iPhone 8S Plus DNG File Quality. So Much Better!

Please Note: I am reposting this article from my iphoneraw.com site which has been set up for my new iPhoneography book series and to cover all things iPhoneography related, check out the site if you're an iPhone shooter, there are already many articles there not posted on this blog site.

A few weeks back I ran some tests on the RAW files taken with the latest iPad Pro, you can read about that here.

https://iphoneraw.com/2017/07/18/dng-on-the-ipad-pro/

Frankly, I was pretty impressed, the quality was indeed considerably better than what’s possible on my “soon to be replaced iPhone 6S plus”.  Those test results got me quite excited because I fully expected to find the DNGs produced by the new iPhone 8S Plus would be a small step further step up the quality ladder.

As far as I can tell the modules on the iPad Pro and iPhone 8S plus are pretty similar, save for the lack of stabilisation on the iPad, but like all things Apple it can be quite difficult to get any definitive answers on what’s going on under the hood.  Anyhow, I’d have been happy if the iPhone 8 Plus DNG files were as good as the iPad Pro since it seems they’re actually a bit better I’m pretty chuffed. For comparison the shot below is one of the test images I took with the iPad Pro converted to monochrome, the overall quality is rather nice.

Sometimes test shots work out nice in themselves and quite like this one, perhaps it is the layered effect. Anyway, it shows how the deep shadows (under the bridge) hold up pretty well. Nothing is clipped either.

And so here we are just a few days after the iPhone 8 release with a peek beneath the DNG hood.   Up front consider this as a preliminary test, it’s my wife’s’ iPhone and it only arrived Friday morning, so my time with it was a very limited, basically an hour or so on Sunday afternoon.  Frankly dragging any new Apple device from Wendy’s’ hot hands when she’s in the first blush of Apple love is harder than getting our Border Collie to give up a bone.  But Wendy is a lovely lady and terrific wife agreed to let me have a little free time with her new 8S Plus baby.

Note also, I only tested with the wide angle lens, not the telephoto, there’s no point comparing apples to oranges and then coming up with grapes, the 6S Plus has no telephoto lens option.

You still can’t shoot DNGs using the standard iPhone camera app, I imagine Apple decided the great majority of iPhone shooters will just want to deal with compressed finished JPEGs, except of course they’re not JPEGs anymore but rather the new HEIF and a big hooray for that. It’s certainly long past time when that clunky, chunky old JPEG format needed to be replaced with something much more modern.

If you want to know about the HEIF format here is a link for you to check out.

https://www.cultofmac.com/487808/heif-vs-jpeg-image-files/

This review is not about the fancy schmancy modes that the standard app offers, you’ll find plenty of info in other places if you want to know the ins and outs of the portrait mode or that cool photo lighting mode, suffice to say I reckon they are pretty cool.  Wendy gave those headline features a big workout over the weekend with our 8-month-old Grandson Milton and apart from having a lot of fun she found the results were actually pretty good most of the time.

This test is just about the potential of this DNG files but later I intend to explore the other options in depth, once I get my own iPhone X in a couple of months.

I actually think the iPhone 8 Plus DNG files have more relevance to the new iPhones that the previous versions because the general capabilities of the new cameras are much better all round. Now that might sound an odd thing to say since traditionally we shoot RAW/DNG to overcome the limitations of JPEG capture but bear with me.  I reckon a lot more people are going to choose the iPhone as their only camera, I can easily see DSLRs and Mirrorless cameras being left behind sulking in cupboards whilst owners pop off for two weeks of R and R.   That improved shallow depth of field effect will be enough to sway the choice for many casual and semi-serious users, most folk care little about how the result is achieved and just love the fact it can be done at all, much to the chagrin of many old-school shooters.

I can also imagine a lot of folk will still take their DSLRs on holidays and then faced with the choice of carting the gear around some foreign city for a day will decide…nah….leave it in the motel room, I’ll just slip the iPhone into my pocket.  Next holiday the DSLR won’t even make it to the front door!

Think about that for a moment, iPhone pics have been fine for many needs for years now but the new features and HEIF format raise the bar to a point where many more photographers will see the iPhone as “perfectly sufficient”.  What else out there combines lighting effects, great panorama modes, synthetic depth of field, slow-mo, great 4K video, time-lapse, perfect connectivity etc in the regular camera world…anybody…cmon…and of course you can shoot pretty good DNGs as well if you want an imaging edge.

At times more serious users will certainly want the wholesome goodness and flexibility that DNG capture offers, which brings us back to the question at hand, just how good or bad are the iPhone 8 Plus DNGs.

Whilst the following test pics are not fully comprehensive and nor are they great works of art, (but then what can you do when you only have the device for an hour or so), I reckon they give a pretty solid insight into the iPhone 8S Plus DNG option and its potential.

I always test with everything locked down with optimal exposure and focus control, I think when we test we should test “exactly” what we say we are testing, which means we need to eliminate the variables as much as possible.  You can be pretty confident these pics are a valid representation of what you can expect from the DNG files if you take care shooting and spend some time doing proper edits.

As for the shooting, I use and recommend two applications, Lightroom Mobile and ProCamera, (both of which are covered in detail in my iBook “Ultimate iPhone DNG”, available on the iBooks store) between these two apps you can do pretty much anything you’d reasonably expect to be able to do when shooting with DNG on your iPhone.

The exposures were optimal and some were captured using a UNiWb method on both the iPhone 6S Plus and 8S Plus, read the book if you want to know about that.

