Love this comparison! Shows how far phone cameras have come, but also shows the reason why "real" camera are needed for sports if you want to get the best quality.
They're comparing a pro camera to an Apple product. That's like comparing an elite steakhouse to a McDonald's in the hood. Why are we talking about a 5x camera on a worthless iPhone when Samsung has been using far better 10x lenses on their phones for nearly half a decade? What a joke.
@@skankytrick because he's using an iPhone with 5x zoom which is what most of his audience including photographers use. Samsung is fine. Pixel is fine. But he's using an iPhone.
(Edit: props to Jared. As someone who's tried shooting baseball with a phone, his shots were crazy good for what he took them with. I know I couldn't do that.) Idk. I understand the direct comparison of 120mm vs 120mm. But the advantage of a dedicated camera is the ability to zoom with optics and change lenses. Like, yeah, phone sensors have come a long ways. But any sensor looks nice in good light or kept at base iso. Use the 5x at night, and then compare. But that's just me. Also, why not do an iPhone vs same cost photography setup comparison? Including used gear prices. Could get a D750 or D810 and 70-200mm for the 1500 of the iPhone. I know a photographer will most likely never trade their camera and lenses for a phone. But someone might be considering a phone or a camera, and showing the true differences and limits might be enough to push them to pick up photography
just wanted to leave the same comment. Nobody needs a Z9 to make those photos... even an old brick like the D3s (that's what I'm shooting) can make those pictures look like the Z9
I was going to post something similar. As far as I can see the 120mm iPhone setup is only 12MP so an older FX or DX Nikon setup with a used 70-200 would a contender here.
This is why I love this channel. A comparison without snark and that keeps things in perspective. Most people that take photos with an iPhone are doing so precisely because they don’t won’t to carry around a camera and/or spend the money on a “real” camera.
Snark on this channel is reserved for products and companies the Fro don't like. If the small sensor is on an iPhone he uses, it will be less criticized than if it is on a Micro Four thirds camera.
I’m kind of glad to hear this review. I’ve been shooting on pro cams for years, and frankly I’m kind of worn out from the cumbersome process of lugging a big cam around, dumping huge batches, and forcing myself to go back and edit photos from something where the moment has way passed. I’m kind of generally uninspired. I just recently ordered a 15 pro max upgrading from an XR. I’m kind of excited to see what I can get when the mood strikes me and it’s in my pocket, rather than loading up my gear and trying to “go get something”. I certainly won’t be getting rid of my pro cams, but I’m looking forward to having something pretty capable in my pocket at all times.
120mm (full frame equivalent) is a native focal length of the iPhone, but imagine you need to go a little wider. At 100mm you need to use the 24mm lens and apply a heavy crop. You will only use 5.76% of that already very tiny sensor. That is less than 1/1000 of the sensor size of full frame.
Fundamentally misunderstands the nature of computational processing in order to justify spending 4 figures on a fringe use case lens that will weigh 2-3 pounds. If you regularly need 100mm you already know it and no video is going to convince you one way or the other. Otherwise you're working backwards from your conclusions.
I actually didn't have any trouble finding which one was the Iphone in your comparisons : it always has more grain (or oversharpening - hard to tell as you're not zooming in), the bokeh is sometimes terrible, and the "real" camera shows the same amount of details while being a lot softer and natural to my eyes ... It would have been cool to compare it to a $1500 camera setup, like a D610 and a good used lens :)
You are totally right. Iphone doesn't produce a real bokeh. It just blurs parts of picture and it looks mushy like Jared usually would call it. Especially lights which are out of focus don't look that natural
@@pierrevilley6675 Always love this comparison,, can your 810 make calls, watch movies, email, message, GPS surf internet,,, etc etc etc,,, too be fair, lets say you use phone 25% for camera,, that comes to what,, $300,, I got my 15 Max for $600, so $150,, Oll take it,,,,
Thanks for a cool video. For me, the most obvious difference between the two images was not in the bokeh rendition. It was the oversharpening in the iPhone pics. Where the bokeh looked good, I looked at the skin tones and the hair, and the iPhone looked a bit more like a plastic model, rather than lifelike.
