The iPhone 6 Plus is the New Leica M3

The Short Version

I can’t believe a mobile phone takes such wonderful pictures. You could easily think of the iPhone 6 Plus as a camera that happens to include a phone, and not the other way around. Note: this set includes pregnancy photos and a few of the shots are mildly NSFW.

The Long version

What I Like

Neutral output. The phone displays what my eyes see. Contrast and saturation are pleasing, but not over-baked like you see in many out of camera JPGs from consumer cameras.

Fast focus. The focus pixels make a difference.

Detail, detail, detail. It‘s thrilling to be able to count eyelashes on a camera phone.

Increased screen size and quality. The iPhone 6 Plus pixel density is high enough that I can’t see the pixels. Some Android phones have higher pixel density—at the expense of battery life. The 6 Plus screen is big and bright it puts a smile on the face of the model when reviewing pictures. Just as important: the screen is big enough it enhances the phone’s use as a work tool. I do not like getting in a model’s personal space, and with a 5.5” screen everyone can stay in their comfort zone while reviewing images together.

Dynamic range. And the phone just nails the transition from highlights to shadows.

28mm equivalent. This is the focal length at which Jeanloup Sieff often shot, and is a perfect balance between “just wide enough“ and “not too wide.”

What I Don’t Like

White balance can be funky. When shooting in front of a green wall in consistent light the wall showed three or four different shades of green in various pictures.

No DNG output. See white balance problems, above. Without access to DNG white balance is hard to fix in post.

Low light pictures can be soupy, even with low ISO. And this is a puzzlement: several ISO 32 images showed much more noise than, say, ISO 40, and required noise reduction in Lightroom.

Black & White

The dynamic range and beautiful roll off lends itself to lovely black and white conversions. You can lose yourself in the tones of the hair and skin below.

What Would Oscar Barnack Say?

When Oscar Barnack invented the Leica one hundred years ago his ethos was “small negative—big picture.” When the Leica M3 was released in 1954 it wasn’t the camera with the best image quality. It was the camera that was good enough. We think of Leica today as a luxury item, but in the 1930s it was a well-made tool for the affluent masses.

When Steve jobs announced the iPhone 4 in 2010, he famously said:

You gotta see this in person. This is beyond a doubt, the most precise thing, and one of the most beautiful we’ve ever made. Glass on the front and back, and steel around the sides. It’s like a beautiful old Leica camera.

Jobs was referring to the design and build quality. He meant “a phone that’s as well constructed as the apotheosis of consumer design.” But with the improvements of the iPhone 6 Plus—the fast focus, the buttery smooth transition from light to dark tones, the light touch with the in-camera JPG processing, and the huge social screen—the new iPhone takes its place alongside the Leica M3 as the best consumer camera for the affluent masses.