The editing?  I edited them in three applications, first Lightroom Mobile to get an insight into what’s possible by using only the Raw converter on the iPhone and then I carried out some post DNG tuning in the new version of Snapseed (which is very nice by the way).  On the Mac, I used Iridient Developer, followed by some Photoshop CC time to check for iPhone DNG edit-ability.

Just so you know, nothing extracts detail from files like Iridient does, it represents the ultimate and additionally, there are an absolute plethora of ways the files can be processed within the application, including alternative noise reduction and sharpening methods.  I came up with a few workflows for the files based on what I’ve done in the past with iPhone DNGs, these worked a treat but it’s worth adding that given some serious exploration time I can probably get more a little more out of the DNGs using more refined workflows.

My general principle with Iridient is to render out a result that can be fine-tuned in Photoshop.  Some folk might say my approach is not relevant to them, well maybe true, but they can always use Lightroom Mobile.  On the other hand if like me you really want to know what the iPhone 8S Plus DNG limits are then this is the way to do it.

You’ll find I  refer to the iPhone 6S Plus as a comparison,  I think that’s totally valid as most people buy their iPhones on two-year contracts or keep them for the two-year period, meaning  the most likely customers for the new 8 series iPhones will be the 6 Series updaters who’ve skipped the 7 series models.

Alrighty, let’s get down to it….

A very high contrast scene but the 8S Plus DNG format holds detail throughout the entire range. The lens shows no obvious distortion despite the relatively wide view.

Angle of View

The focal length of the lens on the 8S plus is slightly shorter than the 6S Plus, I assume the actual sensor dimensions are the same, (Maybe not, I haven’t been able to track down a definitive answer).  From the comparison pics, it looks like the 8S Plus has a slightly wider angle of view but I’d need to lock both down on a tripod and shoot them side by side to be sure.

The 6S lens was 29 mm equivalent and I’d say the 8S is 27.5 equivalent or so but I’ll confirm this with future tests.

 Depth of Field

Whilst the difference is not much the wider aperture on the 8S does seem to give slightly more separation when you shoot scenes that include near and distant objects, this is to be expected of course but it looks a little more pronounced than I had anticipated.

I assume that the higher level of overall lens/sensor performance in all measurable parameters is more important in changing that apparent depth of field rendering than the wider aperture.  Basically slightly out of focus areas always look more out of focus if the in-focus areas are rendered truly sharply in comparison, which they are with the 8S camera module.

Distortion

The distortion characteristics of the 8S Plus are benign, that is to say, I couldn’t see any change when I turned the lens correction on/off in Lightroom Mobile, even in Iridient Developer I couldn’t really see any distortion in the uncorrected files.

I’d need to run further tests on a tripod with fixed straight edged subjects to say with conviction that there’s no distortion but at this point that looks to be the case, which is quite impressive.

Compared to the 6S Plus

The 6 series modules have some pincushion distortion which in uncorrected files is just visible, so a win to the 8S plus, I’m just not sure by exactly how much.

The DNG has been edited in Iridient Developer for a slightly filmic look, the iPhone 8S Plus doesn’t seem to have strong colour biases, making it easy to liberate any rendering style you want.

Colour

With Raw files the colour rendering is mainly a product of the choices you make when extracting the files, the white balance, tint, saturation and vibrance are all adjustable but it’s also true that the sensor design and the processing chain will have an effect on how the final files respond.

Of all the criteria this is the hardest to qualify, I think Lightroom Mobile produces lovely colour with the 8S Plus but it’s pretty terrific on the 6S Plus files as well.

Colour can be fine-tuned in RAW converters or photo editors in post and the rendering of colours is not baked into DNG/RAW files in the way it is with compressed formats, at best I can make a couple of comments as to how the files look and responded when edited.

If anything the yellows are a little more dominant than ideal and blues are slightly cyan shifted, greens can end up a little yellow/green.  All colours seem to accept selective editing really well and fine-tuning white balance is very easy.  Really I’d need an opportunity to shot a wide array of shots including portraits and indoor lighting plus colour checker images to be able to make any meaningful judgement.

I did try a mixed lighting shot in my Daughters kitchen that had filtered window light and tungsten and overall the resulting image looked rather good, in other words, the tungsten lit elements were warm but controlled and the window lit areas not overly blue. Generally, the result was much better than what I saw with the 6S Plus.

Compared to the iPhone 6S

The 8S Plus seems to be a little less prone to accentuating certain colours, basically, it’s easy to get neutrals looking neutral and artificial light sources don’t seem to cause “runaway” colour tints.  I’d judge the 8S an improvement but I need to investigate further.

I took this rough shot in my Daughters kitchen to see how the iPhone 8S Plus DNGs handles mixed colour temperature lighting. Very well, in fact, the tungsten is not overpowering and the filtered blue daylight through windows is not overly blue. It’s a win.

Noise

I expected the noise levels would be reduced compared to the iPhone 6S Plus as the 7 series modules produce RAW files that are definitely better in this regard.

So what did I find, no competition here at all?

For those shooting in the standard camera format, JPEG and now HEIF, noise is usually a non-issue as the iPhone processing pretty much blurs all the noise away along with the fine detail. On the other hand with DNGs we have total control and can play the trade-offs against one another, that alone could be reason enough to shoot DNG.

The 8S Plus DNG noise is much lower than the older modules and especially the 6 series, you can see it everywhere in the image, but it’s especially obvious in blue skies and shadows.  If the file is correctly exposed at the lowest ISO (as a RAW file, not as if it were a compressed processed file) you can turn off all noise reduction in Iridient, no qualms at all.

