Camera Showdown: Apple iPhone 8 Plus vs. Olympus PEN E-PL9
Cameras on mobile devices have come a long style in the past xi years, and smartphone makers like Apple, Samsung, LG, and Google keep rolling out new improvements.
Despite these enhancements, experienced photographers and pros nonetheless consider phone cameras to be inferior to advanced standalone cameras—peculiarly D-SLRs (digital unmarried-lens reflex) and mirrorless cameras, which yield high image quality and versatility. Just in contempo years, smartphone makers have attempted to compete in the rarefied world of advanced cameras.
In the autumn of 2022, Apple tree announced a new Portrait manner for iPhones, which ushered in a new level of excitement (or hype, depending on your point of view) about merely how avant-garde the cameras on a mobile device could be. During that product launch, Apple said Portrait fashion would produce images with a particular characteristic—shallow depth of field (DOF): "This effect, also known equally 'bokeh' and previously merely capable on D-SLR cameras, turns the camera you behave around with you every day into an fifty-fifty more powerful photography tool."
It'southward not just D-SLRs that produce this effect. Y'all tin get shallow DOF with newer mirrorless models, too. Both photographic camera types piece of work with a wide assortment of loftier-quality (and pricey) interchangeable lenses that you can bandy out, and both include large sensors in the camera body. Matching a wide aperture on a D-SLR or mirrorless lens with a large sensor is essential to capturing an epitome with a shallow depth of field, which displays your discipline in abrupt focus but renders the background in beautiful blur.
So how do Apple and other telephone makers create this detail optical effect, considering the tiny lenses and sensors on smartphones? On the iPhone, Apple uses computational photography.
With this in listen, I wanted to get a sense of how well a mobile device captures a particular type of shot—an informal portrait—and compare it to what yous can capture on an interchangeable-lens camera.
For my test, I set a photo shoot with my son, Tom, equally a model, and used two devices to capture two different informal portraits: one in an indoor setting and the other outdoors. I used a 12-megapixel Apple iPhone 8 Plus set the telephone to Portrait mode for the indoor photo and the ProCam app to capture a RAW file, and a 16-megapixel Olympus PEN E-PL9 mirrorless camera shot in aperture priority and fix to capture both a fine-quality JPEG and a RAW file, equipped with an Olympus M.Zuiko Pro ED f/1.2 25mm prime lens. For each device, I turned off the onboard wink and used merely available light.
It's important to note that to compare the two devices, I used the mirrorless camera in a very limited manner. The PEN E-PL9 provides a vast array of settings and features. And considering it'southward a system camera, you tin can purchase a diverseness of accessories to further aggrandize your creativity.
For this matchup, I focused on only a couple of of import features on each device: In one photo I fix each device to have a blurred background (using the iPhone's Portrait manner, and a wide aperture on the PEN mirrorless photographic camera, using aperture priority mode); in the other photo, I captured both images in RAW.
But there are many other features I could have used, particularly on the Olympus. For instance, if I was shooting a more than coincidental candid photo in low light without a wink, any activeness or movement would exist a challenge for a mobile device, but certainly not for a mirrorless photographic camera like the Olympus. Likewise, mirrorless and D-SLR cameras often come with capable onboard wink features and accept even more versatile external flash accessories, which can't be matched on a mobile device.
Just for this comparison, I wanted a off-white exam of how well the photos shot on the iPhone compared with what we captured with the Olympus mirrorless camera. So I kept things simple. Here'due south what I found.
Overall Results
In my setups, the iPhone 8 Plus and the Olympus PEN Due east-PL9 both did a very skilful job of taking a casual portrait. Each captured the subject's skin tones as well as other colors. The Olympus may have diddled out the bright highlights in a bit of the outdoor shot, only I like the crisp, sharp details in both the outdoor and indoor images taken with the PEN E-PL9. The iPhone captured my subject's skin tone pretty accurately, although it gave him slightly more color in the outdoor shot than he actually has. I also like that in both of the indoor shots, each device was able to provide a shallow depth of field, blurring the background and allowing for the subject to stand out.
Indoor Portrait
The image below is the iPhone 8 Plus indoor portrait.
This indoor portrait was taken with the PEN E-PL9 mirrorless camera.
On the iPhone 8 Plus, I shot the images using Portrait way, which artificially blurs the background and simulates the blazon of bokeh you'd become on an interchangeable-lens camera such as the PEN E-PL9. I then exported it and did some small adjustments to the JPEG in Photoshop.
For the Olympus image, I captured both a RAW prototype file and a fine-quality JPEG, but for this test, I used but the JPEG.
The tones in both indoor portraits wait good. But when you lot get closer, you can see some problems with the iPhone image. This composite image (above) shows details of both indoor portraits, in which I cropped in on the section just above my son'southward left shoulder—the television set and entertainment middle. In the top two photos, the Olympus detail (summit left) looks clean, but you might notice a flake of noise in the image taken on the iPhone (top right). However, the tones are dark and disguise the corporeality of noise. In the two lower images, in which I dramatically increased the exposure in Photoshop, you lot tin can encounter a noticeable corporeality of noise in the iPhone image (lower right). In dissimilarity, the Olympus epitome is still quite clear and noise-free (lower left).
Outdoor Portrait
The outdoor portrait beneath was taken with the iPhone 8 Plus.
The photo below was taken with the PEN Due east-PL9.
Another way advanced cameras such as mirrorless and D-SLRs have stood apart, peculiarly from smartphone cameras, was that they could shoot RAW files. These have been called "digital negatives" since they let you capture an image that isn't candy inside the photographic camera—unlike a JPEG, which is a compressed file format. Y'all can manipulate a RAW file in Photoshop to truly maximize the photo'south dynamic range and minimize image noise and other artifacts that dethrone paradigm quality.
In the past few years, though, many phones (including a number of new iPhones) let y'all capture RAW files. (Strangely, you need to download a tertiary-political party app such as ProCam or Manual to shoot RAW files on an iPhone.)
For my outside portraits, both of which came out well, I shot my subject with his back to the open front door to my firm. I placed a vase with yellow tulips in the dark interior of my living room, about 6 feet from the front door.
When I took the photos, the interior was underexposed—not surprisingly, the shadows swallowed up all the details. In this composite paradigm, I shot the left-side lesser photo on the Olympus PEN Eastward-PL9 and the right-side bottom photograph with the iPhone 8 Plus. Each superlative image is a cropped particular of the bottom. In both cases, I adjusted the exposure and other settings to reveal details in the doorway section. You tin can come across that the RAW file from the Olympus did a superior job in recovering the detail in the shadows. The iPhone did a decent task, simply the Olympus does a better job of restoring some of the color of the tulips.
Do We Have a Winner?
What the tests reveal is that although the iPhone's onboard software (or firmware) does an exceptional job of mimicking features like shallow DOF, it can't completely compensate for what information technology captures in low-light settings, and it will inevitably introduce racket. And a large, more expensive lens paired with a big sensor captures more visual information than a pocket-sized lens and tiny phone sensor tin can.
Even so, for the most part, the iPhone 8 Plus did a skillful chore of keeping up with the Olympus PEN in tonal quality, color, and dynamic range. And of class, information technology's the kind of camera about people are likely to have with them when unexpected photograph ops nowadays themselves. That fact alone brings this contest closer to a necktie.
Nearly Terry Sullivan
Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/nikon-d750/28751/camera-showdown-apple-iphone-8-plus-vs-olympus-pen-e-pl9
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