iPhone 17 Pro Unimpressed with 17 series camera quality

[upandown]

hey if any of you guys have a older iPhone that you can compare against the orange 17 pro/max, please try to recreate this macro test in a dark room with flash:

https://www.reddit.com/r/iPhone14Pro/comments/1nqgo6a/iphone_14_pro_iphone_17_pro_for_macro_shots

I'm very interested to see other results. something is up with this camera.

This shot doesn’t pass the sniff test. Why is the shadow off to the right on the 14? And centered on the 17. The placement of the flashes on both phones are exactly the opposite of what would occur during a photo with the flash at close range.

Edit: I suppose if the phones were held in landscape the shadows could appear like that, so I stand corrected. Even so, I just did a quick shot and my 17 pro looks like the “14Pro” in the example.

 

[jonnyb098]

Wow, so I am not imagining that!

I’ve actually seen many examples of 14 Pro performance too and could only say “it is a good camera” back then. But now was really underwhelmed by 17 Pro, which is by definition should cater to “Pros”. And the noise reduction trend started to take height already in 16 Pro, but at least 16 Pro images look sharp and “punchy”, while 17 Pro had changed processing to more dull and images are somewhat “blurry”.

As for your example: YES, it is what I see! 14 Pro is razor sharp. And I don’t understand why bloggers keeping silent about that.

I don’t think it is some sort of lens defect, worst case - it is lens design and similar across all models. If that is in the processing then Apple must know about that, maybe it is certainly just a bug or smth

I think what everyone is noticing is that Apple might be toning down their over sharpening. Traditional cameras have a very slight softness to them. Since the beginning Apple has applied higher amounts of sharpening to account for the noise reduction. Now that the lenses are getting better they can tone down those algos some.

 

[phillies3429]

I feel like my 17PM camera is blurry 80% of the time. Anyone else?

I switched to 24MP HEIC and it for sure got a lot better. Shouldn’t have to do that though IMO. Hopefully update addresses the issue.

 

[Cobalt Blizzard]

I’m a bit confused by this thread. I do prefer “softer” photos produced by 17 Pro’s camera rather than over-sharpened pics from previous models (especially 13 and 14 series which were the worst when it comes to post-processing, in my opinion).

 

[MacDevil7334]

I switched to 24MP HEIC and it for sure got a lot better. Shouldn’t have to do that though IMO. Hopefully update addresses the issue.

Interesting. I wonder if that’s a sign there is something wrong in the pro raw pipeline rather than a hardware defect. I generally shoot in HEIC 24 unless there is a situation that specifically calls for raw like Milky Way shots. That’s probably why I wasn’t seeing issues in the 17 Pro shots I posted on the last page. They were all shot 24 MP.

If it is indeed a processing issue for raw shots, then it should be fixable in a software update down the line.

 

[jonnyb098]

The makers of Halide just dropped their iPhone 17 pro camera review and confirm the lenses is slightly softer due to the lack of post processing sharpening.

iPhone 17 Pro Camera Review: Rule of Three

iPhone 17 Pro is here, a big upgrade and makeover of the iPhone and its cameras. Is it really as big of a deal as they say?

www.lux.camera

 

[nunolikeapple]

A little bit of softness is okay.

Destroying all the fine detail/information when zooming to maximum is not okay and, to me, is not justified.

In my case, it's not a question of a lack of sharpness; it's a question of not applying a sufficient amount of clarity and definition.

The pictures are now unusable. Also, I shoot in RAW on both my 16PM and 17PM—an uncompressed format with the same hardware. The results should be identical, with minor variations, not this abysmal difference.