Initially when noise appears its low-level chrominance noise showing up in neutral toned areas, but I found it to be very acceptable at the low test ISOs and there’s almost zero luminance noise in smooth tones areas if the file is optimally exposed, i.e., at 20 ISO.

Compared to the iPhone 6S

No contest, the 8S Plus easily bests the 6S plus and importantly this means you can push the sharpening and micro tonal contrast adjustments more aggressively.

This home has seen better days, looking at this downsized image its obvious that the clarity across the entire frame is excellent, detail is held right out to the corners and the tonal range looks natural, it looks like it could have been taken with any high-quality camera. It should be noted too that the afternoon light was highly contrasty.

This small 100% crop from the Verandah shot earlier in the article gives a good idea of the sort of detail the iPhone 8S Plus DNG files liberate. Textural information, in particular, is well expressed and should look nice in print.

Here we have a 100% crop (approx) of the home, the detail rendering is excellent with the DNG files and you can even see the twist in the barbed wire on the top of the fence, look even closer and you can see the nail holes in the timber on the side of the verandah. Detail and resolution are certainly not an issue.

Detail

The DNG files from the 6S plus are vastly better than the JPEGs, the JPEGs always show unpredictable mushiness, lack of very fine detail and sometimes look very watercolour like.  I expected the new HEIF format would be much less damaging to the files and thus the difference between DNG and compressed capture under normal shooting would not be as significant.  So how did that assumption pan out?

Well, although not covered in this test, I did look at the compressed standard files and there’s no doubt they hold much better fine detail than the old mushy JPEGs on the 6S Plus, there’s far less of that watercolour rubbish I detest.

Frankly, I was not expecting a big improvement in detail rendition with the DNG files on the 8S Plus, the 6S DNGs were already capable of very well resolved results providing the exposure was nailed correctly. DNGs converted in Iridient extract about as much detail as you could ever reasonably expect from any 12-megapixel image. So are the 8S Plus better? In the centre of the frame it’s a pretty close call, the native files showed little difference in detail but the win goes to the 8S Plus…just.

But, there is much more to it, the 8S Plus shows a higher level of clarity across the entire frame because the lens is simply better and more importantly the native noise level are much lower, meaning you can apply correspondingly higher levels of image sharpening without the noise becoming obvious and degrading the image.

The lower noise level pays off, particularly when applying very low radius sharpening to bring out textural details.  With earlier models, you really had to back off early as you’d get a combination of ugly colour flecking and rough grain.  The 8S Plus files beg to be texture sharpened and respond really well to it.

Compared to the iPhone 6S

Better, but not a chalk and cheese difference, in the end, you have more sharpening flexibility with the new camera, that will be a big bonus for those wanting to crop the frames or blow up to larger sizes, in particular, the improvements in the corners of the frame are obvious.

Dynamic Range

The Raw files on the iPhone 6S Plus have considerably better dynamic range compared with the JPEGs, especially if they are captured using optimal UniWB exposure, (read about that in “Ultimate iPhone DNG).  I’ve always felt iPhone DNGs did a much better job with the highlight end than the shadows, which despite all sensible efforts usually still ended up lacking good detail and tonality.  Ultimately highlights are far more important than shadows so it was a fair trade-off, but now I don’t have to trade anything…cool!

I really need to run some comprehensive tests on this but I’m confident the iPhone 8S Plus will provide details with better highlights and much-improved shadow detail under almost all conditions.  It boils down to this, even if the true dynamic range was no wider, (and I think it is) the shadows have far less noise and record more recoverable detail than the 6S Plus ever did meaning for DNG captures you can reduce the exposure to protect the highlights more, knowing you’ll be able to brighten the image in post without it turning it into an ugly noise-fest.

The 8S plus will still clip highlights, it is a small sensor after all, but I noticed that the highlight the recovery tools in Iridient worked a little better with the 8S files, tending to give a more neutral colour rendering and avoiding the harsh tonal breakup I’m  used to seeing with clipped 6S Plus files.

Compared to the iPhone 6S

The 8S Plus is better but probably mainly due to the lower shadow noise levels. Neither device is going to be as flexible as a regular DSLR or Mirrorless cameras but if you’ve only ever shot JPEGs on a smartphone you’ll be quite amazed at how good these DNG files can be.

This 100% crop from the Tea Towel shot above gives a pretty good idea of the degree of detail and micro tonality on offer with the DNG files. Really there is nothing to make you think that this is shot with a smartphone camera.

Taken late in the afternoon just before sunset near Gundagai NSW. Even in this downsized version, you can see the DNG file holds a lot of fine detail in the grass. That ability makes photos look more 3 dimensional. Clarity in the close corners looks spot on too.

Lens Quality

I thought the lens quality of the 6S Plus was pretty good though mine at least would sometimes render corners randomly soft, it might be the top right in one shot, bottom left in another and so on.  I suspect this is due to weird interactions with the 6S Plus image stabilisation but I’ve never been able to conclusively prove that.  Generally, the 6S Plus edges and corners are noticeably less well resolving than the centre.

The iPad Pro lens with its 7 series camera module is much better performing than the 6S Plus, this might be due to less diffraction as a result of the wider aperture or it could just be a better design, regardless the lens on the iPad Pro eats the 6S Plus for dinner, resolving very well across the entire image and my iPad Pro doesn’t show any uneven corner softness at all.

It makes more sense, in this case, to compare the lens performance of the 8 series to the 7 series module as it’s a given the 8S Plus will easily best the 6S Plus version.

