Comparison - S90 vs. iPhone4

Hello,

This is one of my first posts and I wanted to devote it to post comparison shots between my Canon S90 and my recently acquired iPhone 4 in terms of picture quality.

This matchup may at first seem silly, but I was surprised to see how well the i4 managed to keep up. The sensor on the i4 actually produces very photographic results, with an analogue looking noise that looks very pleasant in my opinion.

The only changes in Photoshop I've made is that I've very slightly lowered the contrast on the i4 pictures and slightly raised the contrast on the S90 pictures to make the exposure more equal since the phone is fully automatic.

Since the i4 has a longer focal length I matched the S90 by zooming in. This means that the S90 used aperture F2.5 while the i4 has a static F2.4. Also the i4 has a 5mp camera compared to the S90s 10mp.The pictures has been cropped at various degrees to match each other. They were taken in the evening light while the sun was setting.

Round 1 - a closer crop than the others (iPhone 4 top vs S90 bottom)





Round 2 - (iPhone 4 top vs S90 bottom)





Round 3 - (iPhone 4 top vs S90 bottom)





The S90 obviously wins as a camera with its possibility to use F2.0, a real flash and a zoom lens with a much shorter/longer focal length, but yet I was extremely impressed with the i4's photographic capabilities.. and it also shoots excellent looking 720p video which the S90 lacks.

So what do you say?

fairly impressive. i'm sure the differences would be more obvious in a 100% view, but still.

don't know how many apps there are for the S90, and not sure whether you can use it to call people, but assuming you can't i say the iphone wins this one.

though they both require a special way of holding them....

that happens when you dont know how to use a camera

ijustloveshooting said:

that happens when you dont know how to use a camera

Click to expand...

Well, what you mean by that? I'm an experienced photographer and these samples represent typical web-sized images at various crops. I explained some of the conditions in which they were taken. It's just meant as some sort of pointer of the performance of the i4.

I can now also add that the i4 is a lot worse in even darker environments. There is MUCH more noise and it of course doesn't have an image stabilizer.

My wife has a new iphone and I am amazed at what she captures !

Vjim

Keep an eye out for camera+ (not camera plus, which is different) for the iphone. It's a fabulous app, but currently pulled from the app store because the last version let you enable the volume switch as a shutter release (using the buttons for other purposes is against the developer guidelines). It's from taptaptap.com and if it comes back, it really extends what you can do:

http://campl.us/

.

I've recently upgraded to an iPhone 4 and love it. I upgraded specifically because

of the better camera vs the iPhone 3GS. It's not an S95 or even an Elph, but it's
much better than nothing and it does have limited exposure and focus controls.
Superior to any other cell phone I have seen.

Best apps I've seen are PhotoGene, which is a superb little photo editor. Pro HDR,

which is a very nice little HDR app for iPhone. Also ColorSplash, which is a very
fun selectable colorization application.

These are a few shots I have taken with my iP4 the past month.

dxr

















Larger pic from webpage --

Conchita said:

.....currently pulled from the app store because the last version let you enable the volume switch as a shutter release (using the buttons for other purposes is against the developer guidelines).

Click to expand...

i guess steve hitler jobs deemed it to be unacceptably convenient and intolerably handy.

i just can't understand the iphone crowd...

It's really difficult to compare since first all these have much more shallow DOF on the S90 and second the picture are pretty small.

Instead of macro's a landscape image would be better for comparison.

Hi strosz,

First of all - thanks for posting the comparison. I think a lot of times people read through it think "interesting", but don't take the time to comment. Instead, only people with negative reactions comment, leading to an unbalanced impression.

You mentioned that you cropped them - did you crop them or resize them? Are they 100% crops, or are they full sized images resized to the same size?

I actually like the iPhone colors better. I've always found Canon colors to be "good, but not great" though. I miss my Kodak colors - unfortunately, Kodak's cameras all get reviews saying their low light performance is abysmal. :-( Of course I can't quite draw any strong conclusions because of a variety of factors - you changed the colors afterwards a bit, who knows if the photos that look good are also accurate, and on my work monitor the colors might just look different than my home monitor.

The iPhone photos look a little clearer, to, but it appears that you went out of your way to use f2.0, yes? I think that's it...for some of the photos more depth of field probably would have looked a little nicer.

Um...so I feel like I've just been critical, to, but I don't mean to be. Just thinking out loud! Thanks for the comparison.

Actually, it's very interesting. We all know that phone are bound to remplace compacts one day, so we should keep a open mind (an Canon should really think going for the mirrorless formula).

I find the results quite close at this viewinf sinze, but then the big question is what you mean by "crop". Are those 100% crop (or even 50%) ? Or do you actually mean "resize" ? Because ten, most imaging device nowday give good results resized in those dimensions. But even then, I have to said that the colors are quites impressives.

Could you post 100% crop (if those are not) and why not high iso so that we get a better idea ?

If anyone interested, there's ton of iphone 4 samples at flick: http://www.flickr.com/cameras/apple/iphone_4/
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/maximebrousse/

I wouldn't replace my camera (even a P&S compact) with a phone at this point, but the iPhone is closing in.

Mid-Life Krysis said:

i guess steve hitler jobs deemed it to be unacceptably convenient and intolerably handy.

i just can't understand the iphone crowd...

Click to expand...

Yes, he's killed millions of heretic Windows users - rounded them up and droided them to death. And all of us who do, have, or ever may own an iphone read verses together from the Apple website daily at both dawn and dusk.

Mid life crisis indeed!

