Nikon D750 vs. iPhone 8 Plus w/ @vermillionfox!

Good evening, Steemit, and by “evening” I mean 1:00a.m. here in Minneapolis. The cliff notes version of my day was that my Avacyn Commander deck went undefeated against both @tarotbyfergus and @vermillionfox today! That’s your unsolicited Magic: The Gathering update. Here’s the rest.

I recently upgraded from an iPhone 6, water damaged and replaced three times […at $299 per replacement, per incident], to an iPhone 8 Plus. I wasn’t in to the larger size, but battery was important, IP67 water resistant rating was even more important […see above note on previous replacements] and that motherfucking dual lens portrait mode camera!

Once I got the phone, I immediately began messing with the portrait mode feature. Snapped some shots or @guthrie, cats, dogs, mushrooms. The depth of field was so accurate and convincing, many of the images looked like they were taken with my Nikon DSLR. I was blown away by the images and the thought slowly began creeping in to my head “…could this be used for an actual, professional shoot?”. 

There was only one way to find out, so @vermillionfox and I set out this rainy Minnesota afternoon and sought out an old abandoned park I knew of outside of the city. She did her hair and make-up and brought along a vintage slip we bought In Pennsylvania. Part of the the park’s stone structure has filled with water which created a whimsical “Pan’s Labyrinth-esk” shallow pool, and to @vermillionfox’s credit she laid down in the cold water for the sake of art!

I brought along my Nikon D750 and attempted the exact same shots I was taking with the iPhone 8 Plus portrait mode. My hope was to get them home and edit them as close to the same as possible then show them against one another for comparison. Fortunately, I did manage to do just that, and here are the results.

iPhone 8 Plus

Nikon D750

My initial thoughts are that the iPhone 8 Plus is sharper, but results in flatter images. It also utilizes HDR and a host of computational photography protocols that justifies putting in a mobile processor that’s comparable to a MacBook Pro. My typical DSLR photography doesn’t take advance of HDR [...no need for that hipster Instagram shit], and that non-embellished look is a signature to my darker esthethic. That in mind, I don’t feel like the iPhone 8 Plus photo “looks” like my work, but it does look pretty fucking good!

The other thing to note is that the D750 is twice the megapixel sensor as the iPhone, so there is some edge artifacts that show up when zoomed all the way in. Most of my work is seen on the internet, so it’s not a deal breaker for me, and I do think these photos would hold up well if they went to print […maybe not in a coffee table book, but definitely magazines or newspapers].

This was an early dive in to the potential. I’m an early adopter of most technologies and I love to stress test hardware. I did realize after the shoot that the stock photo app doesn’t take advantage of RAW images. The phone requires an app to unlock that format. I’ll be shooting again with the phone on another professional session and I’ll make sure to be capturing RAW images. That should make a vast difference in output. I also plan of doing a deep dive on the iPhone 8 Plus here on Steemit, shortly.

Thanks for reading. For more photography, tech, art, and thoughts on all of the above, follow me here @kommienezuspadt!