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Bad quality photos maybe due big compression (iPhone 7)

Djilkosh

Djilkosh

macrumors regular
Original poster
Dec 3, 2016
245
226
Serbia
I'm former android user and I had always flagship phones before. After many years I decided to buy iPhone because I wanted to change system and to have smaller yet powerful device with great camera.

So I bought iPhone 7, latest and greatest. He has everything great except.... Camera. Well using Samsung phones, or LG and now iPhone, I saw something.

iPhone pictures have such big compression. iPhone with full resolution has photo size in between 1.2-2.6MB and on same resolution on other phones, they have max 4-5 and minimum about 2 megabytes.

So when there is so much compression on photos, you are lowering quality. For person like me who likes to crop pictures (for getting nice 16:9 ration) it's pain. Pictures and details when zoomed are like aquarelle. For device like this and for so many times hearing "best iPhone camera ever". I wonder, if this is best camera on iPhone ever, what has been then on previous models?

I'm on 10.2 iOS.
 
Yup. Maybe to have option to choose RAW or JPEG 100% in camera settings. This is like JPEG 70%.
 
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I read somewhere that some apps now allow RAW capture, but haven't tried this out myself. Maybe that would eliminate the problem in the first place by avoiding JPEG altogether.
 
Djilkosh said:
Yup. Maybe to have option to choose RAW or JPEG 100% in camera settings. This is like JPEG 70%.
Click to expand...

I doubt that. I ran a jpeg quality estimator application on some of my iPhone 6s+ photos, and it came back with 92% quality, every time. My Canon 70D had a 20MP sensor, and regularly produced 5MB jpegs at the highest quality setting. So 2MB for an 12MP sensor seems about right, no?

The reality is that the iPhone has a teeny tiny sensor, with a surface area of only 17.3 sqmm. For reference, an APS-C camera sensor is 332 sqmm. You really can't pixel peep phone photos. But viewed full size on screen, they look good to me.
 
Djilkosh said:
I'm former android user and I had always flagship phones before. After many years I decided to buy iPhone because I wanted to change system and to have smaller yet powerful device with great camera.

So I bought iPhone 7, latest and greatest. He has everything great except.... Camera. Well using Samsung phones, or LG and now iPhone, I saw something.

iPhone pictures have such big compression. iPhone with full resolution has photo size in between 1.2-2.6MB and on same resolution on other phones, they have max 4-5 and minimum about 2 megabytes.

So when there is so much compression on photos, you are lowering quality. For person like me who likes to crop pictures (for getting nice 16:9 ration) it's pain. Pictures and details when zoomed are like aquarelle. For device like this and for so many times hearing "best iPhone camera ever". I wonder, if this is best camera on iPhone ever, what has been then on previous models?

I'm on 10.2 iOS.
Click to expand...

Check out the app Camera + You can save in RAW.
 
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M. Gustave said:
I doubt that. I ran a jpeg quality estimator application on some of my iPhone 6s+ photos, and it came back with 92% quality, every time. My Canon 70D had a 20MP sensor, and regularly produced 5MB jpegs at the highest quality setting. So 2MB for an 12MP sensor seems about right, no?

The reality is that the iPhone has a teeny tiny sensor, with a surface area of only 17.3 sqmm. For reference, an APS-C camera sensor is 332 sqmm. You really can't pixel peep phone photos. But viewed full size on screen, they look good to me.
Click to expand...
Did you try to snap a photo with Google Pixel or 6P or even 5x? I know there is sensor bigger than in iPhone, but when i saw tests of iPhone 7, everywhere were flawless.


Only where iPhone shines is Video shooting.
lavrishevo said:
Check out the app Camera + You can save in RAW.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I know, but it is nonsense to buy camera app to shoot RAW. Why don't have it on stock camera app?
 
Djilkosh said:
Did you try to snap a photo with Google Pixel or 6P or even 5x? I know there is sensor bigger than in iPhone, but when i saw tests of iPhone 7, everywhere were flawless.


Only where iPhone shines is Video shooting.

Yeah, I know, but it is nonsense to buy camera app to shoot RAW. Why don't have it on stock camera app?
Click to expand...


Are you using iCloud photo library? that would compress the photos pretty heavily...

welcome to the iOS world, where quality exists but not for free
 
M. Gustave said:
What are you talking about? iCloud Photo Library doesn't compress images.
Click to expand...

Sure it does, if you have "optimize iPhone storage" turned on...it says "full resolution photos are automatically replaced with optimized versions. Full resolution versions are stored in iCloud." pretty sure "optimized" means "compressed."

there is even some debate as to whether the photos stored on iCloud are truly full resolution
 
zaaach48 said:
Sure it does, if you have "optimize iPhone storage" turned on...it says "full resolution photos are automatically replaced with optimized versions. Full resolution versions are stored in iCloud." pretty sure "optimized" means "compressed."

there is even some debate as to whether the photos stored on iCloud are truly full resolution
Click to expand...

The smaller preview images on your device are replaced with full size originals as soon as you open, edit, or share an image. I gather you've never used it? And of course if you have "Download and keep originals" turned on, there is no smaller image size.

And I don't know of anyone debating whether iCloud messes with your originals. It's simply not true. Do you have a reputable source for that?
 
Djilkosh said:
iPhone pictures have such big compression. iPhone with full resolution has photo size in between 1.2-2.6MB and on same resolution on other phones, they have max 4-5 and minimum about 2 megabytes.
Click to expand...

In this video he is talking about this what have I talked in quote (in video 2:32) and ofc you can watch full video.

