guboogi.com

Why the iPhone 4S camera is amazing

A friend of mine recently claimed that the iPhone 4S’s camera wasn’t “amazing,” but merely “par for the course” while linking to a PC World article that showed the iPhone 4S being outperformed by an Android phone in both stills and video quality.

Image quality is obviously very important when it comes to cameras, but in my opinion, there are other factors that are equally — or perhaps even more — important. Those factors are low-light performance and shutter lag.

Much like the megapixel myth, we’ve reached a point of diminishing returns when it comes to image quality. Sure, there will always be room for improvement, but it’s no longer a pressing need. Most great cameras today — even those on smartphones — can take pictures that are acceptable to the average person provided there’s adequate lighting and good conditions. It’s when conditions are less than ideal, however, where things really start to fall apart, especially for compact/smartphone cameras.

Whether it’s from poor lighting conditions or startup/shutter lag, there’s nothing worse than missing a shot simply because your camera couldn’t take the picture. That’s why the two most important features that I look for in a camera are its low-light performance and speed. I already trust that the image quality will be sufficient given ideal conditions. I’m more interested in a camera that will allow me to take pictures in conditions where I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to with a different camera.

That’s where the iPhone 4S comes in. Aside from the meaningless bump up to 8 megapixels, the real advances in the iPhone 4S’s camera come in the form of its better handling of low-light conditions and reduced startup/shutter lag. The PC World article largely ignores these improvements. It makes absolutely no mention of the reduced startup/shutter lag, and it also only factors low-light performance for video, but not for stills.

PC World and my friend are both missing the point. What makes the iPhone 4S camera amazing isn’t its ability to take some great photos (but yes, it does that too). The iPhone 4S camera is amazing because it leads to less missed moments. And who doesn’t want that?

Edit: After rereading my post, I’d like to clarify what I’m saying — or rather, what I’m NOT saying. I’m NOT saying that the iPhone 4S is the best camera ever made or that it even revolutionized anything. It didn’t. It’s just a solid camera, plain and simple.

Better smartphone cameras will be released that will undoubtedly put the 4S to shame. The Galaxy Nexus, which was just announced last night, may even turn out to have a far superior camera. I thought it was interesting that they kept it at 5 megapixels — something I wish Apple had done with the 4S. More megapixels = more noise, and I’d rather have a clean 5MP image than a noisy 8MP one, but that’s just me.