I was near Burnham on Sea in Somerset last night, and the sunset was stunning. Below are 4 photos from the iPhone 7 Plus. I then took a shot of night light trails cornering. I really love the photo quality from the new iPhone.
The above shot is my favourite of the bunch.
The photo below is the only one that used a filter.
Last night I took my Honor 8 and Apple iPhone 7 Plus and tested low light to the extreme. At the start of the camera shootout it was already dark. At the end, I couldn’t see a thing, not even my feet. The only light that spilled into the graveyard was from a street lamp outside of the church. Plus the odd ghost or two that got captured accidentally!
So let’s get started.
7.26pm, a test shot of my local church in auto using the iPhone 7+.
The level of darkness is accurately portrayed here by the iPhone. 1/4s and ISO 125.
7.23pm, 3 mins earlier, and not as dark, the Honor 8 in auto mode shows us what is can produce below.
The Honor 8 opts for a shutter speed of 1/17s and an ISO of 1600. Every minute made a difference in these photos. At around 7.50pm it was pitch black in the church graveyard, so the available light was vanishing super fast.
However, all is not lost with the Honor 8, as the default camera app has lots of shooting modes, one of which is night mode. Just for clarity, with all of the photos, a tripod was used. Night mode is brilliant. The Honor 8 calculates how many seconds you need to take the low light/night shot and as the seconds countdown you get to see your photo develop on the screen.
The Honor 8 opted for ISO 100 and a 14 second exposure above. However, it doesn’t look like what my eyes could see. In some ways, the auto shots are more natural, even if the detail is not as strong. However, at the end, I took 3 of the Honor 8 photos and edited them in Lightroom mobile app which improved the final result.
Back to the iPhone 7 Plus. Unfortunately, the Apple default camera app does not have a special night mode, so you have to look at third party offerings. I tried 3 apps last night, ProCamera+, ProCam 4 and Nightcap Pro. ProCam 4 did a really good job and also shoots in RAW. Once the light became non existent, that is , it was near pitch black, Nightcap Pro provided the magic.
So at 7.26pm, ProCam in its night mode opted for 1/4s exposure and an ISO 400. For a comparison, the shot below was snapped with Nightcap Pro.
At 7.28pm, and less light than the shot above, Nightcap Pro opted for 1/3s and ISO 400.
So back to the Honor 8 below.
Using the night mode in the Honor 8 camera app, this was a 15s exposure with an ISO 200. The lighting around the tombstones is too bright versus what my eyes were seeing.
The shot above is also from the Honor 8 using night mode. ISO 200 and an 18s exposure. Again the brightness and colours are over the top versus what my eyes could see. However, as you will see below, Lightroom mobile improves this shot with a few quick edits.
Even darker now, and back to the iPhone 7 Plus. There is no point using the default camera on the iPhone. It is too dark unless flash is used, and I hate using flash. So the rest of the iPhone photos are taken with ProCam 4 or Nightcap Pro.
The above iPhone 7 Plus shot is taken with ProCam 4 at 7.40pm. With a 1/17s and ISO 1600. Whilst the shot looks dark, it is a perfect match to what I could actually see, and I really like the atmosphere captured.
The shot above is at 7.40pm again, but using the telephoto lens with ProCam 4 app. 1/4s and ISO 1250. Again, I really like this photo as it captured the atmosphere and the actual light and darkness.
It’s now 7.46pm. Switching to Nightcap Pro on the iPhone 7 Plus, produced the shot below.
Nightcap Pro used a 55 second exposure. ISO 3200. Moving back to the Honor 8 below.
The shot above, taken on the Honor 8 at 7.48pm was the last shot from the Honor 8. A minute later the photo quality degraded too much (although it still captured something legible). Remember at 7.48pm I couldn’t see my shoes as it was so dark. The Honor 8 used its night mode and a 51s exposure and an ISO 200. The Honor 8 night mode seems to artificially enhance the lighting and colours, so again I tweaked the photo in lightroom. Edited shot at the end.
