iPhone 14 Pro, better than a Ricoh GR III?
When the iPhone 11 Pro was released I wrote about it extensively. It was the first sign that Apple started to take Mobile Photography seriously. Since then, in terms of still photography, there’s been no exciting update from Apple, until now, with the release of the iPhone 14 Pro series.
I am quite a fan of the Ricoh GR series, being the only truly pocketable camera that I dont feel is a compromise in terms of image quality. The RX100 and competitors with their good but not great zoom lenses just dont cut it for the work I want to do.
- I am coming at this from a landscape photographers view, not street, which is GR does excel at.
- This is handheld, and non scientific. And, comparing a 24mm lens and 4:3 ratio sensor to a 28mm lens and 3:2 sensor isn’t exactly ideal.
- Metadata is stripped as I run images through a optimiser for web, for speed etc – but I’ll give access to all RAW’s and JPG’s via a link
- The Ricoh was allowed to chose its own ISO the rest was manual.
- I have had to flatten some of the GR images to bring back the highlights and shadows so it is close to the iPhone shot.
- Preserve Details 2.0 enlargement used to bring the GR image to 8064px along the longest side, the same as the iPhone
- These are boring images and not edited, for the record.
- In reality these comparisons, while fun, don’t mean a lot in terms of real world application. Composition, light, editing and presentation of your images means vastly more than a few percent here or there
Image One
iPhone 14 Pro
So, we have a perfectly well exposed (if a little yellow) image from the 14 Pro. There is a huge amount of detail in the shot too, and there’s no sharpening applied here at all.
If you focus your eyes on the pert of the tree just above the wall line, you’ll notice more detail and cleaner detail too in the iPhone image.
There’s also no blown highlights at all and you have a great base image to work from, not that you’d want to work on this image… It’s one for the bin.
Ricoh GR III
The GR III is behind but only slightly, and remember this has been enlarged, so the performance is pretty solid for a 24mp sensor.
You’ll notice blown highlights on the spines of the climber, but I have no doubt this could be recovered. The white balance is better on the GR, though. I think it has to do with Adobe not fully supporting the 14 Pro yet.
There’s also a hint of fringing, but nothing major. Nothing at all on the ProRAW from Apple.
Image Two
There is a huge amount of detail from both the GR and the 14 Pro, again, remember that the GR image has been enlarges too, to match the iPhone. The iPhone though, again has zero luminance noise, zero colour noise and really well controlled colour fringing. It possibly has a little more detail too, but maybe I am making that up. The GR is good, but has a fair bit of colour noise (when zooming in) as the ISO is staring to hike up. This was taken in a woodland in conditions worse than daylight. Of course with a solid programme like DXO or Topaz noise on the GR would be gone with basically no negative impact on the image at all.
How do the files sharpen up?
Pretty well. Yes, a GIF isn’t the ideal way to show true file quality, so feel free to download the images from one of the million green buttons on this page. But this does show a great automated comparison of the iPhone and GR with some basic ‘unsharp mask’ in photoshop.
Image Three
Not much to say here, the GR wins this one on resolution and again shows some more noise but nothing concerning at all. The iPhone got a little confused by the dark fence and wanted to overexpose, therefore over-smoothing the detail, which I think is why it looks a little worse than expected. However, looking at these at 100% and not beyond, there is little difference in overall quality. Only when you zoom to 200% plus you can see the GR is more natural looking with more detail.
Image Four
Here is a tight crop of a much larger image. I prefer the colours on the GR. Maybe the iPhone looks a notch cleaner and is I think a tiny bit sharper, but again, remember were comparing a 48mp sensor to an up-scaled 24mp sensor. The full res files can be downloaded on one of the green button links. Feel free to edit them, bin them, or ask any questions.