So the answer?  The DNG files look to have a little bit better edge definition on the iPhone  8S Plus when compared to the 7 series modules.  Like most lenses the corners aren’t exactly equal in resolution, the bottom left is the softest on the test sample, but honestly, it’s still very very good.  Let me put it this way, the cross frame performance is much better than any kit lenses I’ve ever tested on DSLRs or Mirrorless cameras when set at the wider end of the range, you certainly don’t look at the 8S Plus DNGs and think, “damn I wish that corner was sharper”.

Compared to the iPhone 6S

The improved corner definition compared to my 6S Plus is very obvious, especially when you look at the DNG files in their native state, no competition here, a knockout for the 8S plus and it looks a bit better than the 7 series modules as well, but this could be down to other processing chain factors rather than optics.

Taken from the extreme top right corner of the derelict home image a couple of points are obvious. First, there is no chromatic aberration and second very little purple fringing, bear in mind this is exactly the circumstance where you would expect see both. Additionally, the shadows hold tonality and with selective editing, more detail could be brought out. Also, note that there is no noise in the blue sky and this image has been processed with all noise reduction turned off! It’s really only the very outside corner area where clarity falls off a bit but honestly, this is quite excellent compared to pretty much any lens and who really pixel peeps the extreme corners anyway.

Chromatic Aberration

Just so we a clear, we’re talking about magenta/green and yellow/blue colour fringing here, not the purple fringing you can see around dark lines set against bright light sources, the later is not regular CA and has a different cause.

I’m very sensitive to CA, I find it visually disturbing and even little bit of CA gets me queasy.  CA messes with the colour as you move towards the edges and corners of the frame and also reduces peak sharpness.  Most photographers will argue, “yeah but it can be fixed in post”, that’s true but a CA fixed image will never be as sharp as one created with a lens that exhibited no CA at all. Give me optically corrected CA any day.

Now up front, I have to say those iPhone lenses since the 5S have been pretty good in this regard, each iteration seems to have reduced CA a bit and but frankly, it’s never the bothersome issue it is on most regular camera lenses (even expensive ones).

And now, I present with great fanfare…tadaa….the first lens I have ever tested where I could not actually find any Chromatic Aberration when zoomed into a 200% view on an uncorrected RAW/DNG file.   Just pause for a second and ponder that, I said none, nada, nothing.

Yes, you’ll get a little purple fringing if you push the exposure hard enough but that’s a horse of an entirely different colour, literally, regardless the purple fringing is really well controlled, basically a non-issue, all of which tells me the lens must have pretty high native contrast, excellent coatings and superb design.

Anyhow folks, you can forget about worrying about chromatic aberration and also be confident that any residual purple fringing when it shows up can easily be sorted in the RAW converter or Photoshop (or something similar) with a fringing correction tool. Lightroom on the desktop computer does a great job of sorting this for example.

Compared to the iPhone 6S Plus

The 6S Plus always performed well in this area, but zoomed in the 8S Plus is much better, in particular, the high contrast purple fringing is not as well controlled on the 6S Plus.

Just One Thought

Killing chromatic aberration with lens design is very difficult for a whole array of tech reasons, most kit lenses don’t even get close to sorting the CA within the lens itself, that’s done in software when making the JPEG or via a profile in the RAW converter.

I checked the DNG files without any corrections enabled and found zero CA, this raises a question I can’t answer. Have Apple found some way to perfectly correct the CA before the DNG file is written and bypassed profile corrections in the RAW converter later on or is it just the lens is incredibly well corrected for CA?  I don’t know but the results are great.

Colour Banding

Colour banding has been a real bugbear of mine with iPhone images since the first iPhone I owned, a 3GS.   I hate it banding, loathe it, detest it, I don’t like it and it makes me want to throw up, well not quite…. but you get the idea.  Banding is also devilishly hard to correct in post editing without causing other flow-on problems.

Banding or posterization particularly show up in blue skies and on bright skin tones, but it’s also common on yellow objects with many cameras including iPhones.  What complicates the matter is that some of the visual banding in the past was not due to issues with the files and inadequate bit depth but rather the display panel.  I often found apparently banded images were quite OK when extracted and viewed on my desktop 5K Mac.

The iPhone 8S Plus has a much better display, not as good as the X promises but still much better than the 6S Plus, in fact as soon as you look at the images on the iPhone 8S Plus it’s obvious the display is way better so I expect that that display induced banding will cease to be an annoyance.

It’s a bit early for me to pass a definitive judgement, I really need the chance to shoot a lot more photos with large areas of blue sky, yellow cars, portraits in bright light etc to be sure….but it certainly looks like the banding issues are significantly reduced or eliminated.  None of the quick test pics showed any tendency towards banding and breakup no matter how hard I looked or pushed them in editing!

Compared to the iPhone 6S Plus

Again its hard to be sure but the DNG performance looks to be much better, the real test will be when I can get the phone back off my wife later this week and torture test for banding using Lightroom Mobile HDR feature, I’m quietly confident that the “banding is on the run”, both for the files and the display!  BTW its pretty easy to get the “bands” when pushing 6S Plus files in editing.

Vignetting

All iPhone/iPad raw/dng files I’ve tested have shown red tinted vignetting in the native state.  JPEG shooters are likely unaware of this as the standard processing deals with it automatically, most Raw converters also deal with the worst of the issue via a built-in profile but sometimes you still see it in skies and smooth tones areas near the edges of the frame.

The red/vignetting shift is mainly caused by issues within the sensors design and the way it interacts with the lens, it’s diabolically tricky to eliminate the issue if present.  In the case of past iPhones, the red shift in the DNG files became much worse as the ISO was raised.