So now its game over with the Honor 8 as its pitch black practically. All that is left is the iPhone 7 Plus and Nightcap Pro app. Its 7.52pm.
The shot above is a 107 second exposure. This could have been as long as I wanted, as Nightcap Pro allows for crazy long exposure times. Not bad at all. Now in case you have any doubt as to how dark it was, below is a shot from the iPhone using the default camera app.
As you can see above, it was crazy dark and the fact both the Honor 8 and iPhone 7 Plus were able to capture anything is a testament to just how good both cameras performed. The Honor 8’s night mode seemed to artificially alter the brightness and colours, but as you will see below, a quick edit of the white balance which can be done in any photo editing app, makes the final shot better.
As mentioned above, some of the Honor 8 night mode photos seemed unnatural due to the extreme colours versus what my eyes could see. So say hello to Lightroom mobile app, and you now have some improved shots. The main edit was the white balance in all of the shots below.
The above shot is one of my favourite of the camera shootout. Another quick edit in Lightroom mobile and another Honor 8 shot is improved below.
One more edited photo. This was so dark but again a quick edit in lightroom to improve the final result.
So my time with the ghosts in the church graveyard was plenty, plus I couldn’t see where to walk anymore without a torch. I hope you enjoyed the above comparison and more importantly, which shot is your favourite and from which phone.
One of the perks of using iOS is the range of third party apps, and the speed at which many get updated to work with the new iPhone 7.
So for this post, I am looking at two apps. Procam 4 and Adobe Lightroom. Procam 4 has been updated to support both the iPhone and iPhone 7 Plus. There are tons of options on Procam 4, but for today I am looking at the new 3D Mode.
Using the 3D Mode is similar to the Portrait mode on Apple’s on camera app, except it can saved as a GIF, a JPEG + GIF or VIDEO + GIF. It is more suited for people but it worked fine with a stone on a fence.
The next 2 photos were both shot in raw, using ProCam 4.
In terms of editing raw photos, Procam 4 does offer basic editing options. A free option is snapseed app. However, from my time with Adobe Lightroom for iOS, its raw editing options are the best. After my 30 day trial finishes, it will cost my just over £8 a month if I want to carry on using it. This will give me access to Adobe Lightroom on all my devices along with cloud sync.
The raw images from the iPhone 7 Plus do allow for some superb editing.
In terms of video, Filmic Pro just got updated to support the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus and the results using this app are superb too. Unfortunately, with the loss of the headphone jack, I am having to use the lightning adaptor to 3.5mm to plus my Rode Mic into, meaning I am unable to charge my iPhone whilst shooting video, unless I buy the Belkin audio adaptor for £34.99. Hmmmm.
Tech Addicts Podcast is back again with new episode starring Gareth Myles, Jay Garrett and myself. Tech Addicts is released every 2 weeks.
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So how good is the camera on the Apple iPhone 7 Plus? Is it worth upgrading just for the camera on the Apple iPhone 7 Plus? What’s my view versus the Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge and Note 7? Read on for all the answers …
Firstly, let’s take a look at the photos I have snapped with the iPhone 7 Plus in a multitude of conditions. As before, if you want to view the original photo, click on it, select original or full size.
Low Light Conditions
So the above 3 photos are a selection of photos testing the low light capabilities. The second shot uses the telephoto lens. Shortly after snapping the above church shots, darkness really started to set in. At this point, when I selected the 2x zoom for the telephoto lens, the iPhone actually decided to override my choice and used the wide angle lens. It did this as it knew the f/1.8 of the wide angle lens would produce a better result, even though it was using digital zoom. The results from the digitally zoomed photos were still excellent. At the end of the article is a link to the flickr album set where you can view more photos from all of the scenes shown.
Just to up the ante, I used a third party app, nightcap pro that allows awesome night shots, light trails, stars, meteors and more. This is the beauty of iOS with the wide selection of third party camera apps on offer that push the boundaries of what is possible with the camera. There are some exciting options in development too which I am testing.
