Iphone 4s Image Save Size

[Gris]

HI, I've just bought a friend's 4s to see about using it as a camera for my blog.

My image size is 400 x 300 so that they load fast.

The big problem I have with the iPhone, is that you cannot save the image at less than 8 MP (from what I can see).

I want to save mine at 2MP. The reason is, that size scales down nice.

8MP scaled down loses all the detail and looks like crap.

Is there any way to override the save from 8P to 2 MP?

Thanks ahead for any input.

PS - This thread is not about resizing the saved 8MP image.

 

[scifan57]

While there are any number of apps that will let you change the file size of an image taken with the iPhone camera after the fact, there isn't a way to reduce the resolution of the image at the instant of exposure.

 

[Gris]

Thanks. What we're saying is there no way to have a smaller initial image than 8 megapixels then. I had hoped to save a lot of weight in my backpack (the whole deal only weighs 5 ounces) and my camera with all it's stuff is a lot bigger and heavier. Looks like iPhone is history then and I go back to Leica.

 

[scifan57]

Aren't the image file sizes produced by the Leica a lot larger than 8MP?

 

[Gris]

Yeah - they lose far too much detail. When you scale down an image too much, the edges disappear. Sharpen and unsharp masks then try to work with say 10 pixels instead of 1 or 2. What results is a very thick edge. I did a comparison between the 4s and my other three cameras and it came out bottom of the pile.

Large 8 MP images work fine for print (see the Royal Photographic Society's magazine and cover, plus article by Viveca Koh). She used the very phone I have (bought it from her). Very good for one of the highest res publications on the planet.

Web images are another matter. Far too many blogs have huge images that even have to be scaled down for the page via CSS, yet because of the initial size take ages to load and could be better. To stop that for my blog I set my sizes at 320, 400 or 512 pixels width (4:3 ratio). The largest is about 50 k instead of 5 MB. Only about 15% of the world has broadband.

If you are doing iPhoneography for high res they are fine and do a great job. Okay for Press, but not as good as Nokia's 1020 which is broadcast quality (read TV) size.

 

[Gris]

Sorry was on phone and got mixed up. My bridge camera can go down to 3 MP or 0.3mp (640). If I use a 512 wide the 3MP does okay or the smaller one will shrink down to a 320 great.

I have tried grabbing a 1200 pixel section of an iPhone shot and it works beautifully, but things like landscapes or mountains, I want the whole thing and that's where the definition starts taking a hike.

It was mainly the weight and physical size that attracted me to the iPhone.