been churning out phones with decent cameras for years get ignored by the press.
What infuriates me most is when a journalist writes something like “The xxx has only a 5MP to the iPhone 4S’ 8MP”. They often follow it up with some kind of disclaimer like “(although MP isn’t everything)”. This is literally bullshit. Forget the disclaimer, just forget the whole sentence. The MP means absolutely NOTHING in this case. You will not get any more detail out of that image. just more noise and artifacts from the firmware trying to clean up all the data. I’d rather have the 5MP and get less noise. Save’s me ticking an option to lower the filesize too!
Every journalist who has ever praised any camera or phone for it’s megapixel rating does not understand digital cameras and/or digital photography. I’m sorry if that includes about half of the Gizmodo staff, but it just has to be said.
Thanks for your long rant!
I know, I’m ridiculous.
I obviously read too much Ken Rockwell.
I’m posting this reply to myself because my very LONG comment was messing up the Gizmodo.co.uk homepage!
It is a better camera though isn’t it? the image is definitely sharper and the colours are more vibrant and have less of a blue hue compared to the iPhone 4.
You can really see those extra megapixels being put to good use
I took my iPhone 4 on holiday as my only camera last year (I decided not to take my old Sony digital) and got some great, and pretty big, prints from it (I forget the size!). If it had had less megapixels I would have had to get smaller prints and if I’d had more MPixels I could have mahoosive prints! so I guess sometimes it does count to have more MPixels.
Bhenn, yes. It is better. The problems I have are that:
A) it’s not bettter because of the megapixels bump
B) the press treats it as exceptional, above the competition (this is a brand power thing in combination with sloppy journalism regarding point A)
Please read this: http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm
To see how many megapixels you need for posters (or even billboards): http://knol.google.com/k/print-sizes-for-different-digital-camera-resolutions
You could print A3 posters (at 150 DPI) with 5 Megapixels. You could also print a 6 foot billboard with 5 Megapixels.
More importantly, these “higher megapixel” low-end digital cameras (like in phones) aren’t giving you more detail, despite the higher resolution. You get MORE noise and MORE artefacts. Will this look better when printed at huge sizes than an equivalent 5MP version? The answer is NO. Regardless of the fact it has more pixels in the image. There are examples all over the web if you choose to look, debunking this myth.
Anything over 5MP in a sensor that small will do you no good. It’s just a stat to sell tech to consumers who do not understand.
Fair enough… but can I just say, no where in Casey’s article did he mention ANYTHING about the iPhone 4S having 8 Mega pixels?!?!
if anything, YOU turned this into a mega pixels topic!
It was one of the other Gizmodo posts. If you’re seriously telling me Gizmodo journalists don’t help spread the megapixel myth, you need to get your head examined.
This article just received my ire, because it’s yet another article making a big deal out of the iPhone 4′s camera, something of a standard feature. And the fact that the comparison photos were terrible makes it look like shocking journalism.
Does that make sense?
My 2p:
1) You need to practice reading comprehension
2) You know nothing about cameras or, indeed, megapixels
As for the article, the bottom line is pretty obvious: the latest iPhone has a better camera than the original iPhone, now with 33% more proof!
Yeah, very convincing argument there Emmanuel.
No, try again. Next time, try disagreeing with any particular points I have made and offer some kind of counter explanation, rather than say “You know nothing about cameras or, indeed, megapixels”.
Clearly from your facebook picture you take yourself to be some kind of photography guru, so you’ve come and replied to this post with a (clearly false) sense of superiority about the subject of which you seemingly have no actual technical understanding.
If you know something I don’t about cameras and the megapixel debate, feel free to post that. But clearly you don’t know anything.
What a dreadful article by Camera+. We all know the iphone cameras have become much better but the s95 is leagues ahead of any cameraphone. Setting a camera up very badly e.g. for night photography and then comparing it to something set to auto in the middle of the day is extremely misleading.