Insightful. My excitement comes when I replace my $100 used iPhone with another $100 used iPhone every few years. Guess what: It's just as exciting, and the price stays pretty much the same over time, despite the improvements. Of course the best phone I had was a Nokia Windows phone about a dozen years ago. Zeiss optics. Now that is a phone that I miss. Has Apple improved the camera optics lately?
coldtea•4mo ago
They did bump the sensor resolution and size of the tele lens increased the max open aperture of one of the lenses 1-2 models ago.
But "Zeiss optics" itself was also an empty marketing boast of Nokia and other colaborators. Not that different in performance from regular third party or even OEM optics, and the phone's sensor wouldn't be able to show any discernible difference anyway.
DaveZale•4mo ago
Well my garden photos turned out great, even after I damaged the optics while working at that garden.
Isn't the iphone photo software lacking somehow? Maybe it was the software? I found a big difference with that phone. Very vivid photos. Not an expert but could it have been some "contrast" setting?
ashwinsundar•4mo ago
Vividness can be modified easily by adjusting the contrast, changing the black/white point, or changing the color temperature of an image.
coldtea•4mo ago
Could be their color science (photo industry bullshit term for the algorithms they use to proccess color information).
Or just higher saturation as a default.
Better lens optics can help with contrast or reduce fringing and such issues, but not to any extend that a Zeiss versus some regular current iPhone or Pixel or Samsung or Redmi lens would make any real difference to the picture.
Such processing side differences, on the other hand, can have a huge effect - and vivid colors is something directly affected by this.
A better sensor can too, but not very likely a sensor from 10 years or more ago is better than a current modern model. Though there are some changes some people prefer (CMOS vs CCD - though Nokia since the mid-00s had also switched to CMOS like the whole industry).
zem•4mo ago
the other thing not enough people are talking about is how even what should be genuinely new and exciting tech is instead shackled to some mandatory internet-of-shit account, which makes it nigh impossible to care about. you might say that it's just the techy crowd who care about that, but i'm pretty sure the consumer industry relies on us to try these products out and then enthuse about them to our friends and family, and personally i've been doing just the opposite.
DaveZale•4mo ago
coldtea•4mo ago
But "Zeiss optics" itself was also an empty marketing boast of Nokia and other colaborators. Not that different in performance from regular third party or even OEM optics, and the phone's sensor wouldn't be able to show any discernible difference anyway.
DaveZale•4mo ago
Isn't the iphone photo software lacking somehow? Maybe it was the software? I found a big difference with that phone. Very vivid photos. Not an expert but could it have been some "contrast" setting?
ashwinsundar•4mo ago
coldtea•4mo ago
Or just higher saturation as a default.
Better lens optics can help with contrast or reduce fringing and such issues, but not to any extend that a Zeiss versus some regular current iPhone or Pixel or Samsung or Redmi lens would make any real difference to the picture.
Such processing side differences, on the other hand, can have a huge effect - and vivid colors is something directly affected by this.
A better sensor can too, but not very likely a sensor from 10 years or more ago is better than a current modern model. Though there are some changes some people prefer (CMOS vs CCD - though Nokia since the mid-00s had also switched to CMOS like the whole industry).