The low light photos from the iPhone 7 Plus are excellent. When I tried this test with the Samsung S7, the white balance was all over the place. The S7/S7E/Note 7 can produce sharper shots in low light compared to the iPhone 7 and with less noise, but I actually prefer the iPhone photos as they are better balanced overall.
Daylight Conditions
The photos above are shot into the sun as is the photo below. The two photos above show the results with the wide angle lens and then the telephoto lens. The 2 x optical zoom on the telephoto lens makes a huge difference and I love the option to use this lens as the quality is so much better than using digital zoom.
One of my favourite type of shots is shooting into the sun, with the sun caught between the tree branches. I was pleased with the result here.
Above is another great shot from the iPhone. Nicely balanced but based on my time with the S7/S7E/Note 7 I do think the dynamic range from these Samsung phones is better. However, the final post processed from the iPhone appears in my mind to be more realistic and natural. The Samsung post processing goes for a heavier saturated and contrasted shot.
Flowers & Close Up
The above shot is just using the normal wide angle mode. The new portrait mode is in beta, so I won’t be testing this until it is out of beta. However, from results shown over the internet from other people, used correctly, the portrait mode is fantastic and makes the 7 Plus even more compelling.
Now just be switching the the telephoto lens, the berries become even more appetising.
The above shots are with the wide and then the telephoto lens. Again you can see the difference the telephoto lens makes to getting closer to the flower.
Above, another shot with the telephoto lens.
Action Shots
In the 3 shots below of my labradors, it is worth noting the weather conditions were not the best for this type of action shot. The UK weather at the moment is dreadful. After taking these photos, Dartmoor had 33.4mm of rain in 4 hours. So not only was it overcast when snapping these, there was also a light mist too.
What you will see from the above 3 photos, which have all been marginally cropped to a 16:9 format, are some good photos considering the weather conditions. The iPhone 7 Plus was able to capture my dogs running extremely fast.
The above shot if you look closely has spots of mud on the photo. This was caused my Fury (black labrador) running so fast through the mud, that she was kicking it up as she went along 🙂
So how do these action photos compare to the Samsung S7/S7E/Note 7? Well the Samsung phones have a slightly faster focus system, meaning more of the action sequences would have been snapped in focus. The Samsung faster focus system has benefits across all types of shooting photos as well. However, once again I prefer the post processing from the iPhone 7 Plus. It did a better job distinguishing my dogs and their 3 different colours, light, brown and black. Same story as all the other shots really, I prefer the post processing from Apple. But like everything in life, there are pros and cons with each choice of phone.
Shooting in RAW
I took several shots in RAW using ProCam 4 and Adobe Lightroom for iOS. Editing on the iPhone 7 Plus using snapseed and Lightroom showed how much more data the iPhone 7 Plus captured using RAW. For a special show I would always take on in RAW as well as using the standard camera app. There are 3 samples shots from RAW in my Flickr Album. Link at the bottom of the article.
Final Verdict
The Apple iPhone 7 Plus camera is a marked improvement from the iPhone 6 Plus. The 2 x optical zoom of the telephoto lens opens up many more options to photography without the need of carrying add on lenses. The new portrait mode is another benefit. Third party developers are already looking to add their software prowess to stretch the boundaries even further.
The telephoto lens is usable is all shooting modes too ie video, time lapse, panorama and more.
Compared to the Samsung S7/S7E/Note 7 it boils down to 2 key differences. Maybe 3. First is the fast focusing system from Samsung is faster than the iPhone 7 Plus. This will produce benefits in certain scenarios. The Samsung phones post processing leans more to a heavier saturated and contrasted shot. In certain scenarios these will make photos pop on the screen to stand out even more. However, so far I am preferring the more natural, realistic post processing coming out of the iPhone 7 Plus. This is a personal opinion/choice. Should you move from a Samsung S7/S7E/Note 7 to the iPhone 7 Plus? Personally, you really need to get a grip if you are even thinking about this! A phone is not just about the camera, it is about everything else. The phones are different, each has pros and cons. When it comes to very low light/night shots the Samsung phones have the slight edge using the default camera app. However, switch to a number of impressive iOS third party apps, and the advantage switches to iOS. Once again pros and cons.
