As we continue to work on our review of Apple’s new flagship iPhone 5s, a few reviews published by other sites have caught our attention. In one such review, Anandtech showed us that specs on paper are just a small part of the story, since Apple’s new iPhone 5s absolutely slaughters rival Android phones in performance tests. Now, The Loop points us to an outstanding review of the iPhone 5s from a photographer’s perspective. Published by Australian website Take Better Photos, the 5s review for photographers takes a terrific in-depth look at the new flagship iPhone’s camera performance, covering a battery of tests and drawing some fascinating conclusions.
“If you already have an iPhone 5, here’s what AU$1,129 (US$1,060) buys you for a 64GB iPhone 5S, photographically-speaking: 15% larger pixels, a slightly wider and 20% brighter lens, and a colour-changing flash,” reviewer Dean Holland wrote. “Plus benefits from faster processing, including a burst mode, a ‘dynamic local tone map’ said to improve highlight and shadow detail, a behind-the-scenes multi-shot feature to reduce blur, panoramas that change brightness through the scene, and slow-motion video. This suite of changes would sound impressive in a dedicated camera. And it strikes directly at the common complaints that we hear from people who shoot on phones: wobbly pictures, poor low-light results, slow shooting and a truly hopeless flash. But will it make enough of a difference to be worth buying?”
The review includes several photo samples and an in-depth analyses of every aspect of the iPhone 5s camera, and it’s definitely recommended reading for mobile photography enthusiasts. Holland comes away quite impressed with Apple’s new camera, though he does a good job of keeping things in perspective.
“Compared to shooting with a dedicated camera, shooting with a phone has lots of technical compromises. No zoom, no raw, no shallow depth of field, no shooting darker than EV-0.5, and relatively poor picture quality once you step indoors. And these are exactly the things that draw me to mobile photography, because they force me to be creative and keep it fun,” Holland wrote.
A link to the full review follows below in our source section.