-Ray

The iPhone 4 camera is great. It is nowhere near the quality of the S90, but doesn't pretend to be. In addition to Camera+ mentioned earlier in this thread and ColorSplash which are both great programs... CameraBag is a great one-button image filter app, which has some great effects. Lastly -- there is an app called IncrediBooth which essentially turns your iPhone into one of those photo booths you find at fairgrounds. It snaps 4 pictures, with the front facing camera, and the flash. It is a great way to get folks to take self pictures at a party for instance. People really let their hair down (so to speak) when they are controlling pictures
Sample from Incredibooth..





--
Joe
Old Acct: http://www.dpreview.com/members/5617432530/forums/Messages?Page=19

always the one you have with you. In all fairness i will say these are the worst photos I have ever seen from an S90. It is good to know that apple has a good implementation of a still camera in a device that I carry more than I carry a camera.

PaulRivers said:

Hi strosz,

First of all - thanks for posting the comparison. I think a lot of times people read through it think "interesting", but don't take the time to comment. Instead, only people with negative reactions comment, leading to an unbalanced impression.

You mentioned that you cropped them - did you crop them or resize them? Are they 100% crops, or are they full sized images resized to the same size?

Click to expand...

You're welcome! I don't mind criticism as I know that there are several faults with this comparison. It was just meant as a quick overview of what web-sized images will look like. Just take it for what it is. The first pair is approx 90% crop on the i4 and 60% crop on the S90 because of the 5mp difference. It shows about 1/3rd of the original photo. I do realize that this crop is unfair, but in web-environments images rarely needs to be cropped more than that.

The two other pairs are approx 41% crop on the S90 and 57% on the i4.

The original sized images are of course taken at the same degree of zoom and shows the same subject from the same angle, this meant that the S90 had to manage with F2.5.

DoF differences are due to the 1/1.7" sensor on the S90 and 1/4" sensor on the i4. I consciously did shots with DoF to compare it.

gburgos said:

In all fairness i will say these are the worst photos I have ever seen from an S90.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry for the absence of artistic quality, but this is purely a snap shot of how the same subjects look in a dark/bad environments between the two. When the weather gets better I will do a more just comparison in broad daylight

I'm not trying to say that the i4 is great as a camera compared to the S90. The S90 blows it out of the water. But as a phone that you always carry with you, it's surprisingly good.

strosz said:

PaulRivers said:

Hi strosz,

First of all - thanks for posting the comparison. I think a lot of times people read through it think "interesting", but don't take the time to comment. Instead, only people with negative reactions comment, leading to an unbalanced impression.

You mentioned that you cropped them - did you crop them or resize them? Are they 100% crops, or are they full sized images resized to the same size?

Click to expand...

You're welcome! I don't mind criticism as I know that there are several faults with this comparison. It was just meant as a quick overview of what web-sized images will look like. Just take it for what it is. The first pair is approx 90% crop on the i4 and 60% crop on the S90 because of the 5mp difference. It shows about 1/3rd of the original photo. I do realize that this crop is unfair, but in web-environments images rarely needs to be cropped more than that.

The two other pairs are approx 41% crop on the S90 and 57% on the i4.

The original sized images are of course taken at the same degree of zoom and shows the same subject from the same angle, this meant that the S90 had to manage with F2.5.

Click to expand...

Ah, lol, if you look around you'll see I did some hasty comparison shots and didn't do them right myself, either. ;-)

But as advice, if you want a fair comparison, you shouldn't be cropping whatsoever. You should just be resizing. Next time look for a reference point - if you can find 2 posts in the picture that works well, or the sides of a flower pot or something. Take both pictures so that exactly the same scene fills up the entire area of the picture - you'll probably have to physically place the iPhone closer to the scene than the s90. Then afterwards resize both images to the size you want.

Those results would be a much better comparison of the quality of pics each camera can take vs each other than anything involving cropping - would you usually be cropping pictures afterwards? Probably not. But you probably would be resizing them afterwards, even if "resizing" just means "the photo program automatically shrunk them to fit the screen".

Common sizes for resizing are 1920x1200 (the largest commonly-used computer screen resolution), 1920x1080 (what's on your 1080p hdtv), and 720x720 (max size for Facebook.

strosz said:

DoF differences are due to the 1/1.7" sensor on the S90 and 1/4" sensor on the i4. I consciously did shots with DoF to compare it.

gburgos said:

In all fairness i will say these are the worst photos I have ever seen from an S90.

Click to expand...

I'm sorry for the absence of artistic quality, but this is purely a snap shot of how the same subjects look in a dark/bad environments between the two. When the weather gets better I will do a more just comparison in broad daylight

I'm not trying to say that the i4 is great as a camera compared to the S90. The S90 blows it out of the water. But as a phone that you always carry with you, it's surprisingly good.

Click to expand...

I don't think he was trying to diss your photo-taking choices, but I kinda have to agree with him that I don't know that I've ever seen worse photos (texture, detail, etc) come out of my s90. I suspect it's because of the cropping.

Here's an example from my own gallery -





Looks nice resized when dpreview automatically resizes it, doesn't it? And when you click twice on the picture and dpreview makes it bigger in the window, it still looks nice, doesn't it?

Now click on the "Original" link, wait for it to load in your browser, then make sure it's being viewed at 100% (you may have to click on it - the whole picture doesn't fit in the browser window at 100%). It's a grainy mess! lol There's noise everywhere, and everything behind the girl is blurry, blurry, blurry. That's what happens with crops. ;-)

Please re test when the iOs4.2 photo upgrade (is it called HR?) is available.

V exciting!!
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http://www.flickr.com/photos/46373852@N04/