Quick test, iPhone 12 Pro Vs. RX100 MKVII

[Andy873]

Daytime, RX100 still wins, images look natural where as iPhone is still over sharpened.

However dynamic range is much better on the iPhone (yea I know it's computational and not "real" sensor dynamic range, I don't care and neither do most people, as long as the result is good), however this is a rather low dynamic range scene because of the weather so I don't think this high dynamic range look favours the iPhone. In a scene with more dynamic range the RX100 might be prone to over exposed sky and loss of shadow detail where as the iPhone will not.





For low light situations, it's a tie at best. Image quality is about the same but iPhone is capable of brighter images and less chance of motion blur. Where as the RX100 you always have to check if you have blur.





The iPhone with LiDAR sensor is capable of respectable low-light "portrait" shots, the processing CAN (under good circumstances) look quite natural.

The RX100 MKII is very hard to use with anything but the widest setting because that's where it can do f/2.8, anything longer aperture goes down and it's extremely easy to get blurry photos. It also starts to loose color at high ISO, where as the iPhone processes high ISO much better and still gives very accurate colors.







Overall, The RX100 MkVII is an impressive piece of tech, I guess I'd still bring it to the zoo if I'm going at daytime because it can do 200mm rather than the iPhone's 50mm. However at night time I would not even consider the RX100, iPhone is just better under more challenging lighting conditions. I don't even want to test videos, pretty sure the iPhone will win that one.

The RX100 MKVII costs more than an iPhone 12 Pro, so I would not consider this a good deal since the iPhone 12 Pro is also a phone on top of being a decent camera. At this point I really think anything smaller than APS-C is going to have a hard time matching flagship phones because of the gigantic gap in computation. In fact I'm not sure I'd want to bring my X100V except for fashion and style, that f/2 lens does not really give any meaningful bokeh anyway. And the total lack of any stabilization means it too will loose to the iPhone in low light.

I think I'll sell all my compact cameras, the iPhone 12 Pro MAX is almost another stop stronger than than the pro, if the regular pro isn't enough to bury the high end compact camera, the pro max will be.

 

[filinat]

Funny that nobody replied to this post. What you did, Andy, just confirmed my doubts so thank you so much. Ok, that's my story:

I work with an a7R IV and an a7III and I was looking for a pocketable camera to bring with me all the day, so I ordered the Panasonic GX9 with the 12-32 pancake kit lens (other options were Sony RX100 VA or Olympus E-MD10 mkIII). Nice camera the Panny GX9 but I wasn't 100% happy because I started to think to buy another brighter lens (or two), another battery etcetera, loosing this way the convenience of a pocketable camera.

I knew that my cousin (a professional video maker) bought the iPhone 12 Pro Max a months ago and I decided to ask him to shoot some pics in ProRaw. He did it and sent me several pics by wetransfer. Well... After that I opened the ProRaw files in Lightroom, I sent the GX9 back (by the way, thanks Amazon for the amazing service). I think that nowadays we should consider computational photography as a reality that in few years will change the market.

Just look at this pic (it's just a casual street shot made to see the quality, no arts here), made in ProRaw, opened in Lightroom and quickly processed in Photoshop.

 

[alcelc]

Before all, if you would not allow me to process your posted sample (cropped and added pointers only), please advise in a separate post, instead of replying to this one directly, allowing me to delete the content.

Dear friend, IMHO computational processing is an unavoidable element of digital images. Either from RAW conversion to JPG, certain recovery on shadow and highlight, to other editing on local or global basis... to the HDR, tone mapping, stacking on more intensive processing...

The point is what is the acceptance level of individual. If you are happy with the output from your tool/your processing, it should be everything.

IMHO while computational processing is part of the workflow of digital photographing, we must be cautious on not over doing it that would leave artifacts, unrealistic, not convince result... But again, a matter of personal acceptance level and taste and would also relate to how to use the output. e.g. scaled down to view on a tiny screen, look at 1:1 for the real hardware performance, some might even need to look at 300% making sure the image should be without any tiny fault...

While I first looked at the posted sample on my 6.5" phone screen, it did look strange. Hence, downloaded the posted sample on to my computer, and look at it on FastStone at 100%. It seems that the posted sample has all usual shortage of the computational processing of smartphones. Therefore, those difficult to handle places showed some unsatisfactory (unnatural/unreasonable) result.









