Poor quality iphone photo images - is this normal?

usignuolo

Earlier this week I went to a concert with my sister and we were fortunate enough to meet the star afterwards and wanted our photo taken with him. We didn't have a camera handy so called over my b-i-l with his iphone. He took a photo of us all in a very well lit area of the foyer under the lights .

He showed it to me on his phone just afterwards and it looked fine, although I was surprised it wasn't more of a closeup - but he said that was because it was indoors and if he zoomed in a lot it would go fuzzy.

I asked him to send it to my OH's new smart phone and he muttered, even this appeared to be an involved process. When it finally turned up, my OH forwarded it to me and I displayed it on my pc screen. It was really disappointing - it is not sharp at all.

I looked it up (problem of fuzzy iphone pics) and one response said some of the phones have a problem with an OS upgrade (4) which means that when the images are emailed as attachments, only the preview gets sent not the final image. I am not sure what model his phone is, I think he got it last summer. I suppose it could be that or are there actually some limitations to using it?

The photo was no better than I could take on my elderly mobile. On that you just pressed send and the image was sent to another phone. I thought the iphone was supposed to be good at photos. I was thinking of getting an iphone too but not if the camera images are of such low quality.

Or maybe he is just a sucky photographer. Which would be a surprise because photography is his hobby and he takes lots of photos with high spec kit.

KiwiCrazy

While the camera is not amazing on the iPhone it is still capable of taking ok-good pictures. You could try getting him to email it to you to see if it emails the full version or get him to hook it up to his own pc and then copy the full image to the pc and then email it to you.

Although I have never heard that it only sends the preview image........dont think it should do that, check his settings.

WhiteChristmas

If you right-click on the photo and look at the properties, what dimensions are listed?

Exemplar

Seconded, probably sent as the preview not the full photo

Hammyman

This is what happens when you use a phone to do the job of a camera. Would you expect to make a phone call on a Nikkon SLR? No.

ukcarper

What size is the file? You really need flash or a good camera indoors under normal artificial light.

MackemPunk

Hammyman wrote: »

This is what happens when you use a phone to do the job of a camera. Would you expect to make a phone call on a Nikkon SLR? No.

But you cant fit a slr in your pocket and use it easily in a crowd.

My smartphone (Samsung galaxy) takes canny pics, I can't see the Iphone's camera being much worse, so I guess his sent you the preview instead of the actual image.

usignuolo

I have had a word with him and he is going to send me the file properties and try to email it via his pc. He does not normally use a phone to take pics as he has a very good camera, so has no previous experience of taking photos on the iphone.

SPANIEL36

Can you zoom in on the iphone4 camera? I know you cn on the video setting...

duncansby

Yes you can zoom in on the iphone 4, its quite easy. Also it is exceptionally easy to either email or mms photos, involving one touch of the arrow in the bottom corner. Although the iphone isn't fantastic at taking photos, its not too bad.

usignuolo

My b-i-l seems to think that zooming when taking a photo on the iphone will reduce clarity of the image. The file he took and sent me was a .bmp, 768x1024 pixels, 2.25mb.