iPhone 6 camera compared to previous iPhone generations

BY Evan Selleck

Published 23 Sep 2014

iPhone camera comparisons

The iPhone 6 has a great camera. Apple has worked diligently every year, with every new iPhone iteration, to improve the camera when compared to its predecessor. Now, the developers behind the popular camera app, Camera+, have done a massive comparison photo shoot between the iPhone 6, and every other major generation before it.

The comparison includes the original iPhone, the iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s and, finally, the iPhone 6. Each image is compared in detail, put side-by-side, and the results are pretty striking. Watching the cameras improve over time is pretty great, to say the least.

image iPhone comparison2

Just look at that iPhone 4 camera.

Here’s the results from the sunset test, with the image results at the top of the post:

In the sunset photo comparison, we see a clear progression of the image quality improvements. An interesting find is that the iPhone 5S photo has significantly more contrast and vibrancy than the 6 shot. The iPhone 6 shot has more detail, but is a much flatter image. This could be due to Apple’s tweaking of the tone-mapping algorithm and perhaps a conscious decision to bring a more balanced RAW-like quality to the iPhone 6’s images. For photographers who want to control aspects like contrast and saturation in post-processing, this may be a welcomed change.

image iPhone comparison3

On September 18, Austin Mann published a series of photos and videos he took with the iPhone 6 (and iPhone 6 Plus) while in Iceland. The results were certainly stunning, and the improvements that Apple has made in their camera with the iPhone 6 are obvious. Focus Pixels certainly help.

You can check out the full comparison report through the source link below.

[via SnapSnapSnap]