> “I think the 12 MP shooting default is a wise choice on Apple’s part, but it does mean that the giant leap in image quality on iPhone 14 Pro remains mostly hidden unless you choose to use a third party app to shoot 48 MP JPG / HEIC images or shoot in ProRAW and edit your photos later.”
This, 100%.
The massive difference in image quality is when shooting in RAW. That’s when you actually get the 48MP & the images are fantastic.
But that’s not the default. The default is 12MP.
That’s why reviewers are so torn on this camera system. If the default was a 48MP picture/quality, everyone would be praising it. But when the default is 12MP, it’s par for the course.
If you want to hit a time and battery life target it unfortunately isn't just software; image processing algorithms start in Matlab and moves to hardware for production. You can only move so many pixels through the pipeline at once.
> if the photo is only going to be displayed on a 6 inch screen
If you use photos as a way to preserve memories, then who knows what these photos are going to be displayed on in the future?
Maybe in the (near) future, we start adopting VR headsets, and then the 12MP vs 48MP difference is going to matter a lot.
On the low-tech end of the spectrum, maybe you want a larger poster printed out. If you need to crop some part of the image at all, the difference in resolution is going to be very noticeable.
Speculative and tenuous hand-wringing about distant, unlikely use cases is not a compelling rebuttal. We know 12mp photos look good on 6 inch, high resolution screens. They even look good on desktop computers and TVs.
Why would you view 2D images in a stereoscopic 3D headset designed for video? Do existing photos look bad in current VR headsets because they lack resolution? I haven’t used any of the modern VR headsets but I’m willing to bet that there isn’t a significant difference between a 12mp and “48mp” iPhone 14 pro photo on a VR headset.
You’re also ignoring the context — of course higher resolution is better in isolation, no one would argue otherwise. But it comes with significant trade offs, like the FOUR SECOND capture time and the enormous file sizes.
If you want to print a cropped photo from an iPhone on a large poster (be honest — do you know anyone who currently prints iPhone photos on posters on a regular basis? I’d argue that hardly anyone prints iPhone photos at all nowadays, and especially not at large poster sizes), 12mp vs “48mp” isn’t going to make a difference, it’s going to look bad either way.
Anyone seriously concerned about their ability to print large format posters from cropped images is going to be using a full frame or medium format camera.
We know current iPhone photos look fine on 6inch high PPI displays (displays that already exceed the resolution of the human retina) and when printed at common sizes (4x6, 8.5x11). That’s never going to change. Making the iPhone camera workflow significantly worse for users now is not an acceptable trade off for vague, hypothetical future use- cases.
I printed and framed an iphone photo of my niece 11x17 as a Christmas gift for my mother last year. It would not have been better taken with professional camera equipment.
This, 100%.
The massive difference in image quality is when shooting in RAW. That’s when you actually get the 48MP & the images are fantastic.
But that’s not the default. The default is 12MP.
That’s why reviewers are so torn on this camera system. If the default was a 48MP picture/quality, everyone would be praising it. But when the default is 12MP, it’s par for the course.