iPhone 4s announced

[Hamish Gill]

The wait is over!
The New iPhone 4s has been announced.
Thought I would write a little summary of the updates to the camera aspect of it.

Firstly, we have been given more pixels!
The new camera has 8 mega pixels instead of the 5mp in the iPhone 4
I'm always sceptical about more pixels when the sensor size has not been increased. Apple claim this not to be an issue due to the different "backside lit" (HA!) sensor, and the large "full well" photo diodes ... in simple terms, each pixel has the best possible chance of collecting light for its size!
A bit of digging around the net reveals the sensor as a 1/3.2 size sensor, or approximately 7.5x crop factor compared to 35mm or 5.6mm diagonal dimension ... which ever one of those means the most to you

We are also being given an updated 5 element lens (4 in the iphone 4), It also has an f2.4 aperture. Of course with it being a tiny sensor, the f2.4 lens is not going to give any drastic control over DOF ... just better low light performance!
As far as i can find out it will have a slightly longer 35mm equiv lens compared to the 28mm equiv lens in the iphone 4

There is also a new IR filter to apparently give better image quality!

The "A5" chip is also said to increase start up time of the camera as well as shot to shot time... which is definitely a bonus for those who havent discovered camera+ for the iphone4

We also have Face detection... for up to 10 faces...
And photo editing features

The biggest improvement for me is the ability to shoot from the lock screen, to quote apple ...

Now you can open the Camera app straight from the Lock screen. So when things happen fast, you’ll capture them fast. Compose a picture on the fly with grid lines and pinch-to-zoom gestures. Focus with a tap. Then press the volume-up button to take a photo. And suddenly, everything is a photo op.

That sounds really good to me ... above anything else, the ability to take photos more quickly is definitely the most appealing feature!

So yeah, when are you getting yours?
I'm getting mine on Friday hopefully ...
A review of the camera will promptly follow!

Some of apples demo shots

Apple (United Kingdom) - iPhone 4S - Shoot amazing photos with the 8MP camera.

 

[Hamish Gill]

This is the Exif data from the image of the flowers on the beach ... some useful things highlighted

FileName : IMG_1720.JPG
Directory : .
FileSize : 2.1 MB
FileModifyDate : 2011:10:08 15:33:34+00:00
FilePermissions : rw-rw-rw-
FileType : JPEG
MIMEType : image/jpeg
ExifByteOrder : Big-endian (Motorola, MM)
ImageWidth : 3264
ImageHeight : 2448
EncodingProcess : Baseline DCT, Huffman coding
BitsPerSample : 8
ColorComponents : 3
YCbCrSubSampling : YCbCr4:2:0 (2 2)
---- EXIF ----
Make : Apple
Model : iPhone 4S
Orientation : Horizontal (normal)
XResolution : 72
YResolution : 72
ResolutionUnit : inches
Software : 5.0
ModifyDate : 2011:08:29 19:28:56
YCbCrPositioning : Centered
ExposureTime : 1/449
FNumber : 2.4
ExposureProgram : Program AE
ISO : 64
ExifVersion : 0221
DateTimeOriginal : 2011:08:29 19:28:56
CreateDate : 2011:08:29 19:28:56
ComponentsConfiguration : Y, Cb, Cr, -
ShutterSpeedValue : 1/449
ApertureValue : 2.4
BrightnessValue : 7.623569794
MeteringMode : Multi-segment
Flash : Off, Did not fire
FocalLength : 4.3 mm
SubjectArea : 1631 1223 881 881
FlashpixVersion : 0100
ColorSpace : sRGB
ExifImageWidth : 3264
ExifImageHeight : 2448
SensingMethod : One-chip color area
ExposureMode : Auto
WhiteBalance : Auto
FocalLengthIn35mmFormat : 35 mm
SceneCaptureType : Standard
Sharpness : Normal
Compression : JPEG (old-style)
XResolution : 72
YResolution : 72
ResolutionUnit : inches
ThumbnailOffset : 694
ThumbnailLength : 9635

 

[Davie Hudson]

A mate of mine gets her apple stuff early ( an educational thing ) and i've asked her for a full write up of the camera. Just looking at the specs I don't know how much of a diference it'll make to the pictures.

I am hoping that at some point Apple will give us better camera controls, something akin to manual settings, exposure times etc

 

[Ralph Thornton]

I was watching for a new iPhone and this one looks pretty darn good. Looking forward to the review. In the meantime I propose that RPF purchase the new iPhone for any forum members who might want one. Please put my name first on the list.

 

[Hamish Gill]

I'll tell you what Ralph, if you donate £1000 to the forum, the forum will buy you an iPhone ... Deal?

What puzzles me Davie is the setting the camera has chosen for that situation
F2.4 iso 64 and a 1/449 shutter speed strike me as human set setting to achieve that result ... At least the iso and aperture seem human set...
We are treading on over analysis of info here ... And I feel a bit of a geek bringing it up... But it does seem a bit out of the realms of the sort of desition a camera would make in those circumstances!
You know what I mean?

Maybe there will be an app for manual control! That would be pretty nifty, I might give the user that chance to actually achieve shots like apple have done!

 

[Davie Hudson]

What puzzles me Davie is the setting the camera has chosen for that situation
F2.4 iso 64 and a 1/449 shutter speed strike me as human set setting to achieve that result ... At least the iso and aperture seem human set...
We are treading on over analysis of info here ... And I feel a bit of a geek bringing it up... But it does seem a bit out of the realms of the sort of desition a camera would make in those circumstances!
You know what I mean?

Maybe there will be an app for manual control! That would be pretty nifty, I might give the user that chance to actually achieve shots like apple have done!

an app for manual controls would be brilliant, it would be nice to know how they achieved those settings ... how would i get the exif data off one of my own iphone shots?

 

[Hamish Gill]

http://www.realphotographersforum.com/content/421-exiftool-gui-exif-viewer-editor.html

you can export to a text file