Andrew Weber, an official NFL photographer, has covered last Sunday night football with an iPhone 6S instead of the usual super heavy and expensive full frame DSLR and superfast and freaking expensive telezoom lenses. This photo covering of the football game is interesting to measure and see for yourself the image quality that the new camera sensor of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus can offer. Just as a reminder, the resolution of the iPhone 6S camera is now 12 megapixels instead of the 8 megapixels of last generations.
iPhone 6S camera test
Photo Andrew Weber / NFL
Apple has been pushing hard convincing us of the interest of the new design of the sensors to collect more light in low luminosity conditions in spite of the decrease of the photodiodes surface. A greater resolution on a same surface sensor always ends up with smaller photo diodes or pixel pitch which are therefore less sensitive to light.
You can make your own mind looking at these pictures but I don’t consider them being so spectacular even if we consider they are taken with a smartphone. No, I don’t think that looking at these pictures may let you think that the iPhone 6S is this super quality low-light camera although Andrew Weber the photographer who took these pictures has been able to push the iPhone 6S Plus camera to ISO 1600. That’s not bad for a smartphone actually. He declared himself very impressed by the low-light image quality of the shot he took with the iPhone 6S Plus.
iPhone 6S camera test
Photo Andrew Weber / NFL
Also keep in mind that the Plus version of the iPhone 6S comes with an optical image stabilization system (OIS). This feature allows you to take handheld photos with lower shutter speeds than with another iPhone. This means that you need less often to increase the ISO setting. That’s another parameter to take into account when you compare the iPhone 6S and the iPhone 6S Plus. By the way, you can also take a look at this video which compares the efficiency of the anti-shake OIS function of the iPhone 6 Plus to the non-OIS stabilization system of the iPhone 6.
iPhone 6S camera test
Photo Andrew Weber / NFL
For information, this NFL photographer didn’t use the camera app of iOS 9 on his iPhone 6 Plus and preferred using camera+ instead, a must-have photography app for serious iPhonographers. It is among my best loved photo taking apps because it lets you take control over exposure settings that without it you can’t like: ISO sensibility and Shutter speed.
iPhone 6S camera test
Photo Andrew Weber / NFL
Take a look at the entire photo gallery of this Sunday night football game with the iPhone 6S Plus on Gottamobile.com.
iPhone 6S camera test
Photo Andrew Weber / NFL
Photo credit: Andrew Weber / NFL