A deep dive into the camera on the iPhone XS

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By Steven M. Peters Updated Published

The pros and cons of computational photography exposed by the maker of an app for shooting RAW and manual.

 

From iPhone XS: Why It’s A Whole New Camera by Sebastiaan de With, creator of Halide Camera:

No, the camera is not worse than the iPhone X.

The iPhone XS camera is better than iPhone X. It has superior dynamic range, but comes with a few tradeoffs in Apple’s software. If you don’t like the newfangled way of doing things, don’t worry.

What Apple is doing is better for virtually all use cases: casual users get better photos with more detail in highlights and shadows, without any editing. Pro users can regain contrast with a little bit of editing; the opposite is impossible: with a contrasty image, the detail was already gone.

You can now take selfies or photos with harsh backlight, side light or other unflattering light sources and end up with a usable result. This is kind of magic!

My take: It’s not that I don’t trust Phil Schiller, but I’d rather hear from a pro.

Below: Side by sides via de With and The Verge.

iPhone XS camera

Click to enlarge. 

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