The truth of the vignetting matter is revealed by taking DNG files and viewing them with all profile adjustments turned off, you can’t do this on the iPhone nor is it possible with many desktop editing apps but it’s easily done in Iridient Developer.

Does it matter? Absolutely, that vignetting not only causes colour shifts in the corners but increases the noise levels, reduces corner shadow detail and limits your ability to get the best possible results from the files.  For example, you’d need to dial back the sharpening levels and increase the noise reduction if you don’t want messy corners and edges, it also means you need to perform advanced radial edits to get the most out from your DNGs. Red shifted vignetting might not be a big issue to many of you out there in interweb land but to me, it’s massive PIA.

So….the iPhone 8S Plus has much less native corner vignetting than the 6S plus models and a little less than the 7 series modules as well, additionally the vignetting is far more colour neutral, there’s a very slight colour shift but nothing like the horrible red shift on previous models and it’s only seen on plain blue skies if at all.  With the 6S module, you could see it on every uncorrected frame and it even ran well in towards the centre of the image if the ISO was raised just a bit.

This is what your iPhone 6S Plus DNG file looks like when you turn off all adjustments and profiles in the RAW converter, in this case, I used Iridient Developer on my Mac. A couple of points to note, the DNGs were shot with the exposures set right to the clip point using UNiWB in ProCamera, for the iPhone 6S Plus this renders a darker image as the sensor cannot accept as much light before clipping.  Next, have a look at the vignetting, it’s far greater than the following 8S Plus frame and also shows a significant red shift in the corners which gets much wrote as the ISO is raised.

This is the unprocessed DNG from the iPhone 8S Plus, apart from being lighter the most obvious difference is the file has much lower vignetting and very little red corner shift, it also looks a bit better resolved.

This is a basic extraction process of the iPhone 6S Plus DNG file using Iridient Developer, I’ve left the lens profile turned off so you can see just how much that red/magenta colour shift effects the corners of the frame. It really has a pronounced effect right in towards the central 30% of the frame. Even properly processed files (and that includes JPEGs) will often display this red shift problem, especially if the ISO is raised beyond about 100.

Response to Editing

This is where the rubber hits the road for DNG files, JPEGs are just so damned brittle, push the tones and colours or try to re-sharpen and all sorts of nasty things happen, I haven’t tested the HEIF files for edibility but the specs of the format tell me it should be pretty flexible.

The 8S Plus files edit very well in both Lightroom Mobile and on the computer in Iridient Developer. Shadows can be pushed, highlights recovered and selective edits applied without getting horrible tonal breakup.  The files can be sharpened easily and the noise being much lower means you have greatly improved options for shadow recovery.

As a little test, I shot an image along an old railway bridge in Gundagai NSW after sunset, it’s an extremely contrasty lighting situation and the phone wasn’t level either as I was shooting through a crooked wire fence.

Looking at the original DNG capture you could easily decide all is lost, it looks hopelessly dark and honestly if this were a DNG shot on the 6S Plus there’d be no hope, but take a look at the recovered edited and cropped image, it actually looks pretty reasonable.

The processing was done via a combo of Iridient Developer and Photoshop CC, yes it has some luminosity noise but truly it’s far better than I expected.

The DNG Torture Test.  I shot this image straight into the light just after sunset and exposed to try and keep some colour and detail in the highlights. By the way, I did the same with the 6S Plus file but the image was beyond recoverable.  You’re looking at the unprocessed image, all I did was open it in Iridient Developer and then click export JPEG. Yep its pretty terrible.

Extracted File. This is the image that came out of Iridient Developer once I had tweaked and fiddled to get the shadows recovered, I left the noise reduction turned down low as I was interested in seeing just how terrible it could be. This version looks much better but not great and don’t you just love the crooked stance!

So after a spin through Photoshop CC and some selective edits we get this, oh and of course I straightened it a bit as well, though it could use more. Now, this is quite acceptable and certainly much better than I expected would be possible. This is a downsized pic but even the full-size version is nicely sharp and nowhere near as noisy as you might expect from such an extreme edit. The HDRs taken in Lightroom Mobile should work really well with the 8S Plus, this test also shows why the lighting modes on the 8S plus work as well as they do…basically the shadow recovery is much better and that makes for a more flexible post-capture approach.

Just to finish off on the edibility aspect, this monochrome image was extracted in Lightroom Mobile and then turned into mono in Snapseed. I added a film grain effect whilst in the app. Anyway, I found the files easily converted to monochrome and provided plenty of creative flexibility. That is not always the case with smartphone images. And just in case you are wondering, it’s a vacant shop in the main street of Coolamon NSW, Coolamon has lots of vacant shops.

Compared to the iPhone 6S Plus

Not even in the same ballpark. Net result then, the 8S Plus DNG files edit better period!

Where to From Here?

This is just the first in what will be a full battery of tests on the DNG, some of it will likely make its way into an update of my “Ultimate iPhone DNG” eBook.

So next I will explore the performance at the various ISO settings, try out the telephoto lens for DNG, run some comprehensive DNG colour tests, try different sharpening and noise reduction processes in Iridient, run some HDRs in Lightroom Mobile and probably a few other things as well.

Late Addition

I was asked about the quality of the edited Torture test file as a 100% view, I have added the 2 crops below, they are roughly a 100% view, probably a bit more so when viewing on most devices.  The detail obtained from this hopelessly underexposed file is quite amazing, I can assure you the 6S Plus is no where near as flexible as this. Look back at the original and take a peek at the building, my guess is you would have no idea that any of the detail below is present in the un-edited file.