The artifact along the edges...

It seems that it cold be too complicated for the phone to include the small spaces among the branches such that while major portion of the sky elsewhere been tune down (HDR effect?), those tiny spaces remain bright like another light source been there.



No reason there would be light reflected on those branches (red pointer) as per the overall lighting condition of the shot.



The light bloom along the tree top line (yellow pointer) suggested those details are too fine for the phone to take them out, hence not able to apply the effect it did to the surrounding sky?

If the phone could keep its computational processing in greater restraint, it might produce a more convince result.

If the above is my shot and if it is the best I can do, I would regard it as a failure.

--
Albert
** Please feel free to download the original image I posted here and edit it as you like **

 

[filinat]

My point was just to make a consideration to how the computational photography is growing and how it will change the photography. As I said I work with a 61 Mpx camera and prime lenses and I don't aspect to work with an iPhone in studio in the next 5 years (Who knows in the next 10 years). I spoke as a potential "pocketable" camera consumer, looking for something that will never take the place of my main arsenal (2 FF bodies and 8 lenses). Just be prepare to change, as photographers, our perspective about "photography" because the world is changing.

By the way, of course I can see artifacts on the pic that I posted, but I can tell you that those artifacts will not be visible on print because inkjet dots are no so perfect like pixels (and Apple ProRaw is a newborn!). And, again, we are talking about a smartphone!

A different thing is to talk about camera gear as pleasure to own a piece of technological and mechanical beauty, pleasure that I feel every time I take in my hands the Sony a7r IV with GM lenses, or the photographic experience with a "real" camera.

P.s. I don't know why, but when something different comes up, people start to fight! LOL

 

[Phil A Martin]

My point was just to make a consideration to how the computational photography is growing and how it will change the photography. As I said I work with a 61 Mpx camera and prime lenses and I don't aspect to work with an iPhone in studio in the next 5 years (Who knows in the next 10 years). I spoke as a potential "pocketable" camera consumer, looking for something that will never take the place of my main arsenal (2 FF bodies and 8 lenses). Just be prepare to change, as photographers, our perspective about "photography" because the world is changing.

By the way, of course I can see artifacts on the pic that I posted, but I can tell you that those artifacts will not be visible on print because inkjet dots are no so perfect like pixels (and Apple ProRaw is a newborn!). And, again, we are talking about a smartphone!

A different thing is to talk about camera gear as pleasure to own a piece of technological and mechanical beauty, pleasure that I feel every time I take in my hands the Sony a7r IV with GM lenses, or the photographic experience with a "real" camera.

P.s. I don't know why, but when something different comes up, people start to fight! LOL

Maybe because Andy posed it as a fight as he commonly does and "snobs" seems to be the most overworked word in his lexicon.

Many of us have smartphones that we don't think are "garbage" and use them a lot, often amazed at the quality they can achieve under perfect circumstances but our preference for full sized cameras does not make us snobs.

 

[filinat]

My point was just to make a consideration to how the computational photography is growing and how it will change the photography. As I said I work with a 61 Mpx camera and prime lenses and I don't aspect to work with an iPhone in studio in the next 5 years (Who knows in the next 10 years). I spoke as a potential "pocketable" camera consumer, looking for something that will never take the place of my main arsenal (2 FF bodies and 8 lenses). Just be prepare to change, as photographers, our perspective about "photography" because the world is changing.

By the way, of course I can see artifacts on the pic that I posted, but I can tell you that those artifacts will not be visible on print because inkjet dots are no so perfect like pixels (and Apple ProRaw is a newborn!). And, again, we are talking about a smartphone!

A different thing is to talk about camera gear as pleasure to own a piece of technological and mechanical beauty, pleasure that I feel every time I take in my hands the Sony a7r IV with GM lenses, or the photographic experience with a "real" camera.

P.s. I don't know why, but when something different comes up, people start to fight! LOL

Maybe because Andy posed it as a fight as he commonly does and "snobs" seems to be the most overworked word in his lexicon.

Many of us have smartphones that we don't think are "garbage" and use them a lot, often amazed at the quality they can achieve under perfect circumstances but our preference for full sized cameras does not make us snobs.

You are right Phil, it was provocative actually.

 

[filinat]

By the way, my wish for the future is not for a super smartphone with photographic skills but, otherwise, a pocketable and enjoyable camera (hopefully with a retro style like Lumix LX100) with the computational skills of the smartphone (Lidar, ProRaw, night mode, three lenses, post focus etc). Just because I love cameras!

