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akash.nu

macrumors G4
May 26, 2016
10,870
16,998
A simple pro mode would be all it takes, even if you have to enable it in the settings for the option to become available in the camera app so that the vast majority will still see the simple settings

There are so many apps that let you control everything in terms of the camera though. Pros would use them rather than sticking to the stock camera app which is mainly designed for average consumer.
 
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Apple Knowledge Navigator

macrumors 68040
Mar 28, 2010
3,697
12,932
I have a 12 Pro and can sympathise with your experiences. Technically it’s a very decent camera, but the processing is so inconsistent that I can no longer rely on it to take natural-looking photographs.

Sadly I learned this the hard way. A month ago I took a holiday to a place I’d never been before, and naively assumed that it was finally time to just take the iPhone for my photography.

For focal lengths I just about got away with it, but my word the processing of the images was bordering on heart-breaking at times.

Buildings that literally look as if they’ve been lasso tooled in Photoshop to separate them from the other points of interest, resulting in an oversaturated sky, overly bright landmark and okay street.

Other times the colours start clipping. Detail is lost through some denoising process. Edges look like they’ve been smeared with Vaseline.

This was an important trip for me and I was so disappointed with my photos after, it made me realise how convenience can’t always trump trusted quality. And to be fair even the most compact camera offers more resolution and detail than a smartphone; if I want to enhance images later I can do that in a lot of software.

Something else I realised was that it’s stupid of me to be paying so much more for the ‘pro’ phone just to get the telephoto lens when, in truth, I don’t even like the resulting images.
 

louis^

macrumors member
Sep 7, 2016
52
134
So how is it? Does it let you do what you need?
With ProCamera you can't take pictures in 48MP, but in 16:9. With Halide it's the other way around. Everyone has to decide for himself. I bought ProCamera and had it refunded. I'll stick with the following option for now: Shoot with the Apple camera as ProRaw 36MP and 16:9 and export with Halide from DNG to JPEG. Because Halide expands the edges when exporting, I always end up with a nice 16:9 image as JPEG and without annoying Smart HDR fuss. Hopefully this will get better with the iPhone 15. Zollotech has already noticed the first differences.
 

TVreporter

macrumors 68020
Mar 11, 2012
2,057
3,419
Near Toronto
Can you post some photo comparisons with the 14PM to your other phones? Or post photos of examples you think the processing was extreme.
 

Motionblurrr

macrumors 65816
Jul 1, 2008
1,309
1,626
I don't mind the processing too much because it does make the photos appear a bit cooler

However, the XS series took Godly normal photos
 

TokyoKiller

macrumors regular
Aug 2, 2023
147
311
Just going to say it. For more reasons than I can even be bothered listing here, the iPhone 14 pro max camera is the worst phone camera I’ve ever had. I only bought this phone for the 48mp Raw capability - and yea in theory having that is great. But, little did I know all the “smart” processing and lens switching etc. this phone does would make it basically useless. Especially for interior shots in commercial spaces/lighting. The image you see when you click the shutter is nothing like what the final image becomes. It is so over processed and totally far from being even close to accurate contrast/colour/ability to handle LED lights etc. it’s basically unusable. Upgraded from an iPhone X, before that a 6, 4s, 3Gs. Deeply regret it and should’ve stuck with the X.
Apple has me with its ecosystem, but how the hell is this camera possibly considered “pro” when you can override all of the BS the software does to every photo?
Also, no other apps I’ve tried including Halide do anything to stop this happening…
Rant over?

I feel this way about the iPhone 13 Pro and its camera. It's actually the worst camera in an iPhone that I've had and I've had every iPhone since the 3GS. I recently started to contemplate getting an iPhone Mini and buying a Fujifilm X100V as my camera. I am just over the iPhone camera.
 

MDF314159265

macrumors 6502
Sep 4, 2010
330
833
Temecula, CA
My thoughts were exactly the same after I got the iPhone X. Ultimately, the iPhone X is what led me back to using proper cameras for good photos.
iPhones are great for “on the fly photos,” but if you want anything of great quality, a real camera with some good glass is your best bet.

Don’t get me wrong, iPhones can still take some pretty good pictures. But I never count on the final product meeting my expectations.
 

jagolden

macrumors 68000
Feb 11, 2002
1,587
1,502
I agree 100% the 14PM camera sucks.

Good luck scanning barcodes with the POS camera.

I sure hope the 15PM camera is better.

I certainly disagree, when used with the iOS 17. They’ve mitigated a lot of the ugly over-processing.
As to bar codes scans them just fine. I can be sitting in my living room across from my tv and easily scan bar codes-even at an angle.
So, that doesn’t fly.
 

