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Tag: tokyo photo

iPhone 11 Pro vs iPhone 6S: Shinjuku Photo Comparison

I upgraded from an iPhone 6S to an iPhone 11 Pro a few days ago and I took the two phones out for a camera comparison experiment in Shinjuku. I was more focused on finding a variety of different environments to shoot in than on taking time to compose nice shots, but I think some of the results were pretty nice. Even if you’re not thinking of getting the new iPhone, I hope you enjoy the pictures! I’ve added details about editing, lenses, etc. where applicable. For this experiment, I looked at landscapes and cityscapes (so you won’t find any object closeups in this post). The edits I’ve made to these photos were done in an effort to replicate the scene as I saw it on that day. If you are looking for heavily filtered NEO TOKYO style pictures, you will be disappointed. I wanted to make these images reflective of everyday Shinjuku.

(P.S. This post is not sponsored by Apple or anything, haha.)

Japanese pond at Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo, Japan. iPhone 11 Pro photo.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard (wide-angle) lens. Slight edits to whites/blacks/contrast/saturation.
Japanese pond at Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo, Japan. iPhone 6S photo.  iPhone 6S. Slight edits to whites/blacks/contrast/saturation.
Japanese pond at Shinjuku Gyoen in Tokyo, Japan. iPhone 11 Pro super wide angle lens photo.
iPhone 11 Pro, super wide angle lens. Slight edits to whites/blacks/contrast/saturation. Exact same position as above photos.
A tree and a lantern at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 11 Pro photo.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard back camera lens. No edits.
A tree and a lantern at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 6S photo.
iPhone 6S. No edits.
Super wide angle shot of a pond in Shinjuku Gyoen, with a skyscraper looming over the scene.
iPhone 11 Pro. Super wide angle Lens. No edits. See that bird on the other side of the pond? Let us use the bird to test the zoom.
Closeup of a crane at Shinjuku Park.
iPhone 11 Pro. Maximum zoom. No edits.
Closeup of a crane at Shinjuku Park. Iphone 6S photo.
iPhone 6S. Maximum zoom. No edits.
Selfie of Alisha at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 11 Pro front-facing camera.
iPhone 11. Front-facing camera. No edits. 
Selfie of Alisha at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 6S front-facing camera.
iPhone 6S. Front-facing camera. No edits.
Pond and temple at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 11 Pro camera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard Lens. Slight edits to brightness/contrast/saturation.
Pond and temple at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 6S camera.iPhone 6S. Significant edits to brightness/contrast. Slight edits to vibrance & saturation.
Looking out of a temple across a pond at Shinjuku park. iPhone 11 Pro camera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard Lens. No edits.
Looking out of a temple across a pond at Shinjuku park. iPhone 6S camera.
iPhone 6S. No edits.
Foliage at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 11 Pro camera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard Lens. No edits.
Foliage at Shinjuku Park. iPhone 6S camera.
iPhone 6S. No edits.
A pond and trees inside Shinjuku Gyoen. iPhone 11 Pro camera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard Lens. Slight edits to brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation.
A pond and trees inside Shinjuku Gyoen. iPhone 6S camera.
iPhone 6S. Significant edits to brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation.
Large grassy area inside Shinjuku Gyoen. iPhone 11 Pro standard lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard lens. No edits.
Large grassy area inside Shinjuku Gyoen. iPhone 6S.
iPhone 6S. No edits.
Large grassy area inside Shinjuku Gyoen. iPhone 11 Pro super wide angle lens.
iPhone 11 Pro super wide angle lens. No edits.

At this point, the battery on my 6S was at about 3% (for the record, I started shooting at 34%). Battery problems were actually the key factor influencing my decision to upgrade, actually. I wanted to make sure I could use the 6S for a couple more low light shots in the shiny-shiny evening streets of Shinjuku, so I opted to focus my time in the evening on the super wide angle lens and night mode options on the 11 Pro.

