A deep dive into the camera on the iPhone XS

The pros and cons of computational photography exposed by the maker of an app for shooting RAW and manual.

From iPhone XS: Why It’s A Whole New Camera by Sebastiaan de With, creator of Halide Camera:

No, the camera is not worse than the iPhone X.

The iPhone XS camera is better than iPhone X. It has superior dynamic range, but comes with a few tradeoffs in Apple’s software. If you don’t like the newfangled way of doing things, don’t worry.

What Apple is doing is better for virtually all use cases: casual users get better photos with more detail in highlights and shadows, without any editing. Pro users can regain contrast with a little bit of editing; the opposite is impossible: with a contrasty image, the detail was already gone.

You can now take selfies or photos with harsh backlight, side light or other unflattering light sources and end up with a usable result. This is kind of magic!

My take: It’s not that I don’t trust Phil Schiller, but I’d rather hear from a pro.

Below: Side by sides via de With and The Verge.

Click to enlarge.