There’s one safe prediction even prophecy-shy folks can make about the “next” iPhone: It will have a better camera.
But what does “better” mean these days? The 8MP photos from my iPhone 5 are more than big enough for editing, cropping and printing, so where does Apple go with the iPhone 5S?
If it listens to the biased opinions of the nerds who participated in DIY Photography’s latest poll, then the answer is not “more megapixels” but “better low-light performance.”
No surprises there. Today’s megapixel counts are plenty big enough for anything but specialist uses, and for people who need them, specialist cameras are available. So instead, let’s think about the most common failure point for modern cameras. Low light.
In sunlight, even Samsung’s camera phones can turn in a decent result. But in low light, the noise generated by the sensor’s own electronics threatens to swamp the signal from the few photons that manage to fall on its photosites. The fixes? Bigger pixels, better noise-processing software or better sensor design (putting the electronics on the back of the sensor, for example, so they don’t block the light.
DIY Photography’s readers also opted for improved focussing, which I take to mean faster focusing (the iPhone actually does a pretty great job of achieving focus, but it can be a little slow). Granted, this poll was asking about all cameras, not just phone cameras, but as the majority of cameras today are in iPhones, then it’s really the same thing.
I’m pretty pleased with the iPhone 5’s camera as is. Of course I’d love both of the above improvements, but I’d settle for a self-timer and the ability to switch off the shutter sound without muting the whole phone. But then, I always have been a cheap date.
Source: DIY Photography