Do come back again and if you really want to get the most out of your DNG captures on your iDevices why not pop on over to the iBooks store and buy a copy of my 400 page “Ultimate iPhone DNG”.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/ultimate-iphone-dng/id1274334884?ls=1&mt=11

Cheers

Brad  

Posted in iPhone RAW, iPhoneography

Tagged 8S Plus and 6S Plus DNG compared, Brad Nichol eBooks, DNG, Dynamic Range, eBooks, iPhone 8 Plus DNG test, iPhone 8 Plus Lens Quality, iPhone 8Plus Raw Quality, Noise

The Perfect M4/3 Holiday Companion, Panasonic 35 - 100 f4-5.6

45mm f5, my wife Wendy and the love of my life on holiday in Rome

Preamble:

Just so we are nice and clear, when I test lenses I only use carefully exposed raw files processed in Iridient Developer, I never judge jpegs as they are at the mercy of the camera's processor and may not actually reflect the lenses potential. It needs to be also noted that a lenses performance could be quite different depending on the body it's attached to.

I always disable all lens parameter corrections in the Raw converter, i.e. CA, distortion and vignetting to get an accurate picture of how the lens performs at its core, I also look closely at the lens performance with my own custom vignetting/CA correction and sharpening settings applied.

You won't find test charts on walls or indeed the classic brick wall test, basically even minor field curvature renders most of these tests meaningless for regular distance 3D shooting needs, the exception being when testing a macro lens, flat field performance is a significant parameter for macro lens performance and uses.

I'm not paid in any way by any lens or camera manufacturer or supplier and I only test equipment I have purchased or obtained from clients and other photographers.

Lastly, I test only one copy, I am not about to buy several copies just so I can write a review, the point is my reviews should only be seen as a guide as to what you might expect, you could well buy a better or worse copy than the one I have.

Ok, let's move on...

The little knobs on the barrel are not standard,  I machined those up to make touch focus and zoom adjustment a bit easier.

An M4/3 lens That  Makes Good Sense

While there are many fast and fabulous lenses available for the M4/3 format, it could be argued that many of them are not in keeping with the design intention of the m4/3 format.  One of the primary drivers of the Micro 4/3 format at the outset was to create a system where a camera body in combination with several lenses takes up so little space in your camera bag and weighs so little that you'd not be concerned to carry the kit around for an entire day.

As an example, the Olympus 40 to 150 F2.8 is an absolutely brilliant lens performance-wise. However, its weight and physical proportions mean there's nowhere near the expected M4/3 advantage over equivalent APS-C or even full frame formats.  I'm not saying by that by any measure the 40-150 f2.8 is a large lens in absolute terms, just it doesn't actually play to the advantage of having an M4/3 camera.

Of course we could argue about other aspects of the system, like super duper image stabilisation and blazing capture speeds as in the EM1 MK 2 but first and foremost the system was initially designed to be compact yet still high performing and to this day that remains the primary driver of M4/3 system purchases.

To my mind, M4/3 really comes into its own when compact m4/3 bodies are combined with small, high-quality lenses, for example, the tiny but excellent Olympus 45 mm and 25mm f1.8s.  Generally, the pro-grade zoom lenses and neither light nor particularly compact though I grant the optical performance is universally quite exceptional.  Sometimes, probably most times for many shooters, you need reasonable, convenient and economical, rather than exceptional.

  

This is where the Panasonic 35 to 100 F4 to 5.6 comes into play, yet despite its diminutive size, it's not exactly small on performance, in fact, I'd say it's really rather better than reasonable.

100mm @ f7.1, edge to edge clarity is just lovely, this image is slightly cropped for compositional purposes.

Practical Purpose

At around 145g we have a telephoto zoom you could literally put in a reasonably sized pocket and carry around with you all day, it actually does deliver on the core M4/3 promise.

Initially, lens was designed by Panasonic for use on the tiny GM series cameras and when you see how small those cameras are you'll understand why both this lens and it's sister act the 12 to 32 mm pancake are so tiny, those GMs bodies are hardly any bigger than a medium sized compact!  

There's no reason why the 35 to 100mm Panasonic has to be used on the GM series of cameras. The 35-100 mates perfectly with either Olympus or Panasonic cameras, and frankly I find the GM series babies just too small for my finger pushing comfort, despite being rather lovely cameras.

What we have here is a good quality general-purpose telephoto zoom lens that covers the traditional 70 to 200 mm range, which for most shooters is probably as much as they need.  There are of course other reasonably priced options which will go both wider and more telephoto within the micro 4/3 stable but none are anywhere near as light nor physically compact is this little baby, and most of the non-pro lenses seem to fall off a cliff performance wise in the post 100mm territory anyway.

Boring test shot at my standard lens testing location, the railway station in my hometown of Goulburn, Aus, this was taken at 100mm @f7.1 which is about the perfect aperture for this focal length though it's really plenty sharp at f5.6.  Check out the 100% crop below taken from the left of centre, it's pretty sharp by any standard.

The Design

Much of the size of the benefit is a achieved by having the lens collapse into a small package, collapsed it's only 50 mm in length!  Mini collapsible zoom lenses are usually quite flimsy and prone to physical slop in the lens barrel, that's not the case here.  The 35 -100 may be made of plastic, but it's quite secure and well constructed, with everything fitting nicely together, of course, it's not as "nice as Zeiss" but then at this price you wouldn't expect it to be.

The collapsing nature is probably the only annoyance I have with the entire lens. It's not the collapsing that bothers me, just that when I mount it onto the camera and go to use it I always get that little error message to tell me that the lens needs to be unlocked to be used. Other than that minor irritation I have no complaints regarding the design or practicality.

