Test driving the iPhone 7 Camera

Mobile photography has come a long way

I must pre-cursor this piece with an admission that I have been using the very rudimentary iPhone 6 relic for the past year and prior to that was using the 5s. For some reason I have always been a year behind so it’s finally nice to feel up to date. Also, this is not a review of the iPhone 7. There are loads of geeks on YouTube with millions of subscribers sweating bullets trying to upload their video today with that info so head there to find it.

First thing’s first. I cannot get the iPhone 7 Plus. Why? Because of years and years of habitual placement of my phone in my back left pocket. Let me explain further. The Good Lord gave me a noticeable backside. This would cause me to snap my phone in half if it was in my back pocket if I sit down. Also, it’s just too damn big. I don’t need a phablet. OMG I hate that “phablet” doesn’t show up as a spelling error in Medium. The world we live in. SMH.

Okay let’s get down to it.

The iPhone 7 sports the same 12MP capabilities of the 6s but now includes an updated lens offering an f1.8 aperture instead of an f2.2. If you’re new to photography, the lower the f-stop (f2.2 vs. f1.8), the better quality images you’ll get in low light. The phone definitely does do a better job in low light (we’ll get to that later) but it’s not crazy different. The iPhone 6 had a shitty 8MP camera in it. My iPhone 6 also had been to hell and back and was basically staying alive via scotch tape and prayers. (I literally went to a tiny stand in Playa del Carmen, Mexico to get my screen fixed 8 months ag0).

So now that you’re caught up on my life with iPhone, let’s get to the images I captured today. I started from the Apple Store at 14th Street (don’t get me started on the 2hr wait), walked down through the west village, cabbed across to the east village, then trained to the flatiron district. Here’s what I captured.

My favorite feature is the noticeable difference in overall clarity and noise reduction. Even though I’ve edited these photos in VSCO, they have still maintained their sharpness and clarity which sometimes you can see really noticeable smudging in the past. Not with iPhone 7!

There’s been lots of talk about the new camera’s upgraded abilities in foreground/background and man they weren’t kidding. In the above photo I love how the trees create a beautiful bokeh effect.

Holy shit that’s a large photo of my head. So here’s where things aren’t so great. The front-facing camera was supposed to improve from 5MP to 7MP from the 6s to 7. I’m not really noticing much but I was also in a cab going down a cobble stone street. Note that the front facing camera does not have image stabilization so we could just chalk it up to that.

And now we’re getting into super low light. This is the one area that I’m not sure what to think. You can tell that the subway care has those smudges I was alluding to before. That said, this was a very low lit platform so who knows what it would have looked like without f1.8 vs. f2.2 Regardless, it’s still not too bad from a camera phone.

Here’s where the upgraded low light definitely did impress me. The first image has great sharpness and clarity and it doesn’t lose too much when I post processed it. Really impressed by this.

This image is equally impressive because I was literally shooting into the sun and the sharpness has kept most of it’s acuity after really having to amp up the brightness and clarity to get the buildings visible. Two thumbs up.

Okay! Well that’s my two hours playing around with the new iPhone 7 camera! If you have any questions feel free to drop me a message on instagram at my handle @natepoekert.