You can’t up a camera’s megapixel count without a hardware change, but there are a good number of things that can be done in the software to improve photo quality. You can tweak the color filters, or polish up auto-exposure for example. We’re not quite sure what Apple changed in the iPhone 3.0 firmware camera settings, but it looks like it was for the better.
Russian iPhone fan site iPhones.ru took roughly 30 sample shots between two iPhones, one running the old firmware, one on the new. Everytime, they say, image clarity and contrast was improved. Of course, there’s no saying that one of the lenses wasn’t just a bit smudgier than the other, nor can we prove that these guys didn’t take the 2.2.1 shots while riding on a unicycle – but the idea that Apple brushed up the camera’s software settings between releases doesn’t seem too crazy to us.
[Via Giz]
My iPhone used to take photos like the one on the left and I cursed it for it (looked like they were shot in a sauna or something), then I realized I hadn’t cleaned the lens for quite a while, did so and voilá – the photos now more resemble the 3.0-ones on the right.. :-)
I actually like my iPhone’s camera very much.
Sure it’s not the greatest camera in the universe but it’s working fast (~enough), it’s easy to use, and eventually, (and I can’t explain why as I’m really no expert in cameras), the results are better than other devices such as HTC Touch Pro or Samsung Omnia which have better camera.
Here’s a small example:
http://mobilespoon.blogspot.com/2009/01/pictures-from-garage.html
Yeah, the one on the left looks like its been sitting in some fat dudes back pocket too long.
Given the right lighting conditions the iPhone’s camera does a pretty good job right now. But, I’m sure that Apple will be improving the quality of pictures taken on the iPhone, improving the algorithms that are used to automatically adjust all the settings can improve image quality tremendously.
Well, lighting conditions like this used to be demanding for any camera.