Today is the launch day of the latest and greatest from Apple, the
iPhone 4. We love Walt Disney World and new technology, so were thrilled to take an iPhone 4 to Walt DisneyWorld yesterday to give it a test drive as a photo and video device in the parks. The video was shot entirely on the iPhone 4, and put together in iMovie. No image processing was done. The photos below were all resized for the web from the native 5MP 2592x1936 resolution of to 1024x768, and again no image processing was done.
Our findings were that the new iPhone 4 is a good step up from the previous iPhone 3GS camera. Not only does it bump up the resolution, but more importantly, offers improved image quality in terms of sharpness, noise, and color rendition. Many phone cameras bump up mega pixel count, but do not offer any improvement on image quality, and in many cases, the higher MP count actually makes thing worse. In bright sunlight, the iPhone 4 camera performs on par with a dedicated point and shoot camera. In low light, it also performed well, doing a fairly good job of controlling noise. The video performance is a huge improvement over past offerings, with the 720p HD 30fps video looking great. The low light tests toward the end of the video really push the limits of the camera, but it was able to do a reasonable job of recording the firework show. The big problem with video, is holding the thing steady. A lack of any stabilization really becomes a problem in producing great looking video. We also included a sample of the inbuilt flash (see the last 2 photos below, for a no-flash, and then flash shot of the same scene).
The iPhone 4 is not going to replace your DSLR, or for many, their point and shoot, but it is a real viable alternative for those who want to carry just one device, and do a reasonable job of capturing both photos and video.
Scroll down below for video and photos samples.
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