The iPhone X Camera

I take my phone everywhere and being an avid photographer, the most accessible phone I had most often were my mobile phone. Over the years I had been carrying many phones and the decision on which phone I chose to buy had how good the camera was being one of the top point of consideration.

The original iPhone did not have a good camera. Back then, the best camera phone I had used was the Nokia N73. Despite only having a 3.2MP camera, the Zeiss optics it carried made for some really great photographs. That sort of crystallised on me the idea that a camera phone may be enough for everyday snapping.

Then came the iPhone 4. For the iOS platform, it showed that Apple was taking photography seriously. A few Android phones then entered the picture with the HTC One being one of my early favourites. In early 2015, I discovered the Nokia 930. It had on it the best camera I had ever seen. And till this day, I could argue that it was still a capable shooter despite being almost 4 years old.

Now, my second phone was the Huawei P10 Plus. With its Leica optics, the photos especially the monochrome were just amazing. I still took it around during weekends as I shot around town. But now, I have a new contender for the best camera phone. The iPhone X.

Right off the bat, there was something natural about the photos. There were some element of over processing from the camera but they weren't as obvious as the Samsung. The photos did not over saturated and at low ISO, they appeared realistic. The focusing was
snappy and there were plenty of third-party apps for post-production of our snaps.

Last weekend, I took the phone out for a spin around Bukit Bintang to capture the Xmas decorations. I was practically blown away. The photos were much better than I expected. Coupled with its capability to capture 4K videos at 60fps, the camera feature is a winner.

In terms of monochrome snaps, it still lacked behind the Huawei. But for sheer overall joy, Apple clearly had the right formula here. Just for the camera alone, it was definitely an upgrade from my iPhone 7 Plus, although I do understand that the iPhone 8 use the same camera module as the X although with a narrower telephoto second sensor.

I'm definitely looking forward to more snaps from the phone...

The View at Night

It's amazing how good the current crop of camera phones nowadays. Well, this was taken at my balcony just before Isya' prayers.

The ISO count was 1000, with camera slowing the shutter speed down to 1/7 sec. Good thing that the camera has a built-in optical image stabiliser. The fact that the aperture was f1.9 came in handy as well.

A bit of tweaking with Snapseed completed the capture. All done within a minute with the snap being ready for upload. Good night!

More Walkies

Just after the ward round last Sunday morning, I set off to Low Yat to get hold of a new cover for my Nexus 7 tablet. The old one was getting rugged and the front film cover needed replacing after almost a year.

It seemed that the Low Yat stopover was not the main highlight but rather the nice weather that afternoon. So, with the new iPhone, I set about getting more snaps.

I thought I was getting the hang of the limitations and was now starting to get better photographs. The nice sunny weather helped as well .....

iPhone 5S snaps slideshow

The snaps was taken on the weekend that I got hold of the phone. I was still familiarising myself with the quirks that came with the iPhone and the snaps may not reflect the true capability of the cameraphone. Anyhow, I found the output satisfactory enough to be shared.

Comparison 2

HTC One - 1/50s f2.0 ISO125iPhone 5S - 1/30s f2.2 ISO80There was a major difference between the colour temperature of both snaps. In terms of sharpness, they were both more than acceptable, considering that these were indoors, and both cameras utilised the image stabilisation system to enabe them to keep the shutter speed slow and low ISO. 

The snap on the iPhone (lower) looks much warmer, especially appreciated on the skin tone. But this was at the expense of the generalised orange tinge to the whole frame. I could make skin tone adjustment on Aperture if I wanted, but I thought I'd just leave it at it is to illustrate the point.

The scenes was taken last Sunday at Fahrenheit 88 main lobby. It seemed that one of the local college was holding an exhibition for their arts faculty.