Overall, I am very pleased with the camera results on the iPhone 7 Plus. Add this to everything else on offer and its a compelling device.
Part 2 will focus of video and will be live in due course.
Useful Links
My Apple iPhone 7 Plus Flickr Album
Apple iPhone 7 / 7 Plus Cases on Amazon
Apple iPhone 7 / 7 Plus Screen Protectors on Amazon
My Beats Solo 3 Wireless headphones arrived yesterday. I was very excited to open the box and test these for a number of reasons. Firstly, the packaging and presentation is first class. When you open the box, the headphones themselves are folded inside a protective case. Lift the case out and you get the cables and extras that come with the headphones.
The second reason was to see what difference the Apple W1 chip made to the bluetooth process, setup, sound and real world usage.
I had watched the videos from Apple showing how the AirPods that also have the W1 chip, just connect by opening the protective case. I honestly did not believe it would work “magically” as shown, but the Beats Solo 3 Wireless headphones did just connect to my iPhone 7 “magically”. I simply pressed the power on button on the headphones, a big notification instantly appeared from the bottom of my iPhone asking if I wanted to connect. I tapped “connect”. And that was it. The first connection was over in a second. Not only that it named the Beats “Gavin’s Beats Solo 3” as you can see.
Not only does it pair instantly, every time I have turned it on and off and on again, it connects like a bullet. But it doesn’t stop there. Now that I have paired it to my iPhone, it is now paired to my Apple Watch, iPad and MAC using iCloud. So neat.
So what do these £249 on ear headphones sound like? Well, not £249 headphones IMO. More like £150 headphones but I am still burning these in. Over the last hour, they have improved a lot. At the moment they do not sound as good as my Sennheiser Momentum Wireless 2.0 or B & O Beoplay H5 headphones. They have improved since the last hour and I am listening to them as I type this and I am noticing better mids and treble occurring. Once I have burnt these in for 50 hours, I will let you know my final thoughts on the audio quality. However, it is worth remembering part of the pricing is paying for the Beats branding and the Apple W1 processor and included technology.
The headphones have controls on the left earcup to activate Siri, take and receive calls, control your music and volume. They feature dual beaming microphones for clearer calls. Siri worked perfectly, but I need to test voice calls to see how they perform. One feature of these headphones is the 40 hour battery life from one charge, and the quick charge option that gives 3 hours playback after a 15 min charge from a low battery.
So have Apple invented bluetooth. No. But they have made the experience amazing. This is by far the quickest and easiest pair of bluetooth headphones I have ever paired, used and connected. Also, the signal has not dropped, not even once, not even for a blink of an eye.
My final thought is this – “Why are you wasting your energy, plugging headphones into a 3.5mm headphone jack or lightning port?”. Wireless is the future and the future is now!
Last night I visited my local church and took a number of photos on my Apple iPhone 7 Plus.
Compared to the shots I took last year on my Apple iPhone 6S Plus the iPhone 7 Plus camera is considerably better. I was really pleased with the results from the 7 Plus.
I also used the telephoto lens and for the last photo with the light trails an app called Nightcap Pro.
As usual to pixel peep, click on each photo and then select original.
The first shot is of the church. It is actually darker than it looks. Lots of detail in this photo.
Now using the telephoto lens. The optical zoom is superb. Again lots of detail.
It really is darker than it looks. But here is another shot in auto above.
Now using the telephoto lens. Despite how dark it was, the telephoto lens did get used by the iPhone 7 Plus. Some noise appearing now, but it really is a vary natural looking shot.
Now its even darker, not that you can tell from the above shot. I decided to use my tripod, and selected a 3 second timer. With a timer, the iPhone 7 Plus took a 10 shot burst automatically. This was one of the shots from the burst.
Even darker now. This is shot before the fancier one below.
And finally, light trails. I used Nightcap Pro app to create this shot. This was using the apps light trails mode. This was a 11.34 second exposure.