This was something I was trying to determine. The oversharpening in the iPhone photo made it look like the pants and shirt had a texture on them that could absolutely be there, but evidently wasn't.
I am mostly a portrait photographer with some events here and there, and I am amazed by this! I can clearly tell between camera and iPhone because of the vignetting of the lens (And the Z9 has slightly nicer contrast than the iPhone!) But the fact that it's so close is amazing! I'mma put it like this: The quality is in there, the versatility isn't. So, I could probably take my portraits with an iPhone and no one would notice (I take mostly 50mm - 85mm), but would I take the iPhone to a wedding? Never. It just doesn't have the versatility of having more zoom, using Off-Camera Flash etc. (Of course no one in their right mind would switch their cameras for a phone but it was an example of how close this is :o)
Yeah, or for a couple hundred dollars more you could upgrade to Samsung and get a 10x better phone with a refined 10x optical zoom camera. I understand Apple people inherently are ignorant about all non-Apple technology in the world, but Samsung has been making amazing 10x optical lense/cameras in their phones for nearly half a decade. Samsung patented the whole periscope lens form factor that makes Apple's meager 5x lens even possible.
Lightroom classic has a feature now where you can create depth maps and add blur afterwards so that’s definitely something to keep in mind when thinking about using the iPhone
For phones that capture depth data, usually when people find ways to extract the depth map, it becomes clear that the depth map is extremely low res, often around 0.5 megapixels for a 12 megpaixel image. They then rely on AI edge detection for the subject, but the end result is that the depth of field will look bad unless the background is far from the subject, and even then it will struggle with fine edge details where it is harder for the AI to figure out what is part of the subject and what is part of the background, since the depth map will not have any fine detail thus it cannot rely on depth info to help select the subject.
9:25 I admit, that's an impressive comparison side by side. I did find the camera on the right, but it was only because of the smoother more continuous blurring of the field.. I tried to see in the background differences in blur or bokeh.. but nothing super visible. impressive.
11:33 I was mistaken.. I thought the busier blur in the background was the iphone, but nop. 12:04 I applied my initial assumption and got it right; the blur is much more continuous over the field with the camera.. so also more natural But indeed, minor differences, provided as you say, that you do fill the frame
I got an iPhone 13 Pro 2 years ago think it’s fantastic. I have use cases for the iPhone, use cases for my mirrorless gear, and even use cases for my old Canon PowerShot S110. I think you illustrate that it’s about knowing the basics of photography and being familiar with the gear you have available.
Very good review. I did not focus on the bokeh, more so on the dynamic range and that allowed for me to determine which was the iPhone or Nikon. Needless to say, the iPhone did extremely well.
As a side-by-side comparison, I spotted the iPhone photo each time, BUT if I wasn't told so, I wouldn't have suspected it except for maybe the last 2 if I start pixel peeping.
That's a great comparison. Family loves taking phone photos but they also have some photo gear. I've shot weddings and events professionally for 13 years so it was pretty straightforward (colors, bokeh style, focusing "style") to nail the iPhone vs Camera shots every time. That isn't to diminish what mobile cameras are achieving because it's pretty nuts; but it's also nice to see a down-to-Earth video showing a challenging and fair comparison in an easy to understand way.
Thanks so much for posting a great comparison video with the new iPhone 15 Pro Max and a full frame Nikon with equivalent focal length lens setting. I’ve shot sports with a full frame Nikon and a 300 mm Nikon lens and had many great shots but there have been many occasions when I didn’t have all my gear along for the ride. What I did have was my iPhone. It’s nice to at least have something to capture the moment. I’m so glad to see the improvements that Apple has made with their cameras in the Pro Max model. My point here is that the best camera is the one you have with you at the moment. Sometimes, that’s just a lowly cellphone. 🤷🏻♀️ Thanks also for your tips about shooting with the iPhone and gaining access to the portrait features post shooting. I would have always selected RAW. Your channel is great!
