iPhone 5 sound quality

[musical-kage]

I have no idea what I just looked at..

 

[jaddie]

Would that not be a signature unto itself though?

se

Nice one.

 

[jaddie]

I won't comment on this from an audio perspective, but I have experience with Ken Rockwell....He's stated that professional photographers should be shooting in jpeg instead of RAW

Hmmm. Anybody check to see if he recommends low-rate mp3 over lossless?

 

[Strangelove424]

To put a finer point on it, it would be like recommending low bit rate mp3 as a mastering codec, not a delivery codec. And the result of doing drastic changes to a jpeg in Photoshop would be the same as EQing, filtering, or compressing an mp3 as your primary master. It's not just that though, it's his entire MO and lack of honesty. You don't take pictures of the flags in front of Sea World and call it the UN, or stamp a manufacturer's sample image with your trademark because you know they'll never complain about the free advertising. Anyway, I'll shut my mouth about him, if you guys want more dissenting perspectives there's always google. 

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

To put a finer point on it, it would be like recommending low bit rate mp3 as a mastering codec, not a delivery codec.

 
You haven't read closely enough. First of all, his preferred camera is a Canon. He doesn't shoot Nikon much any more. Secondly, his point about jpeg is that if you are completely in control of your camera's settings, and you expose and frame properly as you shoot, *you don't need to post process*. He is absolutely right about that. It was the way I was taught to shoot back in the film days when you didn't have the latitude to make huge sweeping corrections in Photoshop.
 
The analogy in audio recording is, if you set up two mikes properly and get your balances all correct as you record, you don't need to mix afterwards. You can just port it straight to a CD. You certainly don't need 24 tracks to get good sound.
 
The thing most people don't know is that Ken Rockwell started as a production video engineer. He knows more about audio and video than anything else. He is an advanced hobbiest photographer, but his pictures are pro quality. He knows what he's doing.
 
Rockwell's bad reputation only extends to folks who spend all day shooting focus tests with cans laid out on their kitchen table and brick walls to check for distortion. His reviews are based on how equipment performs shooting photographs in real world situations. The same sort of pixel peepers object to that as the folks who argue over one audibly transparent specification for a CD player is better than another CD player's transparent specifications.

 

[bigshot]

Quote:

I have no idea what I just looked at..

 
You're looking at specifcations that are far beyond perfect.

 

[mikeaj]

Quote:

You're looking at specifcations that are far beyond perfect.

 
...which are so good, the values are inconsistent with each other and raise red flags about accuracy.
 
Likewise, I don't want to suggest that the real values are likely anything of concern (outside of running some BA IEMs where that output impedance is going to matter), but something definitely seems off.  I'm not much interested in the guy's reputation and past history when the published data there speaks for itself.

 

[bigshot]

Would the way those figures sound be inconsistent with the sound of other figures you've seen for the sound of iPhones?

 

[xnor]

Maybe someone should send him an email about those THD values.

 

[Strangelove424]

Quote:

 
You haven't read closely enough. First of all, his preferred camera is a Canon. He doesn't shoot Nikon much any more. 

 
Me neither. At least I agree with him on that, and admittedly I haven't read anything from his site in a long time.  
 
Quote:

 
 He is absolutely right about that. It was the way I was taught to shoot back in the film days when you didn't have the latitude to make huge sweeping corrections in Photoshop.
 
The analogy in audio recording is, if you set up two mikes properly and get your balances all correct as you record, you don't need to mix afterwards. You can just port it straight to a CD. You certainly don't need 24 tracks to get good sound.
 
The thing most people don't know is that Ken Rockwell started as a production video engineer. He knows more about audio and video than anything else. He is an advanced hobbiest photographer, but his pictures are pro quality. He knows what he's doing.

 
The latitude is not for correcting mistakes. A commercial or entertainment photographer, or a director of photography in film for that matter, should shoot with the greatest range possible with both the exposure and codec to ensure that the file can be edited later. Love it or hate it, the people using the photo for an advertisement, or as part of an effect shot, or as an element within a graphic, will push the color information to extremes in order to make the photo fit their marketing theme or look. It's not about fixing mistakes, it's about leaving the most amount of room for post-processing as you can. In film/video, green trees may need to be colorized to appear golden brown for autumn, daytime shots are colorized to look like night, highlights are blown out for dramatic effect, and that all requires some range in the codec and the exposure so the image doesn't crumble apart in your hands. I have massive respect for the old greats like Helmut Newton who wouldn't even use flash or crop or Ansel Adams who took powerful dynamic shots using the wholesome basics of good photography. But the way photography is implemented in certain modern markets, right or wrong, headroom needs to be retained and professionals should be shooting with the most color information possible. 

