[Andry000]

I’ll like to get some opinions about how the improvement should be for the iPhone’s camera in iOS 11. The camera is (almost) perfection but do you think something is missing? New tools or options? How do you think pictures would get better? And really, comparing to other devices, what is your review for the camera of iPhone 7 and 7 plus?

[bcandiolo]

UI in the camera app always lacked a simple option, change resolution, video modes, etc. INSIDE the camera app, how come you need to go exit the app, go to settings, etc.?

[Matty]

The one thing I do like coming to the camera is that video will now take up a lot less storage space because of some fancy new compression technology. This is especially useful with 4K video recording. 😃

With regards to changing the resolution of photos, this hasn't really been on the list on 'high importance' for me. I would like to get the full 12mp resolution every time, but having options is always nice.

[iN8ter]

All they're doing is changing from h264 to h265 for video. Nothing fancy or new about that.

I'm more interested in the change of photo format. How compatible is it across devices and if there will be any increase in photo quality.

I'm on the edge of deprioritizing camera updates because the output comes to yes to be lackluster on the release unites, despite them marketing miraculous results on their website/commercials and at launch events. I'm pretty sure there are two iPhone SKUs they use for each size. One for them and one for us.

The one for us is not blowing anyone away or delivering pictures that remotely resemble what they show us when launching the device.

I'm going to be extremely skeptical of any alleged improvements they claim. As far as I'm concerned, we've been lied to for the past 2-3 years.

[syphix]

New photo format saves a LOT of space. As to whether they are better quality, that's debatable.

Sent a pic to my dad's Android phone and he can view it just fine.

Sent the same pic to myself via Gmail app and the image downloads as a JPEG. So, iOS converts the image when sending it?

Google Photos app won't backup any HEIF photos, though.

[Andry000]

I didn’t know about the new compression technology, that is actually a great update. I have dislike the fact of videos taking too much space in the 4k format.

[Andry000]

That’s interesting, the picture conversion. I do think they should revisit those aspects, especially when it comes to the HEIF format

[dexterouz]

I hope at least next year they offer manual mode and an option to enhance the detailing in photos.

[iN8ter]

I hope at least next year they offer manual mode and an option to enhance the detailing in photos.

Honestly, I cannot wait until next year for this. They can even bother putting in an option to do RAW+JPEG in their camera settings...

The new Image format is incompatible with too much software right now, so I would never use it. I want to be able to edit images on other devices without paying a quality tax for that conversion.

[metllicamilitia]

New photo format saves a LOT of space. As to whether they are better quality, that's debatable.

Sent a pic to my dad's Android phone and he can view it just fine.

Sent the same pic to myself via Gmail app and the image downloads as a JPEG. So, iOS converts the image when sending it?

Google Photos app won't backup any HEIF photos, though.

It's spotty at best, it will probably change.

[metllicamilitia]

I hope at least next year they offer manual mode and an option to enhance the detailing in photos.

iOS has built-in photo editing. After you take the picture though.

[grob9642]

I quite like the changes Apple has made here for the camera. I suspect we will get to see the real big news once the iPhone 8 hits the stage this fall. That is when I expect major improvements in the camera and I am excited to see what comes.

[dexterouz]

iOS has built-in photo editing. After you take the picture though.

Yes, Yes. That's true and it's a useful app. But in general, I like all my images to have little more details. So, an option to enhance the detail will be quite helpful. Also, manual mode can give you more control.

iPhone being the most used mobile cam on earth, I think, manual mode will be appreciated by photographers or hobbyist photographers.

[iN8ter]

Yes, Yes. That's true and it's a useful app. But in general, I like all my images to have little more details. So, an option to enhance the detail will be quite helpful. Also, manual mode can give you more control.

iPhone being the most used mobile cam on earth, I think, manual mode will be appreciated by photographers or hobbyist photographers.

Manual Mode won't help unless Apple gives the user the option to control the compression the camera software does to JPEGs/HEIC, and disable lossy DNG compression.

A good exercise:

Take an iPhone 6S/7 and a Galaxy S7/S8 and take equivalent photos of the same scene from the same angle (use a tripod) in different scenes, then compare the imaging output... A few things jump out immediately:

1. The iPhone is lacking when it comes to details in the image - particularly fine background detail.

2. The iPhone JPEGs are significantly smaller than the Galaxy JPEGs (more aggressive compression). This is because Apple's camera software favors space optimization over quality. In layman's terms, Apple intentionally makes your photos look worse to save space, and in the age of 64-256GB iPhones, the trade-off is definitely not "reasonable" (IMO). Not when you can buy a different phone and take better photos, even on Auto.

3. DNGs produced by iPhone apps (using iOS APIs, so I don't think the camera apps themselves - ProCam, Camera+, etc. - are the fault of this), are significantly smaller than those from the Samsung handsets. Often, they're almost half the size... This means that Apple is also using Compression for DNGs. When you look at the DNGs from the two phones side by side (in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom), it becomes obvious why... Apple is using LOSSY DNG Compression.

