iPhone 14 Pro Max 14pro max. Worst camera of any iPhone.

[allenvanhellen]

1) Get an Apple Watch cellular.
2) Get a cool dedicated camera.
3) Leave your iPhone at home (or in your pocket, just use it for videos/games)

 

[ToddH]

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 posted this in another thread.

Good evening.. I started using an app called NOMO RAW2. It claims to remove the excessive sharpening and color emphasis on ProRaw photos. This option is in settings in the app. I turned raw sharpening off and I’m pleased at what I see. So I’d like to share. I was skeptical about the app at first because it requires a subscription before you can use it, so I chose the $2.99/mo to test it out or pay $15 for lifetime. So, I guess I’ll buy it. I’ve tested it enough to know if it holds up to the hype, which apparently it does. Tonight I took some low light samples of a shrub, ISO 800 and 600% crops from the iPhone native camera app & one from NOMO RAW. These screen shots are directly from the raw file and there is a clean difference in the app vs the default iPhone camera. As mentioned, these crops are zoomed in as far as my iPad Pro would go, 600% or more! The NOMO RAW2 app looks more natural and cleaner. Anyway, im hoping some of you find this useful. My 48mp edited ProRaw photos from NOMO RAW2 never looked so good!!!

if you shoot raw like me all the time, this is the app to get!

I haven’t tested it much but the app also cleans up the JPEG/HEIF files quite a bit as well. And you can still shoot in 48 megapixel resolution with those file formats (Jpeg & HEIF).


What the app description says about raw

”Image Refinement: With ProRAW as the starting point, NOMO RAW could further remove the artifacts on your mobile photos, including over sharpening, luminance noise, detail loss, etc.”

Full shot with area of enlargement circled:

apple pro raw, lots of processing in the ProRaw file

NOMO RAW2

another example

ISO 3200, NOMO RAW2

 

[frost_horizon]

It does look better. But if they remove it after all the processing apple does, is it Post-Post-Processing?

 

[Rank Sarpac]

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 use my iPhone 14 Pro to shoot ProRAW bathroom interiors on real estate jobs, and honestly nobody can tell the difference when the phone photos are mixed in with the DSLR shots.

 

[masotime]

Yes I also have a mirrorless Nikon which is fantastic and I use that for all the archival photography in studio. Just wish this NZD$2500 pro phone didn’t have such a dominant non pro override.

I’m curious - how much does your mirrorless Nikon cost?

 

[ToddH]

It does look better. But if they remove it after all the processing apple does, is it Post-Post-Processing?

Maybe… but does that really matter?? After all it is a raw file with many layers that haven’t been flattened or compressed yet, so removing a few helps. The end result is what’s important. The image quality from the app is impressive, I don’t care how they reach the end result, the final image speaks for itself.

 

[ctjack]

I’m curious - how much does your mirrorless Nikon cost?

If you are interested in budget photography, then i own sony nex 7 + sel 50 1.8 lens. Together they can be had from ebay for $400-$500. Shoots still better than any iphone while being from 2011 with the original sony battery in it.

 

[frost_horizon]

If you are interested in budget photography, then i own sony nex 7 + sel 50 1.8 lens. Together they can be had from ebay for $400-$500. Shoots still better than any iphone while being from 2011 with the original sony battery in it.

I had Sony NEX-5T back in 2014. Sold it in 2019 for twice as much as I bought it originally. Still has the photos from it, and they are much better than photos from my iPhone 13 Pro Max in both details and colors (ASP-C matrix speaks for itself).

 

[woodynorman]

Having come from a Galaxy S21 Ultra I can without a doubt say the iPhone just doesn’t compete in most settings for camera, imo of course. That being said, on occasion the 14PM does surprise me now and then. The macro mode is very good. Shame there isn’t an astrophotography mode.

I'm not totally disagreeing with this post, as I think my 13 pro max had a better camera than my 14 pro max, but the 14 takes pretty decent night shots, without a "astrophotography" mode

 

[TheRoxyTheatre]

I posted this in another thread.

Good evening.. I started using an app called NOMO RAW2. It claims to remove the excessive sharpening and color emphasis on ProRaw photos. This option is in settings in the app. I turned raw sharpening off and I’m pleased at what I see. So I’d like to share. I was skeptical about the app at first because it requires a subscription before you can use it, so I chose the $2.99/mo to test it out or pay $15 for lifetime. So, I guess I’ll buy it. I’ve tested it enough to know if it holds up to the hype, which apparently it does. Tonight I took some low light samples of a shrub, ISO 800 and 600% crops from the iPhone native camera app & one from NOMO RAW. These screen shots are directly from the raw file and there is a clean difference in the app vs the default iPhone camera. As mentioned, these crops are zoomed in as far as my iPad Pro would go, 600% or more! The NOMO RAW2 app looks more natural and cleaner. Anyway, im hoping some of you find this useful. My 48mp edited ProRaw photos from NOMO RAW2 never looked so good!!!

if you shoot raw like me all the time, this is the app to get!

I haven’t tested it much but the app also cleans up the JPEG/HEIF files quite a bit as well. And you can still shoot in 48 megapixel resolution with those file formats (Jpeg & HEIF).


What the app description says about raw

”Image Refinement: With ProRAW as the starting point, NOMO RAW could further remove the artifacts on your mobile photos, including over sharpening, luminance noise, detail loss, etc.”