A restaurant in Shinjuku. Iphone 11 Pro standard lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard lens. No edits.
A restaurant in Shinjuku. Iphone 11 Pro super wide angle lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Super wide angle lens. No edits.
Low light selfie of Alisha. Iphone 11 Pro front-facing camera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Front-facing camera. No edits.
Low light selfie of Alisha. Iphone 6S front-facing camera.
iPhone 6S. Front-facing camera. No edits.
Isetan department store in Shinjuku in the evening. Iphone 11 Pro standard lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard Lens. Night mode (1 second exposure). No edits.
Isetan department store in Shinjuku in the evening. Iphone 11 Pro super wide angle lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Super wide angle lens. No edits.
Skyscrapers outside Shinjuku station. iPhone 11 Pro standard lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard lens. Slight updates to brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation.
Skyscrapers outside Shinjuku station. iPhone 11 Pro super wide angle lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Super wide angle lens. No edits.
Backstreet of Shinjuku San-chome in the evening. iPhone 11 Pro standard camera with 1 second night mode exposure.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard lens. Night mode (1 second exposure). Slight edits to brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation.
Backstreet of Shinjuku San-chome in the evening. iPhone 11 Pro super wide angle lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Telephoto lens. Slight edits to brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation. Exact same position as above photo.
 Entrance to Kabukicho at night in Shinjuku. iPhone 11 Pro standard camera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard Lens. Slight edits to brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation.
 Entrance to Kabukicho at night in Shinjuku. iPhone 11 Pro super wide angle lens.
iPhone 11 Pro. Super wide angle lens. No edits.
Intersection in front of Kabukicho at night in Shinjuku, Tokyo. iPhone 11 Pro standard camera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Standard lens. Slight edits to brightness/contrast/vibrance/saturation.
Intersection in front of Kabukicho at night in Shinjuku, Tokyo. iPhone 6S camera.
iPhone 6S. Significant edits to shadows. Slight edits to brightness/vibrance/saturation.
Intersection in front of Kabukicho at night in Shinjuku, Tokyo. iPhone 11 Pro super wide angle amera.
iPhone 11 Pro. Super wide angle lens. Significant edits to highlights. Slight edits to shadows/contrast/vibrance/saturation.
 

While this was an imperfect test in many ways, it’s pretty easy to see the level of detail (in terms of color and sharpness) provided by the 11 Pro. This was especially noticeable in the comparison of the front-facing camera in low light. The super-wide angle lens on the 11 Pro gives a super cool shot, but you sacrifice a great deal of quality. When I first noticed this, I thought it was just because my lens was just smudged, but even after cleaning, I got the same fuzzy results. It really helps capture the scale of places like a busy Shinjuku intersection, though! 

Night mode also affected my photos. It comes on automatically in low light (but NOT on the front-facing camera or the super wide angle; only the standard back camera) and the phone uses the available light to determine how long to set the “exposure” for. Of course, this means you have to stand as still as possible when taking the photo, which can be tricky. I’d like to play around more with this feature and see if manual adjustments to the settings are possible (as many of my night mode shots were a bit on the fuzzy side). When the feature did work, however (like in the Shinjuku San-chome backstreet photo), it helped make my photos a bit more sharp and vibrant (usually when night mode was enabled for 1 second).

Some other notes: When the camera is on, for some reason the screen displays the regular photo frame PLUS all of the image you could capture with the super-wide angle lens. I found this really distracting and it made it more difficult for me to frame my photos as I wanted. I hope they include an option to remove this in a future update. There’s an option labeled 写真のフレームの外側を含めて撮影 in the camera settings, which means something like “include outside of image frame when taking photos.” I disabled this, thinking it might reduce the viewable on-screen imagery to JUST what was in the frame, but it did not. Alas.

I didn’t really test the portrait mode options much. When I explored the various portrait modes on a person (myself), I felt the filters looked really unnatural. I would prefer to photograph faces as they are naturally (i.e. unsmoothed by technology). I’m a bit concerned there’s some of that happening in the standard front-facing photos as well…

Overall, it’s exciting to be able to take such nice pictures! Quite a pleasant shock coming from the 6S. Taking photos was an enjoyable experience for a change. With the 6S my regular routine was to take TONS of photos and then go through the results to choose the best one (an extremely time-consuming process)! I’m looking forward to sharing lots more photos now! Hope you enjoyed these. 

Busy street in Shinjuku, Tokyo in the evening. iPhone 11 Pro standard camera.

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