Dsmith7

macrumors regular
Oct 20, 2021
125
168
I certainly disagree, when used with the iOS 17. They’ve mitigated a lot of the ugly over-processing.
As to bar codes scans them just fine. I can be sitting in my living room across from my tv and easily scan bar codes-even at an angle.
So, that doesn’t fly.
I hope are correct that apple has toned down the overprocessing with ios 17
 
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bollman

macrumors 6502a
Sep 25, 2001
746
1,627
Lund, Sweden
I find it funny that the ”Pro” camera has no ”pro” options at all. Point and shoot.
Apple be like: ”Nah, nah, we’re the Pro here, not you. Now look, this is the way it should look, trust the Pro.”
 

cthompson94

macrumors 6502a
Jan 10, 2022
812
1,164
SoCal
There are so many apps that let you control everything in terms of the camera though. Pros would use them rather than sticking to the stock camera app which is mainly designed for average consumer.
Yes I understand that and my comments in this whole thread are not about wanting to do "professional" work with the iPhone because of course using other apps with more control along with RAW and edits will get you there, but I am talking about the change that Apple has been making that is supposed to help the image quality that it has been doing for years. There is a reason the general agreement is somewhere between the iPhone X and the 12 the images straight out of camera were great, and I think the introduction of the Smart HDR where people/subjects are automatically edited now and depending on the lighting condition (in my experience low light and really bright sunny days) it just fails and there is no way to turn off Smart HDR, so a feature that was added that was supposed to help my photos doesn't always work, I can't turn it off in settings so I am supposed to pay for a 3rd party that can? when it previously wasn't a problem
 

Onimusha370

macrumors 65816
Aug 25, 2010
1,042
1,518
Yes. I’m an artist and use the phone a lot in studio mainly for random progress shots etc. but I can’t even do that any more. Weirdly the iPhone X stayed truer to life.
I don’t expect a phone to give me shots like my Nikon I use for archival photographs, but the way it totally changes the contrast and colour after the shutter is pushed is infuriating
Yeah that does sound annoying. Mine doesn't do that - its been a great upgrade for me from previous iPhone cameras, maybe the best update ever. Wonder if there's something wrong with your handset in particular
 

Take Flight

macrumors regular
May 18, 2011
152
215
I agree 100% the 14PM camera sucks.

Good luck scanning barcodes with the POS camera.

I sure hope the 15PM camera is better.
Yes the scanning codes is the thing i noticed that is awful. I finally figured out if you hold it way further from the code than you would expect, it works better.
 

Surfsalot

Suspended
Mar 18, 2023
2,049
2,028
I certainly disagree, when used with the iOS 17. They’ve mitigated a lot of the ugly over-processing.
As to bar codes scans them just fine. I can be sitting in my living room across from my tv and easily scan bar codes-even at an angle.
So, that doesn’t fly.
try up close
 
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ctjack

macrumors 68000
Mar 8, 2020
1,565
1,575
Yes the scanning codes is the thing i noticed that is awful. I finally figured out if you hold it way further from the code than you would expect, it works better.
It is a known issue. Apple fixed later in devops code to engage wide angle camera but the end result depends if your scanner actually shifted to using the wide angle camera. So a third party problem at this moment like ups, sams coub scanners.
 

ElRojito

macrumors 6502
May 6, 2012
329
585
I remember purchasing a 13 pro after having an iPhone X and I was so disappointed. All my zoomed pictures looked like they’d been passed through the Adobe CS6 mosaic filter. I prefer the noise! Post processing really ruins the photos, imo. I’ll take a noisy photo over an over-processed one any day
 

Boeingfan

macrumors 6502
Dec 16, 2019
469
852
Australia
Surely everyone knows ‘pro’ is just a bollocks marketing term. What even is a ‘professional’ phone? My god the naming is awful. Hope it goes away.
It is indeed bollocks. Have a look at the plastic drink bottle section of almost any supermarket and there’s sure to be one with the Pro moniker. I saw one last week which was black and orange, suffixed with Pro. Perplexingly inane.

‘Egg Flipper Pro; available for a limited time in matt black and featuring precision flipping capability. It’s our best egg flipper yet.’

Mate, it’s just a ****ing spatula 😂
 

waquzy

macrumors 68000
Sep 9, 2013
1,579
2,409
Leicestershire, UK
I remember purchasing a 13 pro after having an iPhone X and I was so disappointed. All my zoomed pictures looked like they’d been passed through the Adobe CS6 mosaic filter. I prefer the noise! Post processing really ruins the photos, imo. I’ll take a noisy photo over an over-processed one any day
Over processed photos are horrible, fake AF!
 

h.gilbert

macrumors 6502a
Nov 17, 2022
730
1,276
Bordeaux
iPhone 14 Pro vs Nokia 808
www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgILGqXOhwU

Sure the iPhone does better at night and video, but everything else the Nokia looks much more natural and pleasing. The iPhone's "detail" is obviously just over-sharpening, and the touted dynamic range is bordering on bad HDR.

IMO, the only modern smartphone that takes pleasing photos is Sony's Xperia line:
 

charlesnyc

macrumors newbie
Nov 3, 2021
11
10
+1 with an exclamation! Funny that I stumbled on this thread now. I've had a 14 Pro (not Max) since it dropped last September and have spent the last year thinking that the processing on my 13 Pro was SO much better. Like, not even close. There are times when colors shown in a photograph don't even exist in the scene I just shot. Now this thread makes it clear that it's not just me who thinks the 14 Pro processing was a big step backward and basically sucks. How does Apple spend kajillions on R&D for each new iPhone--especially focusing on camera improvements--and end up with a worse result? SMH. Really hoping the 15 Pro remedies the situation.
 

allenvanhellen

macrumors 6502a
Dec 8, 2015
666
1,326
You probably don't want another paid app but ProCamera lets you disable different steps of Apple’s (over-) processing up to completely unprocessed without OIS.
For images taken in RAW as well as JPEG/HEIF.
That's cool and all, but you can't access it from the lock screen, right? Can you shoot Live Photos with it?
 
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