In yesterday's iPhone 4 vs 4S vs 5 camera battle, we had pretty good daylight conditions - and each of the phones performed pretty well. I decided to do some more testing in lower light, in order to push the camera sensors to their limits and uncover some bigger gaps in performance levels. In these tests I only had the iPhone 4S to compare with the 5, but the rules were the same:
- No sharpening
- No HDR mode
- No colour correcting
- No 3rd party apps
- No flash or other lighting
- No tripods.
The notable change with the iPhone 5 is that the maximum ISO has been increased to 3200 (it's 800 on the 4S) which means the camera sensor is a little more sensitive, and can capture more detail in lower light (the higher the number, the lower the light it can capture photos in). Camera makers can dial up the ISO to whatever they want, but noise increases with each ISO increase - so they cap it at a point they are comfortable with. With the iPhone 5 there is definitely some serious noise being introduced when you're shooting at an ISO of 3200, but if you are viewing the images on the phone, or sized-down on screen, they are still decent. Printed out on glossy paper, the noise would be evident, but the fact the iPhone 5's sensor can "see" this well in near darkness, while handholding the shot, is pretty remarkable. With each test below I'm shooting in progressively lower light - pushing the sensor to the limit.
Note: Clicking on each image below will open the original full size photo in a new window. They’re 1.5-3MB each
Example 1: Street scene
And at actual size...
Both are decent results. The iPhone 4S is holding together as the ISO of 400 is still within its limit. The iPhone 5 has picked ISO 500 yet still has less noise visible than the 4S.
Example 2 - Road lights
And at actual size...
The iPhone 4S is now at its limit of 800 ISO. It still achieves a surprisingly good result given the conditions, but is again showing more noise than the 5.
Example 3: Lone street light
And here endeth the limit of the iPhone 4S's sensor. It doesn't go beyond an ISO of 800, yet the iPhone 5 is able to stretch to 3200.
At actual size...
Example 4: Moonlight
And at actual size...
So there you have it. The iPhone 5 is showing a little less noise in all lighting conditions, and once the available light is so low that the ISO required is beyond 800, the iPhone 5 leaves the iPhone 4S in the dust. It's able to "see" much better - and in almost total darkness - albeit with a high level of noise visible at the ISO 3200 limit.
You can download all the original photos here (16MB zip package)
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