 

[jaddie]

Quote:

 
You haven't read closely enough. First of all, his preferred camera is a Canon. He doesn't shoot Nikon much any more. Secondly, his point about jpeg is that if you are completely in control of your camera's settings, and you expose and frame properly as you shoot, *you don't need to post process*. He is absolutely right about that. It was the way I was taught to shoot back in the film days when you didn't have the latitude to make huge sweeping corrections in Photoshop.

Hmmm...  Well, it's off topic...but...that's completely wrong.  You don't NEED to post-process a RAW image other than to use the appropriate plug-in, which happens without user action, or even knowledge mostly.  Shooting to .jpg is about like shooting slide film...it has limited latitude. Blow the exposure and it's pretty much blown, though a .jpg has more room in it than Ektachrome 64 ever did.  Shooting raw is like shooting a wide latitude negative film.  You can blow the exposure by as much as several stops and still save it quite nicely in post if you need to.  Its unrealistic to expect perfect exposures every frame even with today's zillion-point metering.  You might still need to lift the shadow detail or recover a blown-out highlight. Working photographers know that content is way too important to have a muffed exposure trash the shot, so they all shoot raw and keep their options open.  That just can't happen as well with a .jpg image.  But a properly exposed raw frame needs no more post than a properly exposed .jpg.
 
Quote:

The analogy in audio recording is, if you set up two mikes properly and get your balances all correct as you record, you don't need to mix afterwards. You can just port it straight to a CD. You certainly don't need 24 tracks to get good sound.

Fair warning...analogies don't fly well here.  Take it from one who crashes them.

 

[jaddie]

Quote:

Would the way those figures sound be inconsistent with the sound of other figures you've seen for the sound of iPhones?

They are inconsistent with 16/44.1 lossless digital audio, which is what the CBS CD1 is, which served as the test signal source. Unless there's some pretty fancy resampling going on in the iPhone, which is doubtful, but not impossible.
 
There's no reason to think the iPhone 5 would actually sound any different from any other iPhone.

 

[Steve Eddy]

Quote:

Maybe someone should send him an email about those THD values.

 
Just got off the phone with a friend of mine. Asked him to see if he can run some tests on his iPhone with his Audio Precision rig. Don't hold your breath though.

 
se

 

[bigshot]

By the way, sports photographers shoot jpeg, or even lower resolution files so they can shoot bursts of frames faster.

But this is exactly like MP3s. Everyone talks about loss, but no one knows exactly how much loss that is. I've done adjustments of jpegs in photoshop and gotten a lot of flexibility out of them. If you know how to work the controls of your camera, there's no reason to do post processing. Frankly, if one can't get closer than two stops off in your exposure, one should work on technique, not slap a band aid on it by shooting raw.

I shoot raw most of the time because I shoot slow and deliberate, but I don't think someone who does all their work in camera and shoots jpegs very fast is any less of a photographer. I also don't judge photographers by their cameras. iPhones can shoot amazing images.

I judge by the images, and Rockwell has galleries packed with great shots to back it up.

 

[jaddie]

By the way, sports photographers shoot jpeg, or even lower resolution files so they can shoot bursts of frames faster.

But this is exactly like MP3s. Everyone talks about loss, but no one knows exactly how much loss that is. I've done adjustments of jpegs in photoshop and gotten a lot of flexibility out of them. If you know how to work the controls of your camera, there's no reason to do post processing. Frankly, if one can't get closer than two stops off in your exposure, one should work on technique, not slap a band aid on it by shooting raw.

I shoot raw most of the time because I shoot slow and deliberate, but I don't think someone who does all their work in camera and shoots jpegs very fast is any less of a photographer. I also don't judge photographers by their cameras. iPhones can shoot amazing images.

I judge by the images, and Rockwell has galleries packed with great shots to back it up.

Canon 5D III shoots raw an 18 frame burst at max 6 fps. (More at 3 fps) into a UDMA - 7 card, should be adequate for all sports work.