selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

It’s all relative. It’s good enough for a 12MP sensor.

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

I wish these exposures could have been made simultaneously. Cloud capture and rendition can be very instructive in comparing images, but the cloud fields in these two images are clearly completely different. That also means that lighting levels may be as much as one stop different, and are very likely to differ by at least a half stop.

I am very interested in the difference in the rendering of the foreground foot path and the differences in what happens in the covered patio areas, where I think the iPhone actually holds a slight edge.

But bottom line, these are both quite serviceable images. As a storm spotter, the iPhone clouds are more useful to me (I think...I'd really like to have simultaneous shots to choose) because more structure is visible.

In the end, what this proves to me is that energy spent on the argument is not energy that is particularly well spent. It would appear that a competent operator can get a competent image from either camera. To go further, we would have had to be standing with you at the original setting and have the additional information that would provide.

therwol Loc: USA

I have a question, but first I looked something up. The default output of the iPhone 15 is a 24 megapixel picture that is somehow combines a 48 MP and 12 MP image. You can change this in the settings if you really want 48 MP. What were you working with? There is a huge starting point difference between 24 and 45.7 MP.

Bohica Loc: SE Coast of NC

I've seen beautful 24X36 photos from a 6mp camera

joer Loc: Colorado/Illinois

The fact you can even compare a phone image to a ff camera says a lot for the progress of phone technology. With the advent of the new Qualcom 3nm Snapdragon chip and AI, next iteration flagship phones may be the envy of the "real camera" folks.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

The exposure/ISO settings came to a 2/3 stop difference (12.7 for the iPhone and 12 for the Z7). I'm not sure if that's relevant since both cameras were on aperture priority. I was not concerned with either of them since the highlight were not blown. The iPhone DNG was converted to an Apple Pro Raw 16-bit DNG and the Z7 is a 14-bit NEF.

Below are the two raw files as rendered by RawDigger. They both looked a little dark when I viewed them in Capture One so I applied Auto Adjust to both of them and made only a slight adjustment to try and get the luminance for one of the mid-tones to match. Either image could have been modified to get the best out of them but that was not my intent.

My goal was to see how the detail compared since I wanted to compare the performance of the lens, sensor and whatever magic was happening in the iPhone to get to the 48MP result.

iPhone 15 rendering

(Download)


(Download)

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I was working with the default result when I was shooting raw which is 48MP for the main camera and 12MP for the other two. I did not change any camera settings.

The iPhone 12 Pro that I traded in had three 12MP cameras.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I have plenty of images from my D70 (12MP) that are perfectly fine but it was not quite up to the results I got from film scanned at 4000ppi (20-22MP) or even to the 16MP I got from my Df or even my X100T.

My preferred resolution is 24MP. The main reason I got the Z7 was to help me decide which lenses to keep or replace.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Smartphones will do a great job on images that you want to post on the internet or share online.

But if you want a superior print they will never beat a good camera and lens.

DaveO Loc: Northeast CT

I hear you now!

larryepage Loc: North Texas area

Thank you for the explanation. You are correct in separating detail from exposure, but I am very interested in what I would call texture, the rendition of the dynamic range in an image. I'd just have liked to see how the mirrorless canera rendered the clouds in the iPhone photograph. And it seems that sometimes exposure can affect perceived detail rendition, like around the stepping stone areas.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Here are the two RawDigger plots for the images. There is little in the general tonal distribution (over about six stops of DR) in the raw data for the iPhone and the Z7 to suggest that there would be any difficulty in developing a decent image from either raw file.

But if you look closely at the iPhone histograms, there are a number of peculiar spikes that imply that the iPhone software had some difficulty converting the native 12-bit raw information into a 16-bit DNG.

We probably don't need to look much closer for evidence that the native raw data for the Nikon is a better basis for producing smooth tonality, texture and detail.

iPhone 15 raw histograms

(Download)

Z7 ra histograms

(Download)

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Now let’s see the same comparison in a low light environment or an indoor sporting event

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

My iPhone 13 does very well under low-light conditions, but lacks the “telephoto lens” needed for sporting events.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

... as long as it's not trying to capture fast movement as well, because if it is it can't use multishot techniques or slow shutter speeds.