iPhone 7 Plus Camera Review
Less than a year ago,
Apple introduced the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus phones to the market. The
iPhone 7 Plus was the first Apple phone to have a dual lens design (28mm
wide-angle and 56mm telephoto equivalent), so Apple put quite a bit of emphasis
on photography with this model. Although I was quite happy with my iPhone 6
Plus at the time of the announcement, I decided to upgrade to the latest
version, primarily because of these camera features the phone offered. Since
then, I have captured thousands of images in different environments, which not
only allowed me to get a deeper understanding of the camera capabilities of the
phone, but also understand its many issues and limitations. In this review, I
will be going over my experience with the iPhone 7 Plus camera and discuss its
pros and cons.
1)
iPhone 7 Plus Cameras
First of all, it is important to point out that the iPhone 7 Plus actually has two cameras with two lenses. While both cameras have the same 12 MP resolution sensors, there is actually a difference in sensor size and maximum aperture between the two. The first wide-angle camera has a 1/3″ sensor with a 28mm equivalent f/1.8 lens (a total of 6 lens elements), whereas the second telephoto camera has a smaller 1/3.6″ sensor with a 56mm equivalent f/2.8 lens (a total of 5 lens elements). This in itself reveals that the cameras are made for different purposes and it highlights the disadvantage of the telephoto lens compared to the wide-angle lens. Not only does the telephoto camera have a smaller sensor, but it also has a lens that is over a stop slower in comparison, making it only practical to use in bright daylight conditions.
Still, despite these
shortcomings, the telephoto camera on the iPhone 7 Plus certainly has its uses.
First, thanks to its reach, it can actually be a great tool for close-up shots
of people. In this case, instead of using digital zoom to get closer to a
subject (which would result in huge resolution loss), one can simply switch
from wide to telephoto and get tighter framing without compromising on
resolution. The added benefit of using the telephoto lens to photograph people,
is that one can use a special “Portrait” mode, where the camera uses a
combination of software and the zoom lens to emulate shallow depth of field,
which Apple dubbed as “Depth Effect”:
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| Figure 1: iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back iSight Duo camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 32, 1/120, f/2.8 |
Second, aside from
portraiture, the telephoto lens also opens up opportunities to get tighter
framing when shooting landscapes, architecture or even macro. The nice thing
about the telephoto lens, is that one can combine its reach with the panorama
mode to stitch high resolution panoramas:
 |
| Figure 2 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 64, 1/1000, f/2.8 |
However, there are
certainly disadvantages worth keeping in mind, so let’s discuss those in more
detail.
 |
| Figure 3 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 3.99mm f/1.8 @ 3.99mm, ISO 50, 1/30, f/1.8 |
2)
Portrait Mode with Depth Effect Issues
Apple’s engineers did a
great job coming up with a solution that can simulate shallow depth of field
that can only be achieved with larger cameras and lenses. For the first time in
cell phone history, we heard such words as bokeh.
being mentioned as
part of an announcement, which certainly triggered some bold claims and even
concerns from some photographers about cell phone cameras challenging DSLR and
mirrorless cameras in terms of being able to “emulate” particular looks that
were only possible to achieve with expensive camera equipment before. While I
personally do enjoy using the “Portrait” mode with “Depth Effect” to photograph
people and it does a pretty decent job in most situations, software emulation
certainly has its issues. First, the software emulation algorithm is not smart
enough to differentiate some foreground elements from background elements. For
example, if the subject you photograph has a hat or some other head wear that
is not part of the algorithm, the blurring might affect areas of the photo that
should not be affected. In addition, it might not be able to properly isolate
the subject from the immediate background, as can be seen from the sample image
below:
Look at the immediate
area to the left of the subject’s face, where part of the wall has not been
properly blurred. Strange artifacts can often be seen in transitional areas as
well.
Lastly, the algorithm is
clearly optimized for photographing people and not other subjects such as pets.
