Steve Litchfield

These are perhaps my two top picks for imaging in the smartphone world at the end of 2022. Yes, there are some wacky Chinese imaging flagships, and yes, there's Samsung, but I still disagree with so much that Samsung does in terms of colour science and image processing. It's true that, by default, Apple also does a load of edge enhancement to iPhone 14 photos, but the Pro models (14 Pro Max here) let you toggle on ProRAW, a format that can be shared in the same way as regular cookie-cut JPGs but which forgoes all the populist sharpening and enhancement, so you get the best of all worlds. You get the Deep Fusion and multi-frame combinations, all the software magic that makes modern flagship cameras work, but you don't get the 'nasty' last bit, the enhancement to make photos 'pop' on phone screens - the images are left alone, purer and more useable after the fact.  Sony provides, by default now, Photography Pro, and as the name suggests, it already spits out u...

As many readers will know, I've been experimenting with power stations and solar panels recently. And there's a particular configuration that I've been delighted with and which I thought worth sharing. You see, I have two Jackerys, one 500Wh (that charges my phones and tablets), one 1000Wh (i.e. 1kWh, that I keep stocked for domestic emergencies in these troubled times), and two matching (Jackery) Solar Saga 100 (100W) panels. The idea is that this pair of panels is the perfect (max) 200W input into the Jackery 1000, to charge it up. Now, while this works very well - in sunny conditions it can charge the Jackery 1000 completely from scratch in a day - how should I charge the Jackery 500? A separate panel for this? That would end up costing even more, plus it's an extra panel to set up and position. My solution is to daisy-chain the devices, in effect. Here's the set-up: So the panels (with extra Jackery extension cables, shown in orange, to allow them to be out wher...

Actually reviewing the Sony Xperia 5 iv is tricky, since it's so relatively similar to the 5 ii and 5 iii in previous years. But that's not a criticism per se, since I absolutely love the form factor and 'bells and whistles' specification. And you do get Qi charging this year, which I appreciated very much. I attempted a few YouTube Shorts covering the device: Xperia 5 iv overview No zoom gap in the 5 iv's camera system Trying to demo Dynamic Vibration But it proved all but impossible to look at imaging in YouTube Short format, hence this blog post.  They don't look much, but it's a very refined camera combination. Note the white balance sensor and the T* anti-reflection coatings... I've taken a handful of likely subjects and test scenes and shot them with the Xperia 5 iv and my 'gold standard' Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max with ProRAW toggled on. This comparison is made even more valid by the match of camera specs, right up to the same 2.5x telephoto ...

[Updated with a few new data points and musings, 20 Sep 2022] Now, I know you're going to think I'm being a little contrary - and I possibly am. But as someone who's been saving their pennies for the 256GB iPhone 14 Pro Max for a year or so (to replace my existing 12 Pro Max), I've been underwhelmed by some of the things Apple has done for this generation of their flagships. Now, I appreciate that the chipset is faster and the display is more adaptable (going down to 1Hz, enabling a form of optional Always on Display), so there are some real positives. But, after playing with the iPhone 14 Pro Max myself and after watching many reviews and camera comparisons, I can't help but feel that some of the 'improvements' aren't necessarily so. Let me explain, I have four things I want to comment on: 1. Dynamic Island gives less screen real estate, not more This seems counter-intuitive, but it's true in practice. Although the notch in previous iPhones used mo...