We yesterday reported on an iPhone 11 Pro camera test which pitted Apple’s flagship iPhone against a $7,500 Canon 1DX Mark II DSLR. YouTuber Matti Haapoja concluded that the iPhone’s performance was ‘scarily close’ to that of the high-end DSLR.
Today another photographer has also concluded that the contest between the iPhone 11 Pro camera and his Canon EOS 5D MkIV DSLR is ‘a close-run thing’ after an extensive photoshoot in the Scottish highlands …
To be completely fair, CNET’s Andrew Hoyle says that he processed the iPhone photos in exactly the same way as his DSLR shots.
For the most part I shot in raw format using the Moment app and processed the images in Lightroom Mobile on the phone itself. As this is how I work with my pro equipment, it seemed the fairest comparison. Keep in mind that nothing you see here is “straight out of camera” (unless otherwise stated). Instead, I want to show what be achieved with the phone’s camera when you take the time to craft an image.
Some shots, it must be said, look distinctly ordinary. A shot of a bay from up high in good light, for example, is the sort of photo any modern smartphone camera can handle with ease. But the photo below is a challenging one, with bright highlights and deep shadows. A smartphone shot will often result in blown highlights or lost shadow detail. But here, the sensor coped with both, allowing highlights and shadows to be recovered in processing.
In a shot of a McLaren he just happened to have borrowed for the trip, he said there was little to choose between the two.
It was a small quarry, just off the main road. Large mounds of rubble and rock were piled around, and there was an excavator of some kind left unattended. I wasn’t sure if I was allowed on the site, but there was no gate, no signs and nobody around. I decided to quickly reverse the car into a position I liked and hopped out to shoot.
I love the contrast of the vibrant McLaren against the colorless rubble. I shot this using the telephoto mode on the phone, in raw format and did some basic tweaks to exposure and contrast in Lightroom. I also slightly lightened the front wheel to show off its details.
Here’s (right) an almost identical shot taken with a Canon 5D MkIV and a 70-200mm lens. It’s remarkable that there’s such little difference between the two images. If anything, I prefer the iPhone’s image for the way the reflections look on the front of the car. This is a great example of just how well a phone camera can compete with professional photography equipment when you take time to craft it.
The most impressive part of his iPhone 11 Pro camera test is a night shot. Let’s start with a shot from the iPhone XS Max, which lacks Night mode:
Next the unedited iPhone 11 Pro version, straight from camera:
And finally, Hoyle’s edited version:
With a few exposure tweaks in Lighroom, I edited the 11 Pro’s image into this. A lot of the fine details are mushy — as you’d find with shooting at a high ISO speed on a DSLR. But it’s amazing how much light was captured in what was essentially a completely dark night.
The edited iPhone XS Max shot he shows is completely unusable.
Hoyle said he was amazed how close a call it was between the iPhone and the DSLR.
I set out to see whether a phone camera can capture a journey like this as well as my DSLR could have and I genuinely think it’s a close-run thing. I was seriously impressed with the images I shot with the iPhone and there were many images that I couldn’t tell whether they were taken with the phone or the professional camera. That’s not something I’d imagine saying even a year ago.
Had I been able to use my Moment and Lee Filters equipment with the phone too, I think it’d have been even closer. I did take my DSLR with me on the trip and fully intended to shoot some additional shots for fun, but I found that I just didn’t need to take it out as often. I trusted the iPhone’s quality would be sufficient to get what I wanted.
While it’s true that the iPhone won’t completely replace my pro gear when I’m doing photoshoots for CNET, I can say with confidence that I’ll definitely be choosing just the phone over my cumbersome DSLR when I’m going for short breaks. Instead of a whole kit bag of gear, this small rectangular slab that fits inside my pocket can do mighty well on its own.
Author: Ben Lovejoy
Source: 9TO5Mac
