[fluxquanta]

This was something that confused me a bit too. On their product page they mention twice (once as a bold headline) that the maximum aperture of the camera is f/1.8. Why?

I'm guessing that the average consumer has no idea what an f-stop is, or that having a maximum lens aperture of f/1.8 is any better than f/5.6 or f/16. And the people who do know probably also know that for a lens and sensor that are maybe a quarter of an inch wide, a bump in the maximum aperture is not going to make the camera perform anywhere near a dedicated camera, so the focus on that detail is a bit odd to me.

[b0p1x]

Low light situations. You shouldn't need software to compensate for the light level (as much).

[chris_7]

The point is that anyone that knows what "f/1.8" means knows that a sensor of that size won't perform well. It's a weirdly technical term to include.

[jrockway]

The iPhone is apparently the phone of choice for photographers, who know what an f stop is. I believe that spec is for them, everyone wants their f/1.2 L lens or whatever. Look at all of Apple's recent iPhone ads; they are all about the photos you can take (if you are willing to re-edit them in Photoshop to remove all the denoise and compression artifacts, which they even mention in the ads with a white-on-white disclaimer).

Small sensors are getting better. I am shocked at how good the image quality is on my RX100 (with a "one inch" sensor; one inch refers to the size of vacuum tube that would contain such a sensor if it were 1960 or something, no dimension is anywhere near one inch). I'm not going to give up 4x5 for it, but it's way better than a phone.

That said, the camera bump is ugly. Why can't they use a telephoto design (your 500mm SLR lens isn't 500mm long, remember).

[TheOtherHobbes]

The photo quality is - strange. It's not truly sharp or clean, especially in the far distance, and there's an odd softness and a hint of waxy sheen to it.

It's a look Nikon used to have ten or so years ago, and to me it suggests over-aggressive noise removal.

To be fair it's very good for a tiny camera, and amazing considering the state of the art ten years ago.

But I wonder if it's starting to fall into uncanny valley: the closer it gets to pro performance, the more obvious it becomes that it's not there yet.

[evan_]

> if you are willing to re-edit them in Photoshop to remove all the denoise and compression artifacts

They did mention that you'll be able to capture raws with the iPhone camera now, which will hopefully alleviate some of that.

[fluxquanta]

>Small sensors are getting better.

They are, but they will also hit a physical wall at some point (if not already), and you'll continue trading "natural" dynamic range and low noise for software interpolated dynamic range and smoothing, which as others have noted, starts looking like Madame Tussaud's museum.

Then again, if Apple really wanted to impress me with their camera skills they would have to develop a medium format mirrorless digital camera for less than $5k. One can dream, I suppose.

[jrockway]

I tend to agree with you, and wrote a long rant to this effect here: https://plus.google.com/+JonathanRockway/posts/QTxqczHGm5d

Basically, pixels are so small these days that even tiny amount of camera motion is going to blur a point of light between two pixels. I'm not sure how much that matters, but I think it does. So you can't make the sensors small and increase the detail you get. 20MP is the best you are going to do with full-frame, much less APS-C or 1" or iPhone size. Maybe image stabilization fixes all of this.

I took some photos on an airplane of a lightning storm today with a 1" sensor camera. ISO 5000, .5 second exposure hand-held, and they're pretty sharp. Not portfolio sharp, but good enough for some Internet Points probably. My iPhone did not do well, however. (I tried that first, then realized, hey I have a better camera with me.)

[pbhjpbhj]

It's a great point from a marketing perspective. Something users don't understand but can pretend too - I need this because it's got a f/1.8 camera, way better than the Samsung f/5.6 [I made that up]. What's super good is that it looks so technical, it looks like something that real cameras have about them too. Marketing fluff, yay.

[colejohnson66]

Just like megapixels. The general public has this notion of "more megapixels is better". They don't understand that there's more to a camera than megapixels: F stops, low light performance, etc. I've actually met people who know 1080p "Full HD" is 1920x1080 but had no idea that it's only two megapixels.

[chris_7]

Would be funny if it backfired - "the Samsung has more Fs!"

[pbhjpbhj]

I'm sure that argument has been made many times. ("Better" depth of field!)

[mrgordon]

It will perform better than f/2.2 of the old phone. I know several professional photographers who often carry the iPhone when they don't need all their equipment. Its not that hard to take good photos with it, especially with enough light