New iPhone portrait/blur control vs DSLR

[Huss]

Sometimes our buddy KR posts really interesting stuff.
Here he compares the iphone's latest portrait editing software (in camera/phone) to the same scene taken with a DSLR.

https://kenrockwell.com/tech/comparisons/iphone-vs-full-frame-bokeh.htm

What is incredible is the software on the iPhone allows you to change the aperture setting/DOF of the pic AFTER it was taken!

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

When I first saw this article, I thought he was having a laugh. Look at the lower right of the weather station in his picture. "Portrait mode" completely missed the outline of the subject and blurred it.

I have to wonder if the people saying iPhone portrait mode photos "look just like they were shot with a professional DSLR" are looking at the same photos I'm seeing. It's almost like people buy these $1,000 phones and keep telling themselves this until they start believing it.

Although not discussed in the article, I personally think the "portrait lighting mode" stinks. It makes photos look fake and overprocessed and blurs out all details and textures in skin tones.

While the iPhone camera(s) can produce some great images, I think they work best when you let them be what they are—fantastic point and shoots with a built-in computer and internet connection. I wouldn't try to turn an iPhone camera into something it's not.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I didn't know Canon 50 1.2 RF is this good.

 

[Peter Jennings]

I have an iPhone X and have found the portrait mode feature to be hit or miss. In some situations it can be hard to distinguish the difference between it and real DOF blur, but in most it is pretty obvious fakery (to me at least). The XS looks like an improvement, but this isn't really a selling point of the phone for me. It's just a fun feature.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I like portrait mode a lot—it isn’t always perfect, but I can usually get it to do what I want. I’ve been using a 7+ for a couple of years and am getting the new phone—eager to see how it’s improved.

I have heard, though, that the noise reduction was more aggressive on the X than in the past, and that it’s been pulled back a little on the XS. Anybody know if there’s an app that lets you straight-up turn it off? Or is that stuff happening on-chip, away from the API?

 

[DanskDynamit]

I really dislike the blur from the iPhone, it looks fake, very fake.
it also reminds me to the results from the app called "Big Lens".

 

[DanskDynamit]

What is incredible is the software on the iPhone allows you to change the aperture setting/DOF of the pic AFTER it was taken!

not really, you can do that with any iPhone and the app "Big Lens" (since 2012 if I'm not wrong) with even better results than what the new iPhone gets.

 

[willie_901]

I picked up a XS last night.

It's a busy time so I don't plan to play with the camera for a while.

I generally just use smart phone cameras for visual note taking or some quick family snap shot. For those times I want to make what I consider a photograph, I use the Adobe LR app so I can have a raw file. So the portrait feature won't apply.

Eventually I'll play around with the portrait mode just for laughs.

For most people smart phones are better than the point & shoot camera they use to own or would have owned if smart-phone cameras didn't exist. For some of these owners the simulation features are useful and attractive.

 

[Gregm61]

iPhones take GREAT pictures of subjects like the parking spot at the airport so I don't forget where I parked my car on the way out of town on a trip.

All the pictures after that point, I use my real camera.

 

[Godfrey]

Just like any other camera, an iPhone 8 Plus camera can do a lot of things well and a lot of things pretty poorly. It's up to the photographer to learn what works well when and use it judiciously.

Comparing an iPhone to a DSLR is kind of like saying that tomatoes and concrete are directly comparable. It does not compute.

 

[Filter Factor]

Sounds about right. My iPhone is a terrific point & shoot. I use it as much as a phone as anything else.... If I need photos in a hurry but don't need to upload them anywhere, I use my Fujifilm Instax camera. And even those, I can scan them later at my convenience.

 

[Archlich]

Bought a X20 used for very low price to play around. A nice solid camera with nice VF, better than anything I've seen in the film days. But image quality wise it gets destroyed by the iPhone X, which has a sensor 3/4 size of the former...