Overall, despite how dark it was when taking these photo, the iPhone 7 Plus took some superb shots. My takeaway is just how realistic and natural the photos appear.
More to come.
When I got home last night, DPD had delivered my Apple iPhone 7 Plus Black and Apple Watch Series 2 Space Grey Sport with Black strap. I also picked up an Apple black leather case and a white sport band for the watch. In terms of finish, I chose black as opposed to jet black. The matte black looks cool.
I have been using android for ages and picking up the iPhone 7 Plus initially felt alien. My first problem was setting up the iPhone. I have 2 factor authentication on everything, and for some reason my SMS code was not appearing. 40 mins later, a plate of salmon and veg consumed, and voila, my SMS code arrived.
As you will know I had the Note 7 previously, so picking the iPhone 7 Plus up was a shock. The iPhone 7 Plus feels huge in comparison to the Note 7. However, based on the extensive drop tests by people on YouTube who have nothing better to do with their time, the extra bezels protects the iPhone a lot from damage.
Next up was the process on installing my essential apps first, then syncing my photos and music from my mac. Out of all the iPhones I have setup, the 7 Plus has been the fastest to sync everything across. Out of the 256gb, I only have 129gb free and I haven’t yet installed all my apps.
Now on to iOS 10. This is all new to me and I am on a learning curve. I am sure there are some bugs, in particular the iPhone 7 Plus was having some issues holding on to the mobile signal and kept showing every few minutes “no service”. This is worrying as I have a Three signal booster in the house. It should be maximum reception at all times. I will wait until I use the phone outside of my signal booster to see if it registers properly/differently on the Three network. I think this is a wifi bug as the connection held perfectly when I turned wifi off on the iPhone.
While the phone was syncing and downloading apps, I set up the Apple Watch series 2. It is faster than the original watch but not night and day faster. The Apple Watch is such a geeky piece of tech but also fun to use. Apple Pay on the watch is damn cool. Watch OS3 is such an improvement over the previous versions too.
I had a play with the camera, trying out some test shots and using some third party photo apps too. The camera shows a lot of promise. Is it better than the S7 or Note 7? I will answer that soon. In terms of audio, the iPhone 7 Plus is better than the S7 or Note 7 in every aspect – loudspeaker, wired headphones and bluetooth. I connected my Oppo PM-3 using the dongle to the lightning port, and the sound was excellent. Listening to music via my B & O Beoplay H5 over bluetooth was really superb too.
One thing I noticed is just how many more apps I have on iOS than android. Also gaming on iOS is so much smoother. The iPhone 7 Plus is so fast to use in real world usage. I will be testing my iOS game controller at some point as well.
I need to sort out my homes screen layout and folders in terms of positioning and content.Everything is not perfectly organised yet.
So my first 4 hours have been a mix of enjoyment, frustration, and learning the iOS way and getting used to the new home button!
All in all its a positive experience so far and I hope one that continues passed the honeymoon period.
The Apple iPhone 7 and 7 Plus went on sale officially this morning at 8am.
This year Apple has prevented walk-ins and opted for pre order online or reservations for pickup in a store. My local Apple Store in Plymouth opened a lot earlier than normal and allowed people to browse as well as collect their reservations.
Whilst my order won’t arrive for another for days, the calmness inside the Apple store was a far superior experience than the normal chaotic launches. The staff were able to spend the correct amount of time helping customers setup their new iPhone and run through all of the new features. Other staff were also on hand to help you with any product knowledge.
What was missing from the iPhone 7 counter was the iPhone 7 Plus in either black or jet black. However, the finishes were available in the smaller size iPhone 7. If I am being brutally honest, I cannot see any point in getting the jet black over black. Once a case is fitted to the back, it is impossible to tell the two apart and as the jet black is more prone to micro abrasions it makes more sense to go for the standard black. Also, both blacks will show fingerprints as well, although the jet black attracts fingerprints much faster. Both black colours disguise the antenna lines better than any of the other colours available.