Pro Mode won't fix that, if all they do is offer ISO, WB, Focus, Saturation, etc. adjustments. Those are not the things that bug more "Prosumers" with the iPhone camera. If you want more detailed images, then you need a way to avoid the compression the camera software performs. DNG was thought to be that way, but Apple does Lossy Compression on the DNGs, so you end up doing a ton of work for results that are only marginally better than what the camera spits out...

Pro Mode on Android flagships work because the Android Phones which provide it allow you to use tons of manual adjustments on top of giving you the ability to spit out full, uncompressed RAW (DNG) Images. This can result in images that no iPhone can match, regardless of what Camera App you use - and even if you set it to output TIFF or Apple's [crappy, lossily compressed] DNG output.

You could adjust WB, ISO, Saturation, etc. before Pro Modes were a thing. That's not the "answer" to your specific complain.

Additionally, it pretty much doesn't matter if the iPhone is a more popular camera phone, as many (if not most) of the people taking those images are not concerned with photo or video quality. These changes were spurred on by Apple's reluctance to move to higher base Storage SKUs for too long, putting too much pressure on users who had lots of photos on their devices and running into issues with iOS upgrades, etc.

It must also be noted that a lot of this came relatively recently... I think iOS 8 was when users really started complaining about this, but it became much more noticeable after the iPhone 6S was released (which increased the camera resolution). Because the image resolution went from 8 to 12MP, Apple ramped up the processing and compression on those camera to keep image sizes in check.

This resulted in higher image quality degradation, which is why many people noticed the disparity. This also means that users never really benefited from the increased resolution! Apple completely canceled out (and then some) any benefits from it by ratcheting up the aggressiveness of their software processing. They compressed away much of the benefits IRT detail resolution in images... So the increase in resolution was less of a benefit in practice. It was just introduced to, again, fill in a check box on their spec sheet and say that they could do 4K video, too.

[dexterouz]

Manual Mode won't help unless Apple gives the user the option to control the compression the camera software does to JPEGs/HEIC, and disable lossy DNG compression.

A good exercise:

Take an iPhone 6S/7 and a Galaxy S7/S8 and take equivalent photos of the same scene from the same angle (use a tripod) in different scenes, then compare the imaging output... A few things jump out immediately:

1. The iPhone is lacking when it comes to details in the image - particularly fine background detail.

2. The iPhone JPEGs are significantly smaller than the Galaxy JPEGs (more aggressive compression). This is because Apple's camera software favors space optimization over quality. In layman's terms, Apple intentionally makes your photos look worse to save space, and in the age of 64-256GB iPhones, the trade-off is definitely not "reasonable" (IMO). Not when you can buy a different phone and take better photos, even on Auto.

3. DNGs produced by iPhone apps (using iOS APIs, so I don't think the camera apps themselves - ProCam, Camera+, etc. - are the fault of this), are significantly smaller than those from the Samsung handsets. Often, they're almost half the size... This means that Apple is also using Compression for DNGs. When you look at the DNGs from the two phones side by side (in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom), it becomes obvious why... Apple is using LOSSY DNG Compression.

Pro Mode won't fix that, if all they do is offer ISO, WB, Focus, Saturation, etc. adjustments. Those are not the things that bug more "Prosumers" with the iPhone camera. If you want more detailed images, then you need a way to avoid the compression the camera software performs. DNG was thought to be that way, but Apple does Lossy Compression on the DNGs, so you end up doing a ton of work for results that are only marginally better than what the camera spits out...

Pro Mode on Android flagships work because the Android Phones which provide it allow you to use tons of manual adjustments on top of giving you the ability to spit out full, uncompressed RAW (DNG) Images. This can result in images that no iPhone can match, regardless of what Camera App you use - and even if you set it to output TIFF or Apple's [crappy, lossily compressed] DNG output.

You could adjust WB, ISO, Saturation, etc. before Pro Modes were a thing. That's not the "answer" to your specific complain.

Additionally, it pretty much doesn't matter if the iPhone is a more popular camera phone, as many (if not most) of the people taking those images are not concerned with photo or video quality. These changes were spurred on by Apple's reluctance to move to higher base Storage SKUs for too long, putting too much pressure on users who had lots of photos on their devices and running into issues with iOS upgrades, etc.

It must also be noted that a lot of this came relatively recently... I think iOS 8 was when users really started complaining about this, but it became much more noticeable after the iPhone 6S was released (which increased the camera resolution). Because the image resolution went from 8 to 12MP, Apple ramped up the processing and compression on those camera to keep image sizes in check.

This resulted in higher image quality degradation, which is why many people noticed the disparity. This also means that users never really benefited from the increased resolution! Apple completely canceled out (and then some) any benefits from it by ratcheting up the aggressiveness of their software processing. They compressed away much of the benefits IRT detail resolution in images... So the increase in resolution was less of a benefit in practice. It was just introduced to, again, fill in a check box on their spec sheet and say that they could do 4K video, too.

Agreed with your points. And thanks for sharing the information, I was unaware of this quality compression approach.