JaimeAdams
2500 Club Member
I know that folks will have differing opinions between Apple and Samsung here, but if we remove personal bias which phone has the best camera for taking coral pictures?
Best phone camera
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mkereefer
Active Member
either of them work fine you just have to have the right lense attatchment on them usually a orange one
Any flagship phone that has manual controls or as some call it Pro Mode.
My S22 Ultra has pro mode so I can set white balance and don't need a filter.
My old iPhone 11 Pro Max sucked taking pictures of the tank. Always way too blue with no manual adjustments available. The 13 and soon to be released 14 may have fixed this
My S22 Ultra has pro mode so I can set white balance and don't need a filter.
My old iPhone 11 Pro Max sucked taking pictures of the tank. Always way too blue with no manual adjustments available. The 13 and soon to be released 14 may have fixed this
mkereefer
Active Member
I use the same thing lol on mine
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
I have no recent experience with Samsung of Apple, but I would also consider the Pixel 6 Pro. It has an orange to blue slider, which really helps to dial in true colors. A good lens/filter kit is really what makes all the difference though.
Prior to Pixel 6, using Night Sight on a Pixel phone for pics was amazing! No filters needed as it removed the blue and warmed the picture up very nicely.
My P6 Pro on the other hand sucked without a filter added.
My P6 Pro on the other hand sucked without a filter added.
Yeah thats very nice! Do you have a basic screenshot of phone settings or something in the camera app ? I'm just wondering speed, iso, w.b stuff like that .I have no recent experience with Samsung of Apple, but I would also consider the Pixel 6 Pro. It has an orange to blue slider, which really helps to dial in true colors. A good lens/filter kit is really what makes all the difference though.
Great pictures though I like them!
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
You can adjust white balance, exposure, and blue to orange filter manually. You can't get much more advanced than this AFAIK.
It will show you in photo details the fstop, iso, etc.
anthonygf
Valuable Member
I have no recent experience with Samsung of Apple, but I would also consider the Pixel 6 Pro. It has an orange to blue slider, which really helps to dial in true colors. A good lens/filter kit is really what makes all the difference though.
The clam on that snail. How did you do it? I know, it was Mother Nature. Very nice photos.
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It's all about the software now. If you are looking to only post digital photos on the net, then any newer phone will suffice. When you take a cell phone jpeg pic, the phone camera software adjusts the camera settings to what it's best guess is for lighting, white balance, aperture, etc.
In a "pro mode", you can manually set those and combine it with a filter lens to get a close to real life representation.
If you shoot the photo in RAW format, you can further edit the photo and change every aspect of it in Lightroom or even, gasp!, Photoshop. It's more about your technique and understanding of photography, then which phone is best, as they are all capable of great online photos.
In a "pro mode", you can manually set those and combine it with a filter lens to get a close to real life representation.
If you shoot the photo in RAW format, you can further edit the photo and change every aspect of it in Lightroom or even, gasp!, Photoshop. It's more about your technique and understanding of photography, then which phone is best, as they are all capable of great online photos.
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
Really dependent on your spectrum. But I did notice going from the pixel 4 to pixel 6, I am using my orange filter more often. I haven't used night sight much. Any tips?
It won't work on the 6 like it did the 4. The 5 and 5a still work great with Night Sight for pics. They changed something with the 6 and its new hardware.
I was one of the unfortunate users that had nothing but issues with my 6 Pro. Google replaced it and I immediately sold it to go back to Samsung
razorskiss
Active Member
I did the same thing, I went from pixel 2 to Samsung to pixel 6 pro and sold it to go back to Samsung. I love Google software but it just wasn't worth the slow fingerprint reader, crappy battery life, and screen for me. I hope the 7/8 go back to a place to make it worth switching back for me.
Software features are definitely it now, any kind of manual mode will be a lot more work to dial in settings but will yield better results in all but a white lit reef. The hardware is pretty similar across the board. I typically use an orange filter with the 3x tele lens on my S22 ultra for convenience sake and then tweak tinting afterwards in Google photos. The iPhone can produce equally good pictures from a technical standpoint, it's just a matter of figuring out a workflow for it.
I have noticed the iPhones went backwards between iPhone X to 13. So, I still use my old iPhone X exclusively for reef photos. The single lens on iPhone X used to do a better job compared to 3 lenses on iPhone 13 pro max. Don’t know why but that’s my observation.
Sam
Sam
razorskiss
Active Member
The culprit here is likely computational photography rather than the hardware itself. Phone cameras increasingly use neural networks to automate every little aspect of image processing from auto exposure to white balance. These models are trained on a wide range of photos out in the world that probably don't include many shots of reef tanks, so it's not surprising they won't perform well
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
That's too bad. I haven't had any issues yet, but I don't rely on my phone as much other people do. Especially those who use it heavily for work. What issues did you have?
Super glitchy. Keyboard would get stuck on the screen, wifi constantly turned itself off, battery was terrible, pictures (especially for hobby use) weren't any better even though they "upgraded" hardware, fingerprint reader was terribly slow and inconsistent, just a host of issues that factory resets wouldn't fix. Google replaced it but I was done at that point. My Pixel 2XL was unbelievably good. My son has it now to watch YouTube Kids and it works perfectly still. Good backup phone to have on hand.
Now I find myself looking more and more to Apple. I already tried it once and didn't like it. The camera I had on the 11 Pro Max was so bad. Forget taking a picture of my tank if it had any blue. I didn't have an orange filter at that point because my Pixel with Night Sight and Note 20 Ultra with Pro Mode were so good!
This S22 Ultra has been good to me. Apple would have to release something so over the top I can't hold off any longer and I don't see that happening this year.
jhuntstl
Valuable Member
Man that's nuts! I wonder if many of those software issues have been fixed with updates. I have not had any problems like that. I have noticed the battery life isn't the greatest, but thankfully I'm not much a power user.
I was hoping to get an Apple when I went in to upgrade, but the incentives to get the 6 Pro were just too good.
Got any S22 Ultra shots you'd care to share?
My wife, mother-in-law, and best friend all have the 6 Pro. 2 of them have issues and 1 doesn't. I believe Android 13 is fixing a lot of the issues. I always felt 12 was rushed and Tensor being brand new didn't help things.
Here are a few. I'm admittedly not great with a camera. Never learned all the angles and tricks for cool photos.
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