iPhone camera 12 mp images compared

iPhone 11 was used to create the above images.

I will be writing a learning guide on cell phone photography.  In order to do that, I thought it prudent to purchase an iPhone, and so, for $400, I bought my very first Apple phone.  I have been playing with it a bit and today did some photos comparing the images it provides.  There are three lenses, the first three images above and the resulting crops (follow the arrow) were made with the 0.5x, the 1.0x, and the 2.0x lenses.  These are called optical zooms or images because the image produced is exactly as the sensor sees it.

The last image was magnified by the camera's software using a process called interpolation.  The same lens that created the 2.0 times image (3rd from left) created the far right shot, which then was cropped to produce the relative enlargement.   

The first two images are relatively clear but the third one is a bit off.  I think that the focus point was in the wrong place which resulted in the lack of clarity.  The final image shows considerable artifact distortion from the interpolation done to the image.  You can enlarge (zoom in) the image to capture it by touching the screen with two fingers and then spreading them apart.  You can thus magnify the shot up to a 6x value (a 300% increase in magnification), but you would get the same quality by taking the 2x magnification and enlarging it on a computer.

I put this together as a means of exploring Apple's iPhone; I will be comparing it to a Samsung phone with 3 cameras and also to my digital cameras for overall quality and ease of use.  I hope to be finished in about a month or so.

Thanks for reading.  

Eric Svendsen     www.ericspix.com