Why I really don't like my iPhone 13 camera
Comparing photos shot with iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 13.
I just returned from a five day trip to Paris, and as usual I captured the city on film and with my iPhone. As something new this time I also brought my old iPhone.
I am currently on my third iPhone. I got my first one, an iPhone 4, back in 2011. In 2015 it was replaced by the iPhone 6 Plus, and three years ago I got my current iPhone 13.
I have used all three iPhones as cameras, but with very different outcomes.
When I upgraded my iPhone 4 to iPhone 6 Plus, I remember seeing a huge and very positive difference in image quality, and in fact I started using my phone much more for everyday photography. Around the same time I downloaded the VSCO cam app for editing, and everything was just perfect.
Seven years later it was time for a new upgrade, and I went with the latest model, which was iPhone 13. A lot of things had happened to iPhones between 6 plus and 13, so I was obviously expecting something extra from the camera and the photos, I was going to make.
The first photo I made with the new iPhone, was a portrait of my daughter, and when I saw it, I was quite surprised. What was this? Everything seemed to be, as it should be, and yet I didn’t like it at all. It was almost too much, too perfect. In a way it looked like a painting.
I kept on photographing with my new iPhone, but something wasn’t right. The photos didn’t “speak” to me. Even when light, colors and composition were perfect, I didn’t like what I saw. Everything was so sharp with way too many details, and the colors were incredibly saturated.
For a long time I thought it had something to do with my editing. When switching to the new phone, I lost access to the free version of VSCO cam, and I decided, that I would just edit the photos with Apple’s photo app.
Then last year I purchased the VSCO app again and started editing my photos in it. It helped a little bit, but I still didn’t love my photos. How could it be, that I had one of the newest iPhones, and none of my photos spoke to me?
At some point I googled it. To see if it was me, or if other people had had the same experience. Turned out it wasn’t just me…
Recently I found a thread online, where people wrote, that they had gone back to using their old phones as cameras. I couldn’t believe, that I had never thought of this, since I still had my old iPhone 6 Plus.
I immediately took it out of my “old electronics box” and charged it. Then I decided to make a little test. I went for a walk around my neighborhood with both iPhones and captured the same subjects with each phone.
The difference was quite obvious. While the new iPhone did a very good job in terms of exposure, the colors of the photos taken with the old iPhone were so much better. Less saturated and much more natural, and the photos didn’t have the crazy sharpness of the iPhone 13.
So I brought both iPhones with me to Paris. The idea was to return from our vacation and show you my fabulous iPhone 6 Plus Paris photography, but on the second day of our trip a black spot appeared on the camera lens, and I had to surrender and go back to using my iPhone 13.
To illustrate what I mean, I have shared a gallery of some of my favorite iPhone 6 Plus photos and another one with my “preferred” (favorite is too strong a word for this camera) iPhone 13 photos. I would love to know if you can see a difference.
I would also love to hear what your experience is with newer iPhone cameras. Do you like them? Or are you using different camera apps on your phone?
After returning from Paris I have decided to try and use the camera in the VSCO app (until now I have only used the app for editing). I have noticed a small positive difference in terms of colors and sharpness when using this app, but please share in the comments, if you can recommend other good camera apps, which I could download for my iPhone 13.
I’ve noticed the degradation too and I think from what I’ve read a lot of it has to do with the computational *magic* that Apple has put into their newer cameras. It renders everything in an insanely clinical, HDR-ish way, if you shoot raw you can fix some of it by changing the camera profile in Lightroom Mobile to Adobe/whatever you want, it’s the Apple ProRAW profile that looks awful from my experience. I think my favorite iPhone was actually the 4!
I only shoot photos of my 🐶 with my phone, I rarely, If ever shoot normally with it, not in an elitist way but simply because I like the tactile nature of cameras more. I do agree with the photo quality though, there is something about the more modern generations of phone that have a sterile feel, regardless of how I edit.