I'm "old," (retired) and gave away my "good" camera gear to my oldest son who is a serious hobbyist. I now have the iPhone 15 Pro Max and that is now my only camera. I like watching channels like this so I can see all of the great stuff I can do with it. I use the iPhone for more than just its camera, of course, but this is what I'm looking for when I come here.
this shows how much the mobile camera has grown. The only thing that shows a real camera is the real camera (on this video) is the white balance, the slight over sharpened and the bokeh.
Oversharpening and issues with white balance and some colours on stuff like foliage are the only real complaints for me with phone photos these days, for everyday moments they've gotten very good and if I didn't have some experience with real cameras I wouldn't have noticed these things
This was a really great comparison/test with impressive results. Besides this specific test case the new iPhone 15 camera(s) seems to suck really bad using heavy cropping to get pictures at the old 'normal' focal lengths.
Good perspective, Jared. The biggest advantage of my iPhone 15 Pro Max is that it is always in my pocket. I get so many shots with it that my Sony A1 can't even come close to capturing because the A1 is not with me. Also, I push my iPhone a bit harder and shoot with the 24mm 48MP camera as much as possible. When I use the other lenses, I keep it in RAW and do the second half of the job in LR. Now, with the early release Blur tool in Lightroom, Adobe can create a depth map on the RAW and 48MP RAW. When used within reason, it works well. I am enjoying photography more now than in my 40 previous years of shooting. An iPhone won't do it all, but it can do a lot, just as my A1 with the Sony 600mm F4 is a great bird-in-flight setup. It doesn't do as well with street photography or architecture. I am looking forward to the 16, 17, 18. Computational photography will do to big optics and big sensors what digital did to film. Keep up the good work. Regardless the gear, a great photograph still requires a great photographer.
well I mean yeah iPhone does add foreground blur now. Thats what makes it "more advanced" compared to other smartphones. But it won't work at that kind of distance yet. Also, I would have attached a lens. I wouldn't have used a naked phone camera if I wanted the best image possible at a baseball game. Also a tele lens attachment will add natural bokeh too. Any phone I have I would attach a lens if I wanted to get real good photos of subjects that are far away.
Really impressed by the iPhone considering the lack of lighting is pushing the limits of the 5x. I enjoy a bit of street photography but no longer have the time to spend on workflows and tweaking so hoping this is going to work well for me.
Thanks for the video! This is a great reminder that phone cameras have evolved a lot but still can't really compete with dedicated photography equipment. In the end, the application/need and expectations (as well as budget) should direct people to one equipment or the other.
I think Budget isn't really relevant because for the price of a 15 pro max you can get an amazing DSLR and lens that will destroy any phone and you still have some money left for a phone
@@lukassinger_photo Let's consider that's correct. How many people would opt to buy the camera instead of the phone? If you do not have capital constraints you can buy both but most people can't and many do not even care about owning a real camera.
@@lukassinger_photo The big difference is that, at least in the US, carriers will essentially finance the purchase of the phone. That makes a huge difference.
I almost got the images wrong, but changed my mind last second, when I looked at the bokeh again. The fake-bokeh from the iphone still looks a lot like gaussian blur, while the Nikon has more err ‘texture’ to.
Nice comparison. I have a Canon R5 with an array of L lenses. That said, my phone is always with me. Apple, Samsung and Pixel are all improving mobile phone photography. I find my big rig full frame often stays home these days. The new phone cameras are simply good enough in many cases.
