iPhone 12 Pro vs Nikon D80
To set the baseline, you can take some great pictures with the iPhone. And I have. But nothing beats the lens quality and power of a DSLR – particularly Nikons. There is a richness to the pics from my Nikon D80, thanks to its excellent lens options and 10MP CCD, that you can’t capture with a phone camera. You also have much more control with a DSLR. Of course, I don’t know an F-Stop from a Shortstop yet. But I am learning – beginning with the Exposure Triangle.
Below are some comparative examples. What’s interesting is the first shot is from my D80 and looks underexposed and dark. But looks can be decieving. Because it was shot in RAW format, it contains a ton of data, allowing me to process it in just a couple of minutes into the second image. Because of the exposure settings I used on the Nikon, you can see the rich red patterns on the flower petals. The automatic settings on the Nikon produced rich yellow, but the patterns on the petals were not visible and the green background was less rich.
The iPhone 12 Pro is now considered an outdated phone. That said, the camera quality is excellent and the automatic adjustments the iPhone makes are impressive. The image quality is on par with the Nikon. However, the iPhone image is about 2.6 MB, while the Nikon D80 image is 7.8 MB — exactly 3X larger. Meaning the Nikon gives me 3X more data to work with, allowing me to process it into great picture with rich greens in the background and really good detail in the foregrond. I can process the iPhone picture too, but I won’t get the same results. And reall, there is no need.
The iPhone and Nikon are both really great cameras. Keep in mind that the Nikon D80 is 20 years old and the iPhone 12 Pro is only about 4-5 years old.