Now what about the new home button. I honestly don’t understand what the fuss is about. It just works and I was not bothered about the way it now worked nor did I have any issue with its operation. The taptic feedback system works really well for me.
The screen. Both iPhone 7 screens look good but they are not as good as those from the Samsung Note 7.
Performance. Testing the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus is a joy. iOS 10 and the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are so fluid and fast to use, but we all knew that anyway.
Now to the audio. I tested the loudspeaker with BBC Radio 4 for spoken voice and Beats 1 radio station for music. The loudspeaker is louder than previous but it is not as good as having traditional speakers integrated into the front of a smartphone. Next I paired by B & O Beoplay H5’s Bluetooth Wireless headphones and listened to a number of different genres. The iPhone 7 bluetooth audio is excellent, so are the B & O Beoplay H5’s headphones and I doubt whether Apple’s Airpods would sound better, although the AirPods are wirefree.
The camera. It works as advertised. The standard iPhone 7 now takes fabulous photos and the 7 Plus with the telephoto lens is equally as impressive. The telephoto lens does not have OIS though. The optical 2 x zoom really worked very well. However, software zoom introduced too much noise for my liking. Obviously, the lighting inside the Apple store is dreadful, but nonetheless it still is a test of what the camera can achieve. I used the telephoto lens for panaroma shots too. I noticed the phone needed me to slow down panning more when using the telephoto lens over the normal 12mp lens. I then tried burst shots of people walking inside the store, with and without the telephoto lens. None were really crispy sharp like those I took on the Samsung S7 or Note 7. I need to re-test the burst operation is better lighting to see how it performs before I pass judgement properly, but early testing seems to show that the fast focus system on the Note 7 and S7 really is king. However, the iPhone 7 offers many other options on the camera which need testing as mentioned. The camera did freeze on me too which was resolved by restarting the camera app.
Anyway, this is my first impression of the new iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. I intend to cover off a lot more over the next few weeks.
If you have received your new iPhone, do add a comment below on your experience so far.
If you live in the UK, you will be able to pre order Apple’s new iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus at exactly 8.01am directly from their online store, hopefully for delivery next Friday the 16th September 2016. All the UK’s mobile operators will be offering the new iPhone as well as online retailers too.
Apple’s upgrade program is also available in the UK for the very first time. It is worth checking out this option too especially if you want to spread the cost. Apple also offer sim plans for the respective mobile phone companies.
The iPhone 7 and 7 Plus come in new storage configurations, 32, 128 or 256gb. I would not recommend opting for the base 32gb unless you are prepared to be using cloud services constantly to store media. 128gb is the better option to choose and 256gb is for hard core users.
In fact the 256gb option finally means anyone still using the 160gb iPod Classic has absolutely no reason to use it anymore as finally there is an iPhone with more storage for all your music.
Next are the 5 colours available for both sizes of iPhone 7. These are rose gold, gold, silver, black (a matte finish) and jet black (a glossy black). The jet black is only available in 128gb and 256gb configurations for either size of iPhone. So which colour is best. Personally, I like either the new black or jet black. The jet black is prone to show micro scratches so is best used in a case. To be honest if you are using the iPhone 7 Plus, I would always use a case. I especially like Apple’s silicone or leather cases to provide that extra bit of protection or grip. The standard black is probably the more practical option, so I am choosing the jet black. I am never logical 🙂
So which size of iPhone is best to choose. This year both sizes of iPhone come with the same new 12mp optical image stabilised camera. The iPhone 7 Plus has another 12mp camera on the rear which enables 2 x optical zoom and up to 10 x software zoom. It will also enable later this year via a software update, incredible portrait shots with background bokeh. My preference is towards the Plus model as it also has a 1080p screen versus the smaller 750p screen.
Lastly it is worth remembering the new iPhone 7 does not have a traditional 3.5mm headphone jack. Instead audio comes out via the lightning port. So it might be time to invest in some wireless headphones. You also might want a case, powerbank or some cables. If so Amazon has an iPhone 7 storefront now. Click HERE.
Gavin's Gadgets & Photography 