Fast apertures aren’t just for depth of field..it’s for light gathering too. So it still won’t replace fast lenses but if you’re on a budget and can’t afford more than a slow zoom and shoot during the day you can use that feature absolutely
Really dislike the digital sharpening in the iPhone images. Bizarre that you think you wouldn’t be able to spot the difference in a blind test. It’s so blindingly obvious
these were some of the harder photos to tell apart in these kinds of comparisons. to be honest the same thing still rings true, the cutting out of the hair and the ways it computes the out of focus blue. they are way better then they have ever been which is impressive. but its still a pretty big give away. even on one of the shots there was a little fluff on the shirt that caught a little light from the big stadium lighting and it showed up on the real camera but the phone blured it away. again... for a phone this is the best I have seen. for me the buttons and dials and control you get with a real camera will always win out over a phone
I had a teenager looking at some of the images I took with a real camera and they said it looked like I went too far with blurring the background of a portrait making it look fake. When I tried explaining to them that this is not fake, but the results of a shallow depth of field on a wide aperture lens, they had a hard time grasping the idea. At some point more people may prefer fake bokeh to real bokeh.
You also see some slight barrel vignetting that you don't get with the phone camera, but I do agree, the phone camera and its software has come so far it makes it difficult to tell the difference at first glance.
Iphone, to me, looks like someone did a really decent job with masking and gaussian blur. The bokeh is far too consistent to mimic any real optical fall off. That being said, it looks damn good and at first glance and without any added context, I probably wouldn’t look twice
The real camera and lens have a little vignetting which made it easy to tell once I saw that, but hey it's a dang phone with a tiny sensor, pretty damn good, that being said I I ordered a 15 Pro not max. I prefer the smaller size and price.
You are so professional and unbiased with your reviews unlike others no manes but I think you know who! Most of my photography gears were purchased after your reviews including Canon R6. cheers
I purchased the 15 Pro 128 Gig model. I see the stills / video capability of this camera as complementary to a mirrorless setup. I will say that I am really impressed with the footage that I get when recording 4K 60p log footage to an external SSD over the 10 Gbps USB-C transport with the iPhone 15 Pro - at least with decent lighting.
I really appreciate the effort you put into explaining the differences. Helps when people ask me the differences and I have a video like this to send their way, but I can also explain some differences. I like shooting with my Sony rigs and iPhones. Both can work but there are differences. Also, more of the computational computing needs to continue toi make it back into the full frame camera.
Harper is such a class act out there man! Contained his frustration and instead of doing the typical dugout temper tantrum flung his helmet to the fans! The iPhones look great but they just don't handle those bright neon lights very well. I'd never reach for my iPhone over my Alpha 1 but it's nice to have handy when I'm not out shooting or with the family!
10 месяцев назад
Now you can shoot raw, edit it and then in Lightroom add their new future which blurs the background
@@user-sd3ik9rt6d true, but holding a phone is not ergonomic. If you want to film for longer or take pictures from high or low angles its really hard. I mean you dont have a tilt screen for holding it near the floor.
Very interesting comparison Fro! I still maintain that no matter how much “technology” Apple or anyone else throws at the phone camera, it will always be inferior to a “real camera” in at least 2 aspects: print size and ergonomics, the former simply because of the sensor size disparity, and the latter due to shape, button/control placement. That said, I agree that most people aren’t as analytical about image quality as you or I are. So, I too, use an iPhone, for things other than serious photography.
The batter is standing in one place. No matter how hard he is swinging, this is not action photography. Take it to a soccer field and track a player close enough for the 120. The extra sharpening of the iPhone is one tell. Another is the evenness of the lighting in the background. The 70 to 200 at 2.8 has obvious vignetting. You are also taking a picture without transitional bokeh. The background is far from the batter. Let's see how this looks with a soccer player surrounded by defenders. Personally, I would forget about the fake bokeh and use the natural bokeh of the iPhone telephoto shooting close. I use a Google pixel 6 Pro and the natural bokeh from the telephoto is quite nice. It isn't lost shooting raw. Still a very enjoyable review to watch. Great job!
As a Pittsburgher, it’s cool to see the photos of the Pirates vs. the Phillies! Not to mention the typical Angel Hernandez debacle!!! Great to see the comparison!
the borderline on top of the helmet/blue sky and pants to green made the difference obvious very fast. The results are very, very impressiv .. but maybe should compare results and ergonomics to a cam in a similar price area as the iPhone 15 ?.. i wonder when C/N/S are putting some Phone features into their bodies (SIM).. - have the game reversed - can talk to your client whilst shooting, without having to carry a heavy cumbersom device to call..