 
There's a lot more to photo quality than compression, etc. I've got close to 15 grand invested in Canon pro bodies and lenses, and occasionally, people pay me pretty well to take photos and video for them. Obviously, I don't expect nearly the same quality from the iPhone, but I do expect better than what I get at default settings. Unfortunately, iPhone cameras lag behind the competition for stills straight out of the box, and have been losing ground for some time now. Furthermore, all cell phone cameras are greatly affected, and not in a good way if you're a pixel peeper or stickler for detail, by what's going on under the hood when the file is processed and saved.However, there is something you can do about it.

Apple's jpeg engine is very aggressive across the board to give what the average Instagramer type person expects, and it is further optimized, if you can call it that, for how the photos will almost invariably be viewed 99% of the time: either on the iPhone itself, a monitor, or on the WWW. The net result is an image that can't take much in the way of post-processing and is woefully lacking in detail. You're usually OK at normal rez, but don't zoom, crop, or try to lift a shadow, and so on. More often than not, it won't be pretty. As a couple of posters stated above, the solution is using one of the proven apps designed to let you take control. For example, ProCamera, Lightroom, and Manual each offer great features to extract the maximum quality available from the 7 or 7+ without too much fuss. Shooting RAW definitely has its advantages. In fact, with an iPhone, there's a huge difference between raw and jpeg, much more so than with an SLR like a Canon 5D Mark IV, which makes really nice jpegs straight from the camera.

Of course, the key is understanding how a camera works, knowing what it takes to make a good photograph, and most importantly decent light (low light shooting is another topic). Invest a few evenings or more in studying the basics of digital photography, then ten bucks in a couple of the aforementioned apps. You'll be surprised at what you can get out of the iPhone 7/7+ cameras.
 
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I understand what are you saying and as you know I'm not only instagram quality person, I like to crop picture and to set maybe wallpaper on my PC or anything else. We have 12mpx we can have nice crops, but with these low quality you can't do much.

Yeah I know you can buy some camera app, but tell me... Some other devs know better to optimize software and camera app than apple devs?
On Nexus 6P or Pixel you don't need to buy another camera app. Just point and shoot and if Google processing power aka their HDR mode is kicked in than you get wonderful picture with little or even nothing to edit.
 
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Djilkosh said:
Gustavo, you have it here. Giant thread https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7691303?start=0&
Click to expand...

Yeah, I read four pages, and all I see are a bunch of people who don't seem to know the first thing about photography, and the rest are comparing a 12MP image to an 8MP image, at 100%, and saying it looks blurry and soft. Duh.

Do you realize how low the EV actually is in a restaurant, even during daylight hours? I shot my kid's birthday party in a restaurant with lots of big windows, with an APS-C DSLR, with a 28mm f/1.8 lens, and I couldn't drop below ISO 800 the whole time. And these people are using a 1/3" sensor in an iPhone... get a reality check folks.

If Apple comes out and says there's a bug, I'll happily eat my words. But I really really doubt there's any actual problem.
 
I'm not talking about iPhone vs DSLR, I'm talking about compression when shooting with stock camera. You get aquarell when zoom. Details are impossible to get. I posted video Google pixel vs iPhone 7, you can see it on the previous page. Then you can see difference. It's a phone not DSLR, I get it but then why Nexus 5x which is last year model not latest, get better picture then iPhone 7? You can get two 5x and buy something more for one iPhone 7.
 
Djilkosh said:
I'm not talking about iPhone vs DSLR, I'm talking about compression when shooting with stock camera. You get aquarell when zoom. Details are impossible to get. I posted video Google pixel vs iPhone 7, you can see it on the previous page. Then you can see difference.
Click to expand...

And here's a video showing 100% crops of the iPhone 7 vs Pixel, and sometimes one is better, sometimes the other. If anything, the iPhone is slightly better overall. There's just not any problem here, it's a cell phone.
 
Last edited:

Yeah, I saw it before. But look at those details. Pixel is overall better when we are talking about details. Where iPhone shines is video, because of OIS.
 
Djilkosh said:
I understand what are you saying and as you know I'm not only instagram quality person, I like to crop picture and to set maybe wallpaper on my PC or anything else. We have 12mpx we can have nice crops, but with these low quality you can't do much.

Yeah I know you can buy some camera app, but tell me... Some other devs know better to optimize software and camera app than apple devs?
On Nexus 6P or Pixel you don't need to buy another camera app. Just point and shoot and if Google processing power aka their HDR mode is kicked in than you get wonderful picture with little or even nothing to edit.
Click to expand...


Its not a matter that the Apple devs don't know HOW to do it, its that Apple has prioritized maximizing storage by compressing the images over providing RAW quality photos. Most users can't see a difference and are able to store more photos. I also wonder if iOS uses a different filesystem than other manufacturers (like Mac vs PC) and maybe that has something to do with it...

FWIW, I find I can point and shoot just fine with my iPhone 7 plus camera and it takes great photos. Sure, if i zoom in super far i can see some pixelation but nothing major. Never used Pixel or 6P so I can't speak for them, but I've generally found iPhone to take superior photos to others.
 
Well iPhone was one of the best until last year when Nexus 5x and 6P came and of course Samsung S7 (edge). So after those years they need to change sensor and be again the best. Of course there is software processing that needs to be upgraded and better too.

Yes I agree, iPhone 7 is of course best against phones that are 2 years old, but it must be compared in its class, where are Google Pixel and S7. Amount of detail when using point and shoot (auto mode) are greater than on iPhone.

So I hope this iPhone 8 or what name it would be, can do in camera department to be again on top.
 
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It's too much noise reduction and jpg compression. It's been happening since the 5S forward. Results in watercolor effect and dull grainy pictures.
 
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