If you want to know all the specs etc. I suggest you have a look at the review of this lens on the "Imaging Resource" site.    http://www.imaging-resource.com/lenses/panasonic/35-100mm-f4-5.6-mega-ois-lumix-g-x-vario/review

Here we have a 35mm frame from the same location as the above shot. Except this is taken at f4.5, edge to edge and corner to corner the whole frame is fully resolved, pretty impressive really.

Another boring test frame, 35mm @ f5.6, seriously there's no need to stop down any smaller than this unless you really require more depth of field, check out the 100% crop of the upper right side, no issues at all.

Performance

The Panasonic 35-100 isn't a fast lens, the max aperture range extends from f4 at 35 mm through to f5.6 at 100 mm, still that's a stop faster than the standard 14 to 42 mm kit lenses offer.  Most kit lenses are typically closed down to F5.6 by the time they have ventured beyond about 24 mm.  The Panasonic 35-100 reaches F5.6 at around 80 mm and hovers around f5 @ 50 mm which is far more useful altogether.

Generally, most M4/3 kit lenses need to be stopped down one stop before their image quality levels out, this lens seems to perform excellently at maximum aperture regardless of the focal length which makes it all the more useful compared to many other kit telephotos zoom lenses. Most competing cheap telephoto zooms I've tried actually needed to be stopped down about 1 1/2 to 2 stops from maximum before they reach the same level of performance of this lens achieves wide open!

35mm @ f6.3 and all very nicely resolved, this raw file has not been corrected for vignetting either, but I really can't see any issue to worry about.  Very fancy street lights in Barcelona, what a great city!

Sharpness

No, this lens is not a scalpel, I have definitely come across some other lenses which are marginally sharper on the micro 4/3 format. In particular, the old Olympus OM 100mm 2.8 from the film era seems to be slightly sharper than this lens at the 100mm setting, though it has considerably more chromatic aberration. (I will be posting a review of this on my blog soon)

However, the fact remains that Panasonic 35-100 mm's cross frame clarity is very consistent at all focal lengths and I wouldn't hesitate to use it even if I needed high critical sharpness. In truth, the only reason for using a more expensive lens would be to access wider apertures for a shorter depth of field rendering.

On the issue of clarity, I've some great news if you happen to have any of the 14 to 42 mm kit lenses. You'll be pleased to know that in the 35 to 42 mm range the performance of this lens is vastly better than all the kit 14-42s on the market and that includes Panasonic' own highly regarded 14-42 series 2. Additionally starting the focal length range at 35 instead of 40-50mm adds a little extra flexibility for holiday pics meaning you may not have to swap out lenses as often.

If you had both the standard kit lens and this baby in your camera bag, you'd be well advised to choose this lens in any situation that required focal lengths exceeding the 35 mm setting.  The difference in perceived clarity is surprisingly significant, most of the kit lenses are far weaker at the long end than they are at the shorter end of their range, and you'll have up to a stop wider aperture choice to go with it!

35mm @ f5.6 cropped top and bottom, that dog was huge!

50mm @f5.6, you won't tell it from this downsized web image, but you can honestly make out the finer hairs on the guitarists head in the full res raw file.

Kids and bubbles, they just go together, 100mm @f6.3.

Focus

It's difficult to make any definitive statements on focus speed as in the M4/3 world it depends very significantly on the camera the lens is mated to.  Olympus lenses seem to focus a bit quicker on Olympus cameras and Panasonic lenses on Panasonic cameras.  

I've found that the 35-100mm focuses quite a bit quicker than the Panasonic 14-42 series 2 lens I have, especially when the light level or contrast drops away. The focus only seems to be caught out by either deficient light levels or scenes with almost uniform contrast.

My take, it's not super fast focuser like the pro lenses and certainly won't give the Olympus 45mm or 75mm f1.8 lenses any competition, but for standard uses it's perfectly OK on my Olympus EM5 mk2. 

Vignetting

Vignetting is mercifully low. However, it appears from my tests the lowest levels (before software correction on Raw files) are found around the 50 mm focal mark with slightly higher levels as you go towards the extremes. I judge the 100 mm focal length to have the highest degree, but truthfully it looks very similar at the 35 mm setting, in any case vignetting is a non-issue at pretty much any focal length and disappears quickly with a little stopping down.

Usually, I choose not to correct the vignetting as I find a small amount of vignetting often adds to the overall look of the photo.

Bokeh

Seriously you would not buy this lens if you were after that super creamy shallow DOF look, but actually, the out of focus areas are not at all bad and in many cases really pleasing. I found the bokeh smooth enough for most of my needs, and if you go in close to focus for a tight portrait at 100mm I think it looks rather tasty, and many other testers seem to have come to the same conclusion.

My take, within the design parameters and compared to the opposition it's more than satisfactory and if you need a more shallow DOF rendering on the M4/3 format then you would be far better off with something like the Olympus 45mm f1.8 or 75mm f1.8 which to my eyes for sensible and sweet looking bokeh are really super lovely.  

The really cool thing is that even if you combined the this lens with the 45mm f1.8 in your kit they'd still only add about 270 grams in total and take up way less room than one of the "Pro" lens options....oh and it would cost way less too!

Chromatic Aberration

Chromatic aberration performance is a particular high point of this lens, of all the kit lenses I've tested I've no doubt this lens exhibits one of the lowest levels of CA I've seen, it's even better than many medium priced telephoto zooms.

