iPhone 5 vs. iPhone 4S: Image Quality Comparison

Though iPhone 5’s back-facing camera has the same 8-megapixel, five-element lens with 2.4 aperture, which is similar to the iPhone 4S, but is 25% smaller and the same 3,264 by 2,448 backside-illuminated sensor, it comes with improvements such as 40% faster photo capture, improved low-light performance, and improved noise reduction.

Folks at ProCamera have carried out some tests to find out if there are any visible differences between the iPhone 4S and new iPhone 5 cameras.

Here are some of their observations:

I like the wider focal length of the iPhone 5 lens (previously 35mm now 33mm).
The iPhone 5 is much more responsive, with faster app load times.
Images look better on the iPhone 5 screen, they have more contrast and better colour replication (probably to do with the new sRGB support).
The iPhone 5 images seem to be holding more detail during day time shots – particularly visible in the Example 1 flower detail and building lines in Example 3.
The iPhone 5 seems to be more sensitive in low-light conditions. However, it appears that more aggressive noise reduction is resulting in mushier images when viewed at 100% (visible in Examples 6 and 7).

You can check out the comparison photos by clicking on the image below.