Take a look at the below before and after photograph of my cat and see what this
mode did to the cat’s whiskers on the right side of the frame:
Also, pay attention to
the area around the ears of the cat, where the transition is pretty rough.
Hence, depending on the
subject you are photographing, the portrait mode can certainly show its
weaknesses. The good news is that the phone saves two images by default – one
with and without the software emulation depth effect, so if a portrait does not
turn out good, at least you have the non-emulated version to fallback to.
3)
Panorama Stitching Issues
Similar to the previous
generation iPhone devices, the iPhone 7 Plus either has a problem with properly
locking its exposure when stitching panoramas, or has some odd stitching
algorithm that can mess up panoramas pretty badly, resulting in very uneven
skies. While this is not a big deal in some situations, it certainly shows its
weaknesses when shooting in low light conditions. Take a look at the below
panorama that was shot at sunrise:
 |
| Figure 4 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 80, 1/310, f/2.8 |
See what the camera did
to the top of the frame in the clouds? There are vertical lines all over,
making this panorama unusable. I have encountered a number of situations where
I thought that the panorama looked good, until I zoomed in and looked at the
details of the sky.
At the same time, I
found out that the iPhone panorama algorithm can actually be usable for
vertical panoramas, something I previously never tried before. Take a look at
the below image of a church that I shot at night:
 |
| Figure 5 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 3.99mm f/1.8 @ 3.99mm, ISO 640, 1/120, f/1.8 |
There was no way for me
to be able to fit the whole church in one frame, so I tried a vertical panorama
and it did a pretty decent job to my surprise.
What about ghosting
and flare? Well, camera phones always have a hard time dealing with bright
subjects and the iPhone 7 Plus is not an exception. Take a look at the below
photo that I captured with the sun right above the frame:
 |
| Figure 6 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 3.99mm f/1.8 @ 3.99mm, ISO 20, 1/1150, f/1.8 |
And that’s a good case –
sometimes severe ghosting and flare can ruin the whole image, especially if the
lens is not very clean. When shooting at night, you might encounter strange
ghosting and flare artifacts as seen below:
 |
| Figure 7 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 3.99mm f/1.8 @ 3.99mm, ISO 160, 1/30, f/1.8 |
This behavior can change
depending on the angle, so if you see outlines as in the above image, it might be
a good idea to change the framing slightly to reduce the effect.
5)
Autofocus Performance
The iPhone 7 Plus is
obviously not going to give you DSLR or mirrorless-level AF performance, so
nobody expects to see a speed demon. The camera certainly does a good job with
maintaining pretty solid and reliable AF performance, which is good enough in
most situations. Keep in mind that a tiny 1/3″ sensor along with an f/1.8
aperture translate to a boatload of depth of field, so focusing is not
comparable in many ways to what one would experience on a large sensor camera.
Still, it is fast and responsive enough for a smartphone and that’s all that
matters. You simply tap with your finger on the area you want to focus on and
the camera does its job. When the phone detects faces, face recognition
algorithms kick in and the camera automatically focuses and tracks your
subjects, putting the camera on face priority mode, which is nice. Would I use
the iPhone 7 Plus to photograph fast action? Probably not. But for everyday
subjects, it does the job reasonably well.
 |
| Figure 8 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back iSight Duo camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 20, 1/230, f/2.8 |
6)
Details and Noise
Thanks to a small sensor
and tiny pixels, it is expected that the camera produces plenty of noise in
low-light situations. This is not an issue if you are showcasing small to
medium size images to your friends on social media, but if you are trying to do
something more serious, you are not going to have a lot of options. The good
news is, if you shoot in good daylight conditions, the camera is capable of
producing plenty of detail with little noise in images:
 |
| Figure 9 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back iSight Duo camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 20, 1/210, f/2.8 |
The bad news is, if you
shoot in low light conditions and ISO needs to be pushed above ISO 100, you
will be dealing with tons of noise that might make the image completely unusable:
 |
| Figure 10 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 320, 1/60, f/2.8 |
As you can see, the above
image has way too much noise at ISO 320, which makes the image look bad, even
at down-sampled web resolution. Keep this in mind when shooting in low light
conditions.
