iPhone 4 Camera Reviews

By Jim on June 19th, 2010

This looks pretty good to me, actually. I’ve had my fingers crossed that iPhone 4 wouldn’t be a disappointment.

The biggest reason why I decided to upgrade my aging iPhone 3G was that I’m tired of carrying around a separate camera. I really want a decent camera in my phone. It makes it so much easier when you want to take some pics or video. There are times when I’ve forgotten my Panasonic camera and been stuck using my iPhone 3G’s crappy camera. Ugh. The pictures did not come out well.

The iPhone 4 has landed in the hands of a Czech who has managed a test of the phone and its camera, including HD video. Swenak explained that the phone feels good in the hand, isn’t prone to slipping, and is relatively fast both in wide use and in getting a GPS lock-on. His only misgivings expressed to Jablí?ká? are around the plastic frame between the metal and the glass, which he believed could get minor scratches over time.

The phone’s thinner profile is much easier to fit in a pocket, Swenak added.

In testing the camera, still photos appear to have the quality of a typical point-and-shoot camera, though with relatively little visible noise or fringing artifacts. Video at 720p is sharp at its native size and has audio quality similar to an iPhone’s with a comparatively quiet scene.

iPhone 4

Road

Rocks

Also, see Ars Technica’s take on the iPhone 4 camera too.

The original iPhone launched with a fixed-focus lens and a paltry (even for 2007) 2 megapixel sensor. The camera didn’t get any improvements with the iPhone 3G, but gained another million pixels, autofocus, and a “tap-to-focus” system—which links the focus control and autoexposure system to a specific point in the image—with the iPhone 3GS. It also gained the ability to shoot video, though it was limited to VGA resolution. Despite the improvements, many critics remained unimpressed with these updates.

When Apple announced the iPhone 4 at WWDC 2010, however, the company ticked off nearly every box on the wishlist: more megapixels (though as ever, there are people for whom no amount is ever enough), better low-light sensitivity, an LED flash, a wider angle of view, 720p HD video recording, a front-facing camera, and more. An iPhone 4 isn’t going to replace a DSLR or a high-end point-and-shoot, but for all but the most devoted pixel-peepers, the hardware is capable of some very nice images.

Let’s start with a look at the image sensor itself. The iPhone 3GS has a 3.1MP, 1/4″ CMOS sensor from OmniVision. That sensor has 1.75µm pitch individual pixels. Rumors coming out of Taiwan late last year suggested that OmniVision would supply Apple with 5MP sensors for the next iPhone, and we speculated that Apple would use one of OmniVision’s 1/4″, 5MP sensors as a drop-in replacement.

The increase in pixels alone means more detail and potentially sharper images, especially when printed. 3.1MP images can usually be printed up to 5 x 7″ at “photo-quality,” while 5MP images can be printed at about 8 x 10″—big enough to be framed and put on the wall. To be fair, though, something like 99 percent of the photos taken with an iPhone are going to end up on Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, or on the iPhone’s 3.5″ screen—in many cases, the extra resolution won’t be readily apparent.

iPhone 4 Video