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Smartphone cameras have evolved dramatically over the past decade. To truly appreciate the difference, I compared my very first smartphone, the iPhone 5s, with my iPhone 14 to see just how far iPhone photography has come. Here, I’ll discuss and show you the results.
Point-and-Shoot Pictures
Like most people, I usually just open the camera app, point it at the subject, and snap the photo. It’s the simplest yet most common use-case for smartphone cameras. Starting with a basic daytime shot, the difference between the iPhone 5s and iPhone 14 shots is immediately clear.
iPhone 5s:
iPhone 14:
In the two photos above, it’s clear how well the iPhone 14 handles the exposure of the sky. In contrast, the iPhone 5s tends to completely overblow the sky, making it appear much brighter than it actually is.
This improvement is largely due to two key factors: the significantly larger and more advanced sensor in the iPhone 14, and the vastly improved image signal processor, which has become much better at processing images over the years.
The second set of images above demonstrates how well both iPhones perform under ideal indoor lighting. In this case, the iPhone 5s actually exceeded my expectations. Its exposure was much better this time around, a significant improvement over the previous shot.
The one area where it falls short compared to the iPhone 14 is the color reproduction, which felt a bit muted for my taste. Aside from that, and the softness of the image, it’s truly remarkable that a smartphone camera from 2013 can still produce such a capable shot.
Portrait Shots
you may alsotake amazing portrait shots using Portrait mode on your modern iPhone, but how good was it 11 years ago? Unlike newer iPhones, the iPhone 5s doesn’t have a dedicated Portrait mode that uses computational photography to capture depth and add in a background blur, yet the results still managed to surprise me.
The iPhone 14 excels at subject detection and produces a better bokeh effect, but it tends to extremely overexpose the subject, giving it a cutout-like appearance rather than blending naturally into the scene. At first, I thought this was a bug, but after taking multiple shots in various lighting conditions, it became clear that the iPhone 14’s HDR implementation is way too aggressive under certain situations, leading to an over-processed and messy image.
In contrast, the iPhone 5s delivered colors that felt much more natural and true-to-life. Despite its weaker bokeh effect and softer overall image, I’d still prefer its photo over the iPhone 14 any day.
Low-Light Photography
You’ll notice the biggest difference between older and newer iPhone models in low-light photography. Newer iPhones have larger sensors and wider apertures that let in more light, but the real magic happens with the software.
When you use Night mode, your iPhone takes several photos at different exposures simultaneously, then uses machine learning to combine them, bringing out the best parts of each shot. This processing makes nighttime photos look significantly better compared to older iPhone models which lack theApple Neural Engineand newer sensors.
Since the iPhone 5s lacks computational photography features and has a much narrower aperture, you can clearly see that it compensates for low light by cranking up the ISO, which results in a much noisier and grainier image. This really doesn’t hold up well when compared to the iPhone 14.
Night mode on the iPhone 14 uses several algorithms to clean up the image, removing most of the noise. Combined with a wider aperture, this results in significantly better photos. The iPhone 14’s shots are much brighter, stay sharp, retain all the important details, and most importantly, are free from noise, producing a clean, crisp image.
Detail and Resolution
Zooming or cropping in on a photo is a very commonly used feature, especially when there’s a lot of text in the image. In a less detailed image, everything becomes softer and fuzzy when you try to zoom in, as you may see below.
Here, you can clearly see that the newer iPhone captures much more detail in the zoomed-in cutout, and you can easily read the text. You can also zoom into other sections of the photo to get a better sense of how much sharper the entire image is. While the text in the iPhone 5s' photo is still readable, it requires a bit more squinting, and the image appears noticeably softer.
There are a lot of myths when it comes to smartphone photography, and one of the most common is the idea that the megapixel count of a camera sensor is what matters most.
While the iPhone 14’s main camera has 4 more megapixels than the iPhone 5s, it’s not just about that. The improved image processing, newer sensors, and features like optical image stabilization play a much bigger role in capturing more detail.
Overall, the iPhone 5s still performs surprisingly well. While much better, newer iPhones sometimes overdo the processing, which can actually lead to a worse overall image. But it’s very clear that with a fewsmartphone photography tricks, you can still take fantastic photos with a decade-old iPhone—you don’t need the newest smartphone camera to shoot good photography.