I think Back and Foreground Blur is going to improve rapidly with all the focus AI Bokeh is getting right now. What stands out in this comparison between phone and FF Sensor is as usual dynamic range and also that really awkward sharpening that apple keeps pushing on its photos.
at 9:00 I wasn't sure, but my pure guess was right. you could see the vignetting from the actual glass lens, even though I wasn't sure if that was a filter or not. also interesting to see that the glass and full frame sensor did seem to be letting more light in. thanks for the side by side comparison! if I was looking for a new phone and pocket ai computer, that also had a nice camera, i'd be tempted by the iPhone 15 pro max. lots of places and people get jittery these days if you pull out a traditional camera, but they don't blink twice if you pull out a phone with a camera and microphone that are connected via satellite to ai powered cloud servers. people are funny that way
Great video Jared, but I hate these comparison videos, maybe it's because I'm scared that phones are this good nowadays, but it's mostly because non-photographers pretend they know the trick of the trade because their phones takes (heavily processed) decent photos. Imho it's a difference between making a photo as a photographer and taking a photo with your phone. I have more of a problem with the people than the tech itself.
As someone who sees hundreds and hundreds of iPhone photos from family members who are not photographers, it drives me crazy to see computational bokeh all the time. It can fool you for a second but then when you actually look at the photo, peoples hands and hair and clothes are disappearing into a blur realm at the edges. they think it’s the coolest thing to have blur. Here I spend 8500 on a camera rig and show them my photos and the only difference they see is that the blur is cleaner. Plus I have to do processing to recover highlights and achieve an HDR look that the iPhone does rather nicely. I feel like computational photography is in an awkward phase where it gives consumers an ego-boost and pisses off photographers. It makes my job a bit unpleasant when I show up to a job and start shooting holiday family portraits and people looking over my shoulder at the camera screen start making comments about how their iPhone looks just as good. Of course to me the final result looks a million times better butter them all they see is a $300 bill and photos that look slightly different. Lol
I dont really know what he is about, but i really didn't had any trouble spererating which Photo is from the Z9 and which not. I mean i get it, the Phones are getting better and better, but u will always see the differnce for at least the next 3-5 years probably even longer as the "real" Cameras are getting better as well
These Pro Photographer videos are really important to me. I held off for years with my iPhone 11 & will buy the 15 Pro Max. BUT! Those baseball shots show that the professional photographer CAN get better shots with a pro grade camera. I didn’t even know that capability existed.
Grass on many photos is not blured the same. Looks like the iphone just blurs it as much as the far away background were in fact it is closer and on Nikon we can still seem some bands etc.
I got all the challenges correct, i can tell by how you ask the player to make his bat on his shoulder to avoid having a small gap that the phone can't process, again it's impressive stuff and if you know how to pose your model and avoid the limitations you will get really good results.
I don't believe he made that claim. He said four of the "seven" lenses (there are actually just 3) are crops, and pointed out a lot of issues with a lot of things. But the 120mm wasn't among the fake lenses. His problem with the 120mm is that they had to sacrifice too much to reach that number. Among other things, it's functionally got a max aperture of f/21.
It always comes down to what people want. Most people were happy with a Kodak Brownie or Instamatic, which were Point and Shoot (P&S) film cameras from the 1910s or so through the 1980s. P&S cameras, which IMHO phone cameras are, were and are popular because most people DON'T CARE. They just want to make snapshots. A snapshot is a memory. A photograph is art. In the hands of an artist, a P&S can make art, but most people just want to save memories. And there's nothing wrong with that.
Great video, thanks. I ‘m a bit weird, but I for me my Z8+85/1.2 or 135/1.8 are the reasons to lug a heavy cam+lens around (people photography). I‘m using my phone for almost anything else. Its not so much cost, but more weight+convenience and „good enough“ (i.e. better than my DSLR 15 yrs ago). Even tempted to try the phone for studio photography (but would need to upgrade one of my strobes to be iphone-compatible).
