A closer Look at iPhone 14
Earlier this week I posted a series of images captured with my new iPhone 14, and I thought I’d dive a little deeper into the subject here. Am I impressed? Very much so—occasionally. Am I over the moon? Not really. But let me explain.
Ever since Apple began taking iPhone photography seriously, reviews have been written pronouncing the death of the standalone camera. And for most people, those predictions have come to pass: iPhones (along with all smartphones) are now the devices used to capture daily memories. For many, it’s the one and only camera they own. Everything else is now a niche. That’s the reality, and I can’t argue with it. But I have to pause when I read articles such as this one from Macworld, pitting an iPhone 14 Pro against Fujifilm’s X-E4, and concluding (from truly awful images, sorry), that “In many cases, you may leave a mirrorless behind in favor of the iPhone 14 Pro to get similar shots with the advantages of a multiple-purpose device with a day-long battery life and cellular photo and video upload.”
Yes, you may. And I’m a firm believer in using whatever is at hand to answer whatever creative impulse we may feel in any given moment. But if you own an X-E4, chances are you’re shooting more than brick walls; chances are the lens you’re using is miles beyond the one on the iPhone—Pro or not Pro; chances are you know a bit more about photography than the average person, and you can control a camera properly. So sure, you might get similar shots… but you’re also likely to get much better shots. It reminds me of those yearly arguments about replacing a laptop with an iPad: it all depends on how you use the device. Trucks and cars.
The good news is that we’ve reached a point where all these machines are perfectly suitable solutions. But: it’s still an apples and oranges situation—forgive the pun.
Hands-on
I’ll skip over the ergonomic aspect: I’m now basically blind at short distances, so shooting with a screen is an obvious problem for me (unless I’m wearing reading glasses, which I only do when I’m…you know…reading). But the fact remains that we compose differently at arm's length—just due to plain physicality. This isn’t good or bad, but it does lead us elsewhere. Difference #1. There’s also the issue of focal length: 26 mm (on the main lens) is a lot wider than what I prefer, so this affects me as well. Difference #2.
But setting these aside, I was most curious about the computational part of the experience, and on this front I remain mostly nonplussed. Which surprised me because I’d expected to be wowed, given all the emphasis Apple places on AI during presentations. And I’ll be honest, it might be a question of personal preference. For one, I find the internal processing of HEIC files to be overzealous with noise reduction as soon as lighting isn’t optimal; I’m also not crazy about the tendency to oversaturate or brighten-up every image, although manually dropping exposure helps in this regard. The trick is to keep ISO as low as possible because the noise, when it appears, isn’t nice at all. No filmic grain here. But give it enough light to work with and it can really shine—even on a cat pic:
Note: despite what I’m about to write below, that image was processed from HEIC. But it’s ISO 125 at f/1.5, which helps.
SIDEBAR
When shooting with Halide, images are saved to the Photos app as JPEG+RAW. These are the steps I follow to use them in Capture One:
Select the images in Photos.
Choose File>Export>Export Unmodified Originals.
Save the images (this exports JPEG and RAW as individual files).
Import all files into Capture One, just like any other images.
In the Photos app.
Low-light but low iso: ISO 32, 1/85s at f/1.5.
Most of you are aware that I use Fujifilm’s JPEG files extensively, and I have no problem processing these in Capture One (working within the format’s limitations). These iPhone’s HEIC files, however, will sometimes break down surprisingly quickly in post. I can’t explain why, but they do. The headroom simply isn’t there, especially on low-light images. Now, Apple doesn’t allow shooting raw files on non-pro models (shame on them), so I turned to Halide to experiment with this. The difference was night and day: not perfect and not anywhere near what our cameras can deliver, but much more pleasant to work with. All the images I posted were shot in raw using this app.
The main issues I’ve noticed so far:
Highlights in HEIC captures can fail spectacularly (see below…ouch).
Shadow recovery, even on raw files, quickly leads to ugly colour noise.
Sharpness is…ok? Glass is glass, folks.
Higher ISOs dissolve into a hot mess fast.
Raw files display very strong vignetting when imported. Easily fixed, but still surprising.
…
Again, I want to stress that this isn’t the 48MP version of the iPhone 14 lineup. But we’re still looking at a better camera (with a faster lens and the new Photonic Engine) than last year’s Pro models, so I believe it’s still provides a clue as to where we are.
For me, it comes down to this: in a pinch, if all I have is my iPhone, I know I can capture an image I’ll be ok with, maybe even happy about. And that’s really nice. Results will be nowhere near what I can achieve with my cameras, but that’s fine—as long as I’m aware of the limitations.
Going back to the initial post, those images in the morning fog are a good example: this was Saturday morning, after dropping-off our daughter for her weekend job at a nearby orchard, ten minutes away from home. I stopped by the side of the road, took out my iPhone, shot a few pictures. Done. Without it, they’d only be a memory.
We’ve come a long way… but I won’t be selling my cameras anytime soon.
…
P.S Something worth noting, I think: so far, every iPhone file I’ve exported from C1 for these posts has been two to three times larger than any image from a Fujifilm camera, at the same size and JPEG settings. The only explanation I can think of is noise messing with the compression (it’s visible in the blue sky on the images above).
But it’s significant: some images are over 1MB, and lowering size and compression to ridiculously low settings (that look terrible) barely gets me in the same ballpark as my usual posts.