 

[Phil A Martin]

My point was just to make a consideration to how the computational photography is growing and how it will change the photography. As I said I work with a 61 Mpx camera and prime lenses and I don't aspect to work with an iPhone in studio in the next 5 years (Who knows in the next 10 years). I spoke as a potential "pocketable" camera consumer, looking for something that will never take the place of my main arsenal (2 FF bodies and 8 lenses). Just be prepare to change, as photographers, our perspective about "photography" because the world is changing.

By the way, of course I can see artifacts on the pic that I posted, but I can tell you that those artifacts will not be visible on print because inkjet dots are no so perfect like pixels (and Apple ProRaw is a newborn!). And, again, we are talking about a smartphone!

A different thing is to talk about camera gear as pleasure to own a piece of technological and mechanical beauty, pleasure that I feel every time I take in my hands the Sony a7r IV with GM lenses, or the photographic experience with a "real" camera.

P.s. I don't know why, but when something different comes up, people start to fight! LOL

Maybe because Andy posed it as a fight as he commonly does and "snobs" seems to be the most overworked word in his lexicon.

Many of us have smartphones that we don't think are "garbage" and use them a lot, often amazed at the quality they can achieve under perfect circumstances but our preference for full sized cameras does not make us snobs.

You are right Phil, it was provocative actually.

And no need for it. I love my Samsung Galaxy10s and use it a lot actually





And I also like using my Pentax KP with AF lenses but I also like manual lenses. I'm also fond of my Mamiya RB67 and shooting on film, it's the best shooting experience I've ever had and enjoy printing fine silver gelatine prints but non of this makes me a snob. Such accusations are just a means to skew the discussion and as self defense from the justified critcism that he knows will come.



PS just a quick snap of some apples from my garden taken with my phone within minutes of picking them. The snails just happened to be there but I like them.

 

[Phil A Martin]

By the way, my wish for the future is not for a super smartphone with photographic skills but, otherwise, a pocketable and enjoyable camera (hopefully with a retro style like Lumix LX100) with the computational skills of the smartphone (Lidar, ProRaw, night mode, three lenses, post focus etc). Just because I love cameras!

I have an LX 100 and it's a lovely camera to use. I bought it for a holiday in Portugal, my partner was concerned about me carrying a DSLR. It is capable of taking very fine images however the micro contrast in the mid tones left something to be desired and in the end it prompted to upgrade my DSLR.

 

[filinat]

I love the apples pic! great composition and colours palette.

By the way, I am 100% on the same page with you, I started with film and I moved to digital in the early 2000. I shoot for work and for passion, so I did in the last 35 years and I feel blessed because of this. By the way, what really blowed my mind it wasn't the smartphone in itself but the potential of Apple ProRaw combined with Lidar and Computational photography. The camera learn how and what you shoot, everyday, non stop even when you are not shooting, to improve itself and this is just the beginning. The interaction between sensor, lens and raw converter will be strong and stronger in the future. It's scary and charming at the same time...

If you compare the DP Review's gallery of the Canon 5D to the pics made by the iPhone you will see that the quality is very very close. The first digital shoots that I sent to magazines (after years of films, oil and drum scanners) were from a Canon 5D (magazines did't accept less then 12Mpx), that I used by side my film camera EOS 3. So, theoretically, you can publish a full page on a magazine with an iPhone 12 Pro Max and ProRaw (ok, I said theoretically). That's just crazy!

 

[mcslsk]

The RX100 MKVII costs more than an iPhone 12 Pro, so I would not consider this a good deal since the iPhone 12 Pro is also a phone on top of being a decent camera. At this point I really think anything smaller than APS-C is going to have a hard time matching flagship phones because of the gigantic gap in computation. In fact I'm not sure I'd want to bring my X100V except for fashion and style, that f/2 lens does not really give any meaningful bokeh anyway. And the total lack of any stabilization means it too will loose to the iPhone in low light.

This pretty much sums it up.

 

[Phil A Martin]

I love the apples pic! great composition and colours palette.