The iPhone 14 Pro
There is no doubt that the 14 Pro is leaps and bounds ahead of previous iPhones when using the ProRAW 48mp output. I don’t feel like I am sacrificing anything by using this camera over a dedicated one like the Ricoh GR III, that is unless we are in very low light or want to use filters or take long exposures…
It’s metering and exposure is spotless and the exposure blending or ‘computational’ element is extremely sound. That said I have barely demonstrated any of the above in this article. But I will soon. I do wish they would dial back the noise reduction even further, but this is only noticeable when viewing at beyond 100%.
The lens is very good for a smartphone; it is sharp across the whole frame, minus the extreme corners. Very few if any other smartphones hold this claim.
The Ricoh GR III
This thing produces an Incredibly detailed image, likely as good as a 24mp image can get, with a super sharp lens and no AA filter.
The GR III has solid dynamic range, but not groundbreaking. One single image (DNG) from the GR cannot compete with the multiple images the iPhone uses to create it’s single ProRAW file. In extreme contrast situations like a sunrise or sunset when shooting into the sun, the GR will not have enough Dynamic Range in a single file, you will have to bracket if you want to keep all highlight and shadow info in tact.
It is a rather noisy sensor I feel, but with good programmes out there like Topaz and my favourite DXO Photolab, this noise will disappear completely without a trace.
48 Megapixels
The elephant in the room. So the iPhone does have a true 48 Megapixel sensor. It is Quad Bayer in design, which means ONLY that the colour filter array that lies on top of the light sensing pixels, is different to a bayer sensor. Its the same pattern as bayer, but in a 2×2 pixel format rather than one, making ‘binning’ 48mp down to 12mp easier for the masses.
There is a lot of nonsense talked about Quad Bayer being 12mp upscaled. It is not.
That said I am under no illusion here. The small sensor, and tiny optics of the iPhone 14 Pro as good as they are, will jut not be capable of resolving as much detail as a 48mp Full Frame sensor, and lens. Or even APS-C at that same resolution. I would put it somewhere around the 30-35 Megapixel mark, at a guess.
Why for me the iPhone will replace the GR III
I chop and changes cameras like my socks, so for me, selling a camera is almost as familiar as using one. The 14 Pro is not a better camera than the GR III, but I think for me it is. I am spoiled by having a pair of Nikon Z7’s and a Fuji X camera. The Ricoh GR III was supposed to be a ‘carry everywhere’ camera, but I have not used the GR nearly as much as I thought I would.
Now I have a phone that is as capable as the GR (for what I want to shoot) I don’t feel like I am really sacrificing anything meaningful by not taking it. In fact, the ProRAW format saves me so much time bracketing images in post.
Why the GR is the better 'camera' overall
The GR III will tech you more about photography than an iPhone will, with manual controls, buttons and dials, an aperture, and full control over noise reduction and sharpening. Not only this, but the use of filters and tripods for shooting high quality long exposures is far better on the GR. I still don’t think Apple allows apps to open the shutter of the iPhone for more than a second…
For street photography, or anything that requires speed, the GR is hands down a better option. There is a significant delay when using the 48mp ProRAW format, so for street this is a no go, so you’re left with the slightly overbooked 12mp images instead, no thanks. Plus the snap focus comes in very handy and aperture control on the GR is a necessity too.
6 responses
I would like to buy iP 14 Pro as an emergency camera that I keep with me at all times.
The quality of your posted ful res 48 MP DNG pictures show more than sufficient quality for my use case.
But the 24 mm focal length is too wide for many applications (street photo).
I would be very interested in 12 MP zoom 48 mm DNG from main 48 MP camera.
Would it be possible to post at least one DNG mentioned
Hi Pavol and sorry for the mega late reply, there is a download originals button on there.
Expect you’re onto an iPhone 16 by now 🙂
I’m not that much of a online reader to bbe honest but your blogs really nice, keep itt up!
I’ll go ahead and bookmark your site to come back later.
Many thanks
My webpage – Birgit
Thanks Birgit that is very kind, it’s appreciated. I’ll be doing much more with it soon
It is impossible to see any difference in quality unless you print out the pictures in larger formats and compare! Maybe you already did that .
That is quite true yes. Editing and printing techniques will be more important than whatever the stock output is.