7)
HDR Mode
Just like the previous
generation iPhones, the iPhone 7 Plus is also equipped with the “High Dynamic
Range” (HDR) feature, which does a decent job at recovering highlights and
shadows when dealing with more difficult lighting situations, as can be seen
below:
While the camera
certainly does a good job at preserving highlights, I am not a big fan of the
way the images come out by default to be honest. I am not sure if Apple changed
anything in the HDR algorithm on the iPhone 7 / iPhone 7 Plus, but when
comparing a standard image to its HDR version, the latter typically comes out
more flat, dull and washed out. In many cases, I still found HDR to be
beneficial to use simply to preserve highlight details and if a photo was too
important for me, I would probably end up blending two images together in
Photoshop, rather than trying to tweak the HDR version.
 |
| Figure 11 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 64, 1/60, f/2.8 |
8)
RAW / DNG Format
When the iPhone 7 and
iPhone 7 Plus came out, I got excited when I heard about the capability to
shoot RAW / DNG images. However, I quickly found out that this capability was
not natively built into the iOS and one has to rely on a third party app to be
able to shoot DNG images. While I do have Lightroom mobile installed on my
phone and I have tried taking a number of DNG images using this app, the fact
that it is a third party app that makes it difficult to quickly access all the
photographs from other apps made me abandon it after a short while. It was
especially annoying when I tried to launch Lightroom mobile in the middle of
nowhere with no cell phone reception, and the app wanted me to sign in to my
Adobe account to proceed. While there might be other great third party options
to shoot in DNG format, unless Apple provides this functionality natively like
other phone manufacturers do, with the capability to make quick DNG to JPEG
conversions in the camera app, I really don’t see myself shooting in DNG. For
me, it is often easier and simpler to just shoot in JPEG without any hassles…
 |
| Figure 12 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back iSight Duo camera 3.99mm f/1.8 @ 3.99mm, ISO 20, 1/1800, f/1.8 |
9)
Summary
It is certainly great to
see all the innovation mobile phone manufacturers are putting into each new
generation device. With Apple and other manufacturers now adding multiple
cameras to their phones, even more photo capabilities are being pushed to
appeal the masses. The idea is to show that camera phones can be good enough
for everyday needs, and this marketing strategy has certainly been working –
the point-and-shoot market is pretty much decimated by now. Year after year, we
are experiencing improved image quality and overall performance of camera
phones, which is certainly exciting to witness for many of us. Mobile
photography has exploded in the past few years, with hundreds of millions of
people taking pictures and uploading them to social media platforms such as
Instagram. And without a doubt, Apple has played a huge role in pushing others
to innovate in this area – there are some manufacturers out there today who are
now specifically targeting photography enthusiasts with larger camera sensors,
external attachments and multiple lenses.
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| Figure 13 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 20, 1/210, f/2.8 |
The iPhone 7 Plus
continues to push innovation and provide specific features that appeal
photographers. Apple engineers certainly did a good job with the simulated
portrait mode that gives subjects a “depth effect”, something we have never
seen on camera phones before. However, it is clear that such new technology
certainly has its drawbacks and limitations. Although some want us to believe
that we no longer need our large cameras to take pictures and phone cameras can
do as good of a job, we know that such claims will never be true – and the size
of the sensor has a lot to do with it. Still, for those situations when we
don’t have cameras handy, camera phones offer pretty good image quality – far
better than what we had to deal with in the past.
 |
| Figure 14 : iPhone 7 Plus + iPhone 7 Plus back camera 6.6mm f/2.8 @ 6.6mm, ISO 20, 1/750, f/2.8 |
Overall, despite all the
shortcomings pointed out in this review, the iPhone 7 Plus does a decent job
for my needs. While there are other great camera phone choices out there, the
iPhone 7 Plus serves me well when I need to take occasional shots, especially
in bright daylight conditions.
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