By the way, I am 100% on the same page with you, I started with film and I moved to digital in the early 2000. I shoot for work and for passion, so I did in the last 35 years and I feel blessed because of this. By the way, what really blowed my mind it wasn't the smartphone in itself but the potential of Apple ProRaw combined with Lidar and Computational photography. The camera learn how and what you shoot, everyday, non stop even when you are not shooting, to improve itself and this is just the beginning. The interaction between sensor, lens and raw converter will be strong and stronger in the future. It's scary and charming at the same time...

If you compare the DP Review's gallery of the Canon 5D to the pics made by the iPhone you will see that the quality is very very close. The first digital shoots that I sent to magazines (after years of films, oil and drum scanners) were from a Canon 5D (magazines did't accept less then 12Mpx), that I used by side my film camera EOS 3. So, theoretically, you can publish a full page on a magazine with an iPhone 12 Pro Max and ProRaw (ok, I said theoretically). That's just crazy!

Thanks for the compliment. I had though that maybe this could be a saleable print but even printed at A4 size, the over sharpening becomes very apparent and the colours just a touch too bright. Maybe a rough matt paper might work? However I wish I'd used my DSLR now but it was just a quick snap for Facebook.

Here's its companion photo, again just placed on the kitchen work top and snapped :-



As for the iPhone, I have no experience of it but accept your opinions as to it's quality. Just as DSLR development petered out a few years ago, as they became good enough for most people's needs. I wonder how much more development potential is there for camera phones or will they plateaux out very soon as well?

 

[Gerry Winterbourne]

I love the apples pic! great composition and colours palette.

By the way, I am 100% on the same page with you, I started with film and I moved to digital in the early 2000. I shoot for work and for passion, so I did in the last 35 years and I feel blessed because of this. By the way, what really blowed my mind it wasn't the smartphone in itself but the potential of Apple ProRaw combined with Lidar and Computational photography. The camera learn how and what you shoot, everyday, non stop even when you are not shooting, to improve itself and this is just the beginning. The interaction between sensor, lens and raw converter will be strong and stronger in the future. It's scary and charming at the same time...

If you compare the DP Review's gallery of the Canon 5D to the pics made by the iPhone you will see that the quality is very very close. The first digital shoots that I sent to magazines (after years of films, oil and drum scanners) were from a Canon 5D (magazines did't accept less then 12Mpx), that I used by side my film camera EOS 3. So, theoretically, you can publish a full page on a magazine with an iPhone 12 Pro Max and ProRaw (ok, I said theoretically). That's just crazy!

Thanks for the compliment. I had though that maybe this could be a saleable print but even printed at A4 size, the over sharpening becomes very apparent

Take it into Photoshop and apply a couple of pixels of Gaussian blur ...

and the colours just a touch too bright.

… and reduce that at the same time.

Maybe a rough matt paper might work? However I wish I'd used my DSLR now but it was just a quick snap for Facebook.

Here's its companion photo, again just placed on the kitchen work top and snapped :-



As for the iPhone, I have no experience of it but accept your opinions as to it's quality. Just as DSLR development petered out a few years ago,

I don't think they did. The rate of developments has, inevitably, slowed but it hasn't stopped.

as they became good enough for most people's needs. I wonder how much more development potential is there for camera phones or will they plateaux out very soon as well?

They aren't very old. I'm sure there's a lot of scope for further development. Whether that is in the direction of being better able to mimic hat larger cameras do naturally, or in some completely novel directions remains to be seen.



--
---
Gerry
________________________________________________________________________
I'm happy for anyone to edit any of my photos and display the results
_________________________________________________________________________
First camera 1953, first Pentax 1985, first DSLR 2006

Galleries by Gerry Winterbourne

www.pbase.com

[email protected]

 

[Phil A Martin]

I love the apples pic! great composition and colours palette.

By the way, I am 100% on the same page with you, I started with film and I moved to digital in the early 2000. I shoot for work and for passion, so I did in the last 35 years and I feel blessed because of this. By the way, what really blowed my mind it wasn't the smartphone in itself but the potential of Apple ProRaw combined with Lidar and Computational photography. The camera learn how and what you shoot, everyday, non stop even when you are not shooting, to improve itself and this is just the beginning. The interaction between sensor, lens and raw converter will be strong and stronger in the future. It's scary and charming at the same time...

