My new camera, my phone.

Yesterday I got my hands on an iPhone 4S, like millions of other around the world. Each time I get a new camera I try to take it for a spin the picturesque city I'm fortunate enough to live in - Cambridge.

It was a pleasant autumnal day, and the results spurred me on to walk all day around most of the city and University area.

For those who haven't followed the iPhone 4S launch too closely, the camera has been updated from 5 to 8 megapixels, but the optics have also been improved. The backside is illuminated with a CMOS sensor which improves images in low-light conditions. The lens is 5-element based which apparently helped with the colour accuracy. The aperture is f/2.4 and images are 30% sharper. Compared to my 3GS it's astounding, as you'll see below.

First off I show a few shots before moving on to a little more analysis (click to see full size version).

Definition

First off let's see a comparison between the 4S and 3GS. There is a marked improvement in the 4S.

iPhone 4S
iPhone 3GS

It is also worth pointing out that despite a lack of optical zoom it is still worth zooming in rather than cropping later on. I noticed this when iOS 4 was released.

Macro

Using the obligatory flower shot you can also appreciate the improvement in macro shots.

iPhone 4S
iPhone 3GS

HDR

I took all of the photos in HDR mode which creates 2 shots for each photo, each with a different exposure setting, letting more or less light. You can see the effect here.

Compare this to the 3GS and it makes you realise how close the 4S comes to a dedicated camera.

Low light conditions

You need to take more care keeping the phone steady and manually picking a focus zone, but low light shots are still impressive. The first 2 shots here show some good examples.

Here is an example of how much variation you can see on a shot at dusk with auto exposure then the second one with manually selected exposure after clicking on the grass. Much brighter but you can see visible graininess.

Lastly, an example of how image blur can easily occur, although I think I could have been steadier for this shot!

Focus and depth of field

The camera can focus on obvious objects e.g. the leaves hanging from the tree, but it was harder to clearly focus on a particular railing in the below example.

Shutter speed

I did not experiment too much in this regard but in good light the camera snapped a fairly well defined bus speeding past.

Videos

Videos are now shot at 1080p and initially I was disappointed by the frame rate when played back on my laptop, although on the phone it was smooth. You can see the differences here between the iPhone 4S and iPhone 3GS.

Summary

The iPhone camera has evolved to the point of being a realistic option for your holiday snaps. The low light performance will encourage more evening use when you don't want to carry around additional cameras, and you can take a photo in less than 4 seconds from double clicking the Home button.

Combined with My Vacation app you'll have a truly integrated way to journal your trip.

The best camera is the one you have with you.