Dear all,
I would get straight to the point. While I mostly like results my iPhone produces, there are so many situations automatic processing ruins the shot. And “just shoot RAW” is not the best answer because it is still a poorly implemented feature. I want to shoot jpegs with minimum processing, i.e. natural looking shots.
Since iPhone 6 Apple uses aggressive noise reduction techniques that are paired with automatic sharpening. And everyone who ever did photography knows that this is the way to disaster that will look like 90s CCTV footage. Since iPhone 13 they started applying noise reduction to videos too, which is INSANE. It makes everything look like soap opera in night time conditions.
I know everything about competition and that they do this too. But the problem is that competition started this trend and Apple just picked it up. I personally saw this first with my Galaxy S10+ (which I sold then, not because of camera but it also was a driving force behind my decision).
I mean, how is that possible when after so many years when I look at iPhone shots I now think about how unnatural and plasticky they look? Is it even adequate for Apple’s ISP that is supposedly relying on neural engine to sharpen and denoise DAYLIGHT shots? Even starting photographers know that you don’t need high ISO at day. And tbh I would prefer my shots not to be denoized at all, if there was only a switch for “natural” profile instead of having to shoot finicky RAW with wildly jumping exposure.
Also, auto HDR has gone mad in recent models. Insanely mad (yeah, literally mean that). Not every shot needs multiexposure. White-ish sky are not bad. And shadows need to stay shadows and not like a second photo with different white balance that was autoglued in place of “shadows”. At least thats how light works in real life, naturally.
Here are few examples of how a film camera compares to one of the latest iPhones (sauce):
Gotta be honest, I am not trying to tell everyone “shoot film” because I shoot digital for my whole life, but I mean that I could have easily achieved similar results with my old iPhone 5 or 4, and I would have not needed to dive the RAW rabbit hole for that single purpose. It is a pity I cracked both phones and in one of them camera literally fell inside, otherwise I would have been still using it.
Same with any of my old digital cameras such as DSCN1 or D3100, I had insanely natural-looking shots and rarely needed to do any sort of post processing, and I have been shooting JPEGs mostly, rarely I fiddled with RAW on Nikon and those were occasions when I took night long exposures, during daylight conditions camera worked perfectly (with my manual control, for sure). Photos had noises but noises are natural, even human vision has “noises” (ever seen these “flying bunnies” huh?).
And companies even wonder why people dislike AI art or “photos”: they look fake, unrealistic.
What do you think about this trend that stretched for so many years? Do you think there will ever be a trend for natural photographs or is it now a bygone era?
02/08/24 Few updates not to bring confusion:
• No, I am not trying to tell film>digital here, it is a whole different discussion. One can simply replicate film look with a good digital camera;
• I dislike how Apple applies noise reduction in all of their new smartphones. You cannot turn it off even with ProRAW. Combined with over-sharpening on top it ruins many fine shots;
• Argument “just buy a pro camera”. I have, like 3 of them. But still I need my iPhone to be casual point-and-shoot where I still have some control over my results and not the oversharpened, overHDRed, watercolor-like denoised shots;
• Argument “just shoot RAW”. First of all – I cannot. Apple has some sort of bug that does not deliver RAW preview in some of the well known pro apps like Halide, Camera+ and ProShot. In fact I cannot control my exposure and ISO settings. Neither automatic RAW works – it strangely overexposes or underexposes the shots. I had same issue on my old iPhone 11 Pro;
• On newer iPhones you cannot disable smart HDR or any processing.
I would get straight to the point. While I mostly like results my iPhone produces, there are so many situations automatic processing ruins the shot. And “just shoot RAW” is not the best answer because it is still a poorly implemented feature. I want to shoot jpegs with minimum processing, i.e. natural looking shots.
Since iPhone 6 Apple uses aggressive noise reduction techniques that are paired with automatic sharpening. And everyone who ever did photography knows that this is the way to disaster that will look like 90s CCTV footage. Since iPhone 13 they started applying noise reduction to videos too, which is INSANE. It makes everything look like soap opera in night time conditions.
I know everything about competition and that they do this too. But the problem is that competition started this trend and Apple just picked it up. I personally saw this first with my Galaxy S10+ (which I sold then, not because of camera but it also was a driving force behind my decision).
I mean, how is that possible when after so many years when I look at iPhone shots I now think about how unnatural and plasticky they look? Is it even adequate for Apple’s ISP that is supposedly relying on neural engine to sharpen and denoise DAYLIGHT shots? Even starting photographers know that you don’t need high ISO at day. And tbh I would prefer my shots not to be denoized at all, if there was only a switch for “natural” profile instead of having to shoot finicky RAW with wildly jumping exposure.
Also, auto HDR has gone mad in recent models. Insanely mad (yeah, literally mean that). Not every shot needs multiexposure. White-ish sky are not bad. And shadows need to stay shadows and not like a second photo with different white balance that was autoglued in place of “shadows”. At least thats how light works in real life, naturally.
Here are few examples of how a film camera compares to one of the latest iPhones (sauce):
Gotta be honest, I am not trying to tell everyone “shoot film” because I shoot digital for my whole life, but I mean that I could have easily achieved similar results with my old iPhone 5 or 4, and I would have not needed to dive the RAW rabbit hole for that single purpose. It is a pity I cracked both phones and in one of them camera literally fell inside, otherwise I would have been still using it.
Same with any of my old digital cameras such as DSCN1 or D3100, I had insanely natural-looking shots and rarely needed to do any sort of post processing, and I have been shooting JPEGs mostly, rarely I fiddled with RAW on Nikon and those were occasions when I took night long exposures, during daylight conditions camera worked perfectly (with my manual control, for sure). Photos had noises but noises are natural, even human vision has “noises” (ever seen these “flying bunnies” huh?).
And companies even wonder why people dislike AI art or “photos”: they look fake, unrealistic.
What do you think about this trend that stretched for so many years? Do you think there will ever be a trend for natural photographs or is it now a bygone era?
02/08/24 Few updates not to bring confusion:
• No, I am not trying to tell film>digital here, it is a whole different discussion. One can simply replicate film look with a good digital camera;
• I dislike how Apple applies noise reduction in all of their new smartphones. You cannot turn it off even with ProRAW. Combined with over-sharpening on top it ruins many fine shots;
• Argument “just buy a pro camera”. I have, like 3 of them. But still I need my iPhone to be casual point-and-shoot where I still have some control over my results and not the oversharpened, overHDRed, watercolor-like denoised shots;
• Argument “just shoot RAW”. First of all – I cannot. Apple has some sort of bug that does not deliver RAW preview in some of the well known pro apps like Halide, Camera+ and ProShot. In fact I cannot control my exposure and ISO settings. Neither automatic RAW works – it strangely overexposes or underexposes the shots. I had same issue on my old iPhone 11 Pro;
• On newer iPhones you cannot disable smart HDR or any processing.
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