If you compare the DP Review's gallery of the Canon 5D to the pics made by the iPhone you will see that the quality is very very close. The first digital shoots that I sent to magazines (after years of films, oil and drum scanners) were from a Canon 5D (magazines did't accept less then 12Mpx), that I used by side my film camera EOS 3. So, theoretically, you can publish a full page on a magazine with an iPhone 12 Pro Max and ProRaw (ok, I said theoretically). That's just crazy!

Thanks for the compliment. I had though that maybe this could be a saleable print but even printed at A4 size, the over sharpening becomes very apparent

Take it into Photoshop and apply a couple of pixels of Gaussian blur ...

and the colours just a touch too bright.

… and reduce that at the same time.

I did and it still looked awful.

Maybe a rough matt paper might work? However I wish I'd used my DSLR now but it was just a quick snap for Facebook.

Here's its companion photo, again just placed on the kitchen work top and snapped :-



As for the iPhone, I have no experience of it but accept your opinions as to it's quality. Just as DSLR development petered out a few years ago,

I don't think they did. The rate of developments has, inevitably, slowed but it hasn't stopped.

as they became good enough for most people's needs. I wonder how much more development potential is there for camera phones or will they plateaux out very soon as well?

They aren't very old. I'm sure there's a lot of scope for further development. Whether that is in the direction of being better able to mimic hat larger cameras do naturally, or in some completely novel directions remains to be seen.

--
---
Gerry
________________________________________________________________________
I'm happy for anyone to edit any of my photos and display the results
_________________________________________________________________________
First camera 1953, first Pentax 1985, first DSLR 2006
http://www.pbase.com/gerrywinterbourne
[email protected]

 

[Smaug01]

The OP did a nice job of comparing the two and keeping things pretty objective.

My gut tells me that not everyone who replied was able to accomplish this. :-(

 

[Phil A Martin]

The OP did a nice job of comparing the two and keeping things pretty objective.

My gut tells me that not everyone who replied was able to accomplish this. :-(

--

Do you think calling people "snobs" is an appropriate term to induce good tempered discussion?

-Jeremy
*********
"Rudeness is the weak man's imitation of strength."
-Eric Hoffer
Opinions expressed are mine and not necessarily DPR's

 

[Smaug01]

The OP did a nice job of comparing the two and keeping things pretty objective.

My gut tells me that not everyone who replied was able to accomplish this. :-(

Do you think calling people "snobs" is an appropriate term to induce good tempered discussion?

No, I don't. I spoke too soon above, as the OP, in his very first response, made that bitter, trolling, confrontational statement. When I deleted it, it unfortunately took some good discussion with it. :-(

 

[Gerry Winterbourne]

I love the apples pic! great composition and colours palette.

By the way, I am 100% on the same page with you, I started with film and I moved to digital in the early 2000. I shoot for work and for passion, so I did in the last 35 years and I feel blessed because of this. By the way, what really blowed my mind it wasn't the smartphone in itself but the potential of Apple ProRaw combined with Lidar and Computational photography. The camera learn how and what you shoot, everyday, non stop even when you are not shooting, to improve itself and this is just the beginning. The interaction between sensor, lens and raw converter will be strong and stronger in the future. It's scary and charming at the same time...

If you compare the DP Review's gallery of the Canon 5D to the pics made by the iPhone you will see that the quality is very very close. The first digital shoots that I sent to magazines (after years of films, oil and drum scanners) were from a Canon 5D (magazines did't accept less then 12Mpx), that I used by side my film camera EOS 3. So, theoretically, you can publish a full page on a magazine with an iPhone 12 Pro Max and ProRaw (ok, I said theoretically). That's just crazy!

Thanks for the compliment. I had though that maybe this could be a saleable print but even printed at A4 size, the over sharpening becomes very apparent

Take it into Photoshop and apply a couple of pixels of Gaussian blur ...

and the colours just a touch too bright.

… and reduce that at the same time.

I did and it still looked awful.

I'm surprised but I don't doubt you. It's an interesting piece of new information.

 

[milkyphoto]

thank you very much, that was exactly what i was looking for when googling (having an rx100, having had an iphone XR)

 

[jcurtistx]

We have a trip to Walt Disney World planned soon and I was considering buying an RX100 VII to use as opposed to my iPhone 12 Pro in the parks. Your comparison is what I was looking for to help me decide if my iPhone is the right choice vs the RX100 VII. I do not want to carry my a6600 into the parks.


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Sony a6600, Sony 70-350mm, Tamron 17-70mm, Sony F32M Flash