Full shot with area of enlargement circled:

View attachment 2256425

apple pro raw, lots of processing in the ProRaw file

View attachment 2256426

NOMO RAW2

View attachment 2256427

another example

View attachment 2256430

View attachment 2256431

View attachment 2256447

View attachment 2256448

ISO 3200, NOMO RAW2
View attachment 2256449

After reading the all data they collect from you, this app is a hard pass.

 

[ToddH]

I'm not totally disagreeing with this post, as I think my 13 pro max had a better camera than my 14 pro max, but the 14 takes pretty decent night shots, without a "astrophotography" mode

Yes it does.. but if you use ProRAW on that night sky, it will look so much better and less blotchy. Here is my ProRAW edited example:

With ProRAW, the dust cloud of the Milky Way looks similar to a DSLR shot, individual stars can be seen. I edited mine in Lightroom mobile.

 

[Bananasaurus]

The camera is amazing. The over-processing is garbage. Hopefully it's fixed soon with the 15.

 

[ToddH]

After reading the all data they collect from you, this app is a hard pass.

I don’t think that any of us have any privacy anymore. Everywhere we go, calls we make, text messages we send, someone is always watching & listening. I don’t think there is anything that the government doesn’t already know about us. Data is collected from us through every app we use. Some more than others, but there’s no privacy anymore. I think TikTok is the worst by far… go read their privacy policy, you’ll be shocked!!!!

 

[jealousguy86]

It really does feel like they have increasingly made iPhone images worse as the years go on, solely from bad processing. I remember getting amaaazingly crisp photos with my iPhone 5 even, you just had to be a bit more purposeful. Then at some point around after they added some type of HDR, the photos went downhill imo. They claim this crap is smart, and handles trillions of computations per second or whatever, and then the second you zoom into any image at the slightest, it's like it all falls apart and it looks like a blotchy, oily mess.

 

[ctjack]

It really does feel like they have increasingly made iPhone images worse as the years go on, solely from bad processing. I remember getting amaaazingly crisp photos with my iPhone 5 even, you just had to be a bit more purposeful. Then at some point around after they added some type of HDR, the photos went downhill imo. They claim this crap is smart, and handles trillions of computations per second or whatever, and then the second you zoom into any image at the slightest, it's like it all falls apart and it looks like a blotchy, oily mess.

Basically people like these filters and apple just caters them. Probably the ones who care enough are minority at this point.

 

[King_Kimbo]

Unfortunately, you chose the wrong product. iPhone is not a special tool to be relied upon when doing business - it is never meant to replace the actual real camera. For your commercial estate property with led shots the real camera would be better as well to picture the behind the scenes as you said.

For us, iphone is a great addition cause people don’t mind taking pics of kids, pets and nature with an iphone. My 2011 mirrorless camera is couple time better than the latest iphone’s camera but its size is 3x bigger than pro max. For me iphone is an additional backup camera that works good with kids on a 1 hand - no way i am taking pics with a kid and a dslr.

My point was the iPhone X seemed far more accurate and the 14 PM has strayed so far from that. I’m not expecting a phone to do what a DLSR does. I’m expecting a pro phone to be able to be used manually to allow the serious hardware to do what it does without all the Instagram filter BS thrown on top of it

 

[mectojic]

The iPhone 4 photos look way more realistic and unfiltered compared to the 14 Pro. There is always a tradeoff to more "features".

 

[arw]

That's cool and all, but you can't access it from the lock screen, right? Can you shoot Live Photos with it?

I use their (ProCamera) widget to directly open the app from the lock screen.
Live Photos don’t work (unless I’m overlooking something).

 

[allenvanhellen]

I use their (ProCamera) widget to directly open the app from the lock screen.
Live Photos don’t work (unless I’m overlooking something).

GREAT wallpaper! I was so excited when iOS 15 brought back the red Music icon from iOS 7, because it looks fire on this wallpaper (and lots of others).

 

[imagineadam]

I’ve started a similar thread. Why don’t they just add a dang toggle to shut off the processing?

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/wouldnt-it-be-nice.2400233/?post=32421742#post-32421742

 

[Take Flight]

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.

Got it, thanks! Yes definitely noticeable in all the various apps like you mentioned that have scanning features for various things. Guess will have to wait for them to get up to speed.

 

[Wig321]

I found the 13 pro was the complete package, the 14 pro camera is not for me and was my main reason for upgrading last year. Even with always on display switched off the battery performance has been poor. Lets hope the 15 pro performs better.

 

[ignatius345]

I’m sure the 15 pro will be declared a “revolutionary” camera. My fear is that this intelligent over processing in the software is the direction Apple is choosing to take. And unfortunately for me I had no way of finding that out until I already bought it and got it into real world situations and discovered it was utterly useless for what I wanted to do. Pro should mean pro, or why bother. For me pro means the option of manually bypassing all the Instagram/HDR bs we’re getting force fed. This is the first time I’ve felt buyers remorse from any major apple product since 2005 and I’ve had plenty…

Definitely more of a software problem than a hardware problem, though. I too would prefer options in the stock Camera app to dial down processing -- but there are plenty of third-party apps that will let you shoot any way you want.

I agree it's a problem, but fortunately there are workarounds.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

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?

Wrong. iPhone 14 Pro cameras are very competent (for such tiny camera/lenses). Work on your photog skills.

 

[Allen_Wentz]

I hope are correct that apple has toned down the overprocessing with ios 17

"Overprocessing" usually presents when the photog forces the camera into a capture that is technically poorly done (poor lighting, excessive camera movement, excessive subject movement, etc.; usually multiple flaws). With good technique one sees little of such overprocessing.