This is a continuation of our iPhone 6 review, focusing on the camera. For an overall impression you can check out Samer’s review here. I didn’t go to Iceland but will try to give more of a day-to-day experience with the phone for most mortals.
Three Differences
Right off the bat you’d appreciate the larger screen real estate (I’ve certainly missed it having using large android phones for 5 years now). The interface layout is pretty much the same with the exception of 240fps video and, if you’ve upgraded to iOS 8, the (rather useless) time-lapse mode and the (rather useful) exposure slider.
The second thing you’d notice how better performing the camera is. Thanks to its new technologies, focusing is faster and better than before and the macro has been drastically improved. Apple calls this “Focus Pixels” because it’s easier to comprehend than “phase detection”, a superior way to have an object in focus than the traditional “contrast detection” on cameras. You can geek out over the physics of each, but in a nutshell, phase detection is much more accurate and achieves much sharper focus, and can also detect movement and direction.
While still an 8MP camera, it packs in more detail than any iPhone before it (if you’re incredibly anal about zooming in), and it’s significant enough to not degrade while you edit the photos in other apps. While at face value both the 5s and iPhone 6 photos look similar, you can’t help but notice the ones from the iPhone 6 are more detailed. Any photographer will tell you the quality of the sensor matters more than the megapixel count, and Apple seems to understand this. That said, I am a bit disappointed they haven’t increased it still, but for now at least the sensor has been improved to make it not matter much.
The third thing you’d notice is that the colours are quite flat. Most people wouldn’t care or find it negative but I have found myself applying more contrast to more images than I have with my 5s. I tend to use the chrome filter most of the time if I am not going to process images through snapseed or using other image processing tools.
Low-Light Performance
I was impressed with the quality of the iPhone 6 in low light. It’s the most difficult to shoot in not only for exposure but also for focus. With the phase detection though it’s performed better than other cameras I have used, although it wasn’t without struggle sometimes. Exposure tended to be very good as well without much degradation in quality. These are unedited photos:
Macro Performance
Macro has improved over the 5s and produces really detailed images. I still found Samsung’s Galaxy series to have awesome macros consistently over the years, but the iPhone 6 didn’t disappoint.
Day-to-Day Shots
Throughout the day, the iPhone 6 produced consistently great images even if they were a bit flat. The photo with the pool is an edited HDR with colour and contrast boost.
Video Quality
Probably the biggest improvement comes in the video department. You can now shoot at 240fps for some truly wonderful slow-motion capturing. What’s better though is that image stabilisation makes a significant impact on the quality of the video, which reminded me of the good old days of the Lumia 920. Apple finally caught up and implemented optical stabilisation on the 6 Plus model, but the digital stabilisation is still a force to be reckoned with on the iPhone 6 model. I took the phone out for a ride in a car and the video hardly showed any vibration. Walking to the metro station was buttery smooth with only little bobbing that’s associated with walking, but certainly much more stable than what most other cameras can do (sans the Lumia 920).
A problem I have noticed though is in calculating exposure. When you see me walking down the steps, have a look at the pavement and you would see the exposure change from light to dark way too fast, almost flashing.
Just to note that the time-lapse segment was taken with Hyperlapse simply because it’s superior than Apple’s built-in time-lapse mode. The difference is that Hyperlapse takes a video, crops out the shaking and you can control the “speed” at which you want the time-lapse to be. Apple’s version on the other hand is basically traditional image taking and stitching, meaning that there is no stabilisation in this case.
Final Thoughts
The camera on the iPhone 6 is certainly a huge leap forward in terms of technology. Focusing in much quicker and images are clearer. Video stabilisation is really, really good. Don’t be fooled by the 8MP; the quality of the sensor really makes the difference.
