Alternative to iPhone for RAW shooting

[Sr Cordeiro]

Hello,

I'm currently searching for a phone to use as a pocket camera.
It will not be my main camera, for that I already have a Fujifilm and Olympus setup. It will be for when I go for a run and spot a good photo, or on other occasions when I just don't want to carry gear around.

I currently have a iPhone 11 and use it with the Procamera app to shoot burst RAW files (only with the main camera, the 0,5 ultrawide doesn't get RAW). The quality is a bit lacking and obviously there's not much versatility regarding focal lengths (just wide and ultra wide).

So I'm looking to replace it. As must~haves for of a new phone:

- triple-camera setup

- being able to shoot RAW with any of the 3 cameras/lenses, preferably "true" RAW, no computational stuff, even if I have to use an external app (which I probably will to get more control anyway)

- burst shooting capacity in RAW (at least 5 fps) since I shoot mostly fast street photography

I've been eyeing a used iPhone 15 Pro or 16 Pro that I think would get the job done, but there's always the risks of the second-hand market and they're still pretty expensive, the prices didn't got down as I would expect them to.

Then I got to a store and saw some tempting Android models, often at a good prices too (some cheaper new than a used iPhone). Some that caught my attention were:

- Samsung S25
- Xiaomi 15T
- Xiaomi 14T Pro
- Oppo X8 Pro
- Google Pixel 9

The thing is I don't have any experience on advanced photography with Android. I tried to test the cameras of the various models at the store, but I couldn't enable RAW+burst shooting on any single one of them (seems that with RAW is for 1 single photo and for burst I have to go JPG).

Will an external app permit to do this?

Are any of these models a better choice? (or any other models on that price bracket)

Thanks in advance.

 

[Djingonthenet]

Hello,

I'm currently searching for a phone to use as a pocket camera.
It will not be my main camera, for that I already have a Fujifilm and Olympus setup. It will be for when I go for a run and spot a good photo, or on other occasions when I just don't want to carry gear around.

I currently have a iPhone 11 and use it with the Procamera app to shoot burst RAW files (only with the main camera, the 0,5 ultrawide doesn't get RAW). The quality is a bit lacking and obviously there's not much versatility regarding focal lengths (just wide and ultra wide).

So I'm looking to replace it. As must~haves for of a new phone:

- triple-camera setup

- being able to shoot RAW with any of the 3 cameras/lenses, preferably "true" RAW, no computational stuff, even if I have to use an external app (which I probably will to get more control anyway)

- burst shooting capacity in RAW (at least 5 fps) since I shoot mostly fast street photography

I've been eyeing a used iPhone 15 Pro or 16 Pro that I think would get the job done, but there's always the risks of the second-hand market and they're still pretty expensive, the prices didn't got down as I would expect them to.

Then I got to a store and saw some tempting Android models, often at a good prices too (some cheaper new than a used iPhone). Some that caught my attention were:

- Samsung S25
- Xiaomi 15T
- Xiaomi 14T Pro
- Oppo X8 Pro
- Google Pixel 9

The thing is I don't have any experience on advanced photography with Android. I tried to test the cameras of the various models at the store, but I couldn't enable RAW+burst shooting on any single one of them (seems that with RAW is for 1 single photo and for burst I have to go JPG).

Will an external app permit to do this?

Are any of these models a better choice? (or any other models on that price bracket)

Thanks in advance.

You probably won't get burst RAW (to the speeds that you require) from non "ultra" devices, out of those the Oppo is probably your best bet. The top Xiaomi, Vivo and Oppo Ultras (latter 2 are China releases only) should give you excellent RAW results, Xiaomi offers upto 16-bit RAW and all 3 offer RAW on all lenses (I think, Xiaomi definitely does) and hi-res RAW (from the main lens at least).

Check out Vini Di Caro on YouTube, he delves into the latest phones and gives in-depth analysis into shooting RAW with comparisons with the very best (in Italian so use the translation subtitles if necessary).

 

[bloodlmt]

On Android, you can get both "computational raws" and real "raw" easily unlike iPhone

If budget is tight, check for Xiaomi 15T Pro and buy the 512GB variant. Skip the base 15T

if you want to buy used, check Oppo Find X8 Ultra or Xiaomi 14 Ultra/15 Ultra. This phones are so good at street photography and has very good raw files for editing. If you dont have telegram account i recommend create a new account coz there are so many gold mines of informations buried in the telegram channels

check out 1000s of photos here on telegram Find X8 Ultra Photography

---

or just wait another month or two for the new release of Oppo Find X9 Pro, Vivo X300 Pro, Honor Magic 8 Pro...all with stronger camera hardware than iPhone 17 Pro Max especially periscope zoom

 

[WoodWorks]

On Android, you can get both "computational raws" and real "raw" easily unlike iPhone

On the iPhone you can shoot computational raw using the built-in app, or you can download any number of apps (Halide, et al.) if you wish to shoot plain raw. Is that not easy enough?

 

[Sr Cordeiro]

Thanks for all the suggestions.

I ended up buying a iPhone 15 Pro, found a good deal with original battery at 100% and 3 year warranty.

I was curious about the Androids, but I also already invested on apps for iPhone, plus all the data transfer convenience and compability with airtags (Apple really knows how to keep people using their products).

The iPhone 15 Pro only has 48mp on the main camera, but either way it's not real 48mp, they all are just 12mp sensors in reality, just one of them has quad-pixel. When I shoot burst RAW with the Procamera App the resuts are always 12mp anyway, so I can use that for fast burst and the main app for computational stuff.