Given a choice, I would always much prefer a lens which has low native chromatic aberration. Generally, the colour will be better right out towards the edges/corners of the image, and outer edge clarity will also be much better as extreme CA correction generally has an adverse effect on fine details even when properly corrected.

35mm @f6.3, really a very nice general snap shooting setting.

The forum in Rome at 100mm and f7.1, again its hard to tell in a small web image but there is excellent clarity throughout the entire frame.

Distortion

There is a vanishingly small amount of distortion at the 35mm setting, it's not even worth fixing, and I doubt anyone but the most anal retentive architectural shooter would ever notice it.

The news at 100 mm setting is also excellent, there's some pincushion distortion but to be honest, it's difficult to see and would only be noticeable if you had straight edges in the image that we are running closely parallel to the side of the frame.

Generally, then I can say that the distortion is irrelevant and that's gotta be great news.

Stabilisation 

Well, I can't comment on how it works on the Panasonic bodies, I've not got around to testing that, but I assume it would be okay, especially on the models which have dual stabilisation options.  

On my Olympus EM5 MK 2 the lens/body combo works excellently, I think it's the cumulative effect of the lenses lightweight and good balance on the camera body, combined with the excellent "in body" IS of the EM5 MK 2.  The net result is that looking through all the images I have taken there's almost none that show any camera movement including many frames taken at speeds longer than 1/4 sec even at 100mm!

Let's just say the stabilisation is confidence inspiring and reduces considerably your need to grab your three-legged friend.

Flare resistance

I rarely ever have any trouble with lenses flaring, probably because I hardly ever shoot directly into the sun or towards bright light sources, so maybe take my words with a grain of salt,  I'm not about to go out and deliberately attempt to create a flare fest just to prove that  "hey this lens has some flares". To my mind flare tests are about as useful as "dropping the lens from 1 metre onto concrete", or the "sanding the front element with 180 grade wet and dry" tests.  Yep, it's going to cause problems but for any practical usage is sort of irrelevant. 

I note that some sensible testers have claimed this lens exhibits a reasonable amount of flare, that's probably true when aimed at the sun or bright lights. All I can say is for hundreds of photos I've taken with it none exhibited enough flare to disturb me or have me searching for a fix, but your mileage may vary.

Flare resistance is closely related to lens contrast, and this one shows a pretty high level of contrast, not Zeiss like but a long way removed from soft and dreamy.

Oh, I should point out I always shoot with a lens hood and the one I use isn't the one that comes with the lens but a rather more narrow solid metal hood. My hood choice may have some positive bearing on my results, BTW I didn't choose to go with an alternative hood for performance reasons, it's just the standard one's too big to fit into my very compact M4/3 travel kit box.

Busker in Rome, 73mm @ f5.5, which is wide open for that setting, no issue at all.

35mm @f5, not all lenses are ideal for mono work, many lack the ability to render that fine textural detail which nice mono work relies on, not this lens, fine textures render very nicely.

Macro

You couldn't really consider this to be a macro lens, Panasonic has only given it a moderately close focusing distance. However I have taken photos with both a short electronic extension tube and also diopter 1, 2 or 3 close-up filters,  in all cases, the results have been very acceptable. 

I often carry a 2 diopter close-up filter with the lens for those occasions where I need to go a little bit closer and don't want the extra weight of a macro lens in my pocket, and it works really well.

No, it's not a macro lens, but when combined with a no 2 close-up filter it does a reasonable impersonation of one, bear in mind this is the full frame, that stocky little yellow fella in the middle is just 6 mm wide.  Interestingly the web is even sharply resolved out to the corners, which is not how things generally work with cheap close-up filters, so I guess we can say the lens and filter are a good match.

Here's another close-up shot taken with the close-up filter, 100mm @ f 8, again that old light meter is quite small, oh and the longitudinal chromatic aberration is also pretty well controlled, a nice bonus.

Consistency

To sum it up in one sentence, it's consistent, consistent in every way that matters to regular Micro 4/3 users. 

It's an easy lens to use, very compact, super light, optically strong and generally it doesn't need to be stopped down to become sharp, overall it's probably worth far more than the modest price being asked.

The only reason for me needing alternative lens would be to access either wider apertures for a shorter depth of field or perhaps if I desperately needed a slightly longer focal length.

In summary, I reckon this lens probably represents about the best bargain you'll find in the Micro 4/3 system and anyone who needs a short-medium telephoto zoom would be crazy bananas to not at least consider it. Sure it's not sexy, fast or likely to impress the great unwashed in a bar bragging photo gearhead contest, but I reckon you, and they, would be impressed by the overall photographic results.

Price.  

If you're thinking of purchasing one of these little babies I suggest you do some homework. From a casual examination of prices on eBay I've seen them range from as little as $180 through to $400 plus. I paid $145.00 for mine from an Aussie retailer on a crazy special...now that's a bargain!  Honestly even at say $350.00 it would represent solid optical value.

Do a little bit of comparative shopping and I have no doubt that you too can probably get one of the best bargains in the micro 4/3 system.

48mm @f4.8, shop on centre and even bit of shallow DOF for good measure, this guy really could move!

50mm @f6.3, The shutter speed to a little too slow for critical clarity but I had zero time change anything and the auto focus was actually pretty quick.

48mm @f7.1, I stopped down a little to get full depth of field, not to access greater clarity.

35mm @ f6.3, no issues with field curvature, it renders flat objects sharp from edge to edge.

Selfies of selfie shooters, 50mm @f6.3, works fine for quick grab shots.

88mm @f6.3, stopped down just 1/3 from wide open.

And finally, another 100mm shot, this time cropped a little and shot at f6.3.