Covers for TIME Magazine Special Series Shot Entirely on iPhone

Was RAW used at all? Because the pictures look fairly flat and not that sharp I think a proper DSLR wouldve done a much better job

I’m sure we’d all love to see your photos from the various magazines they are published in.

There are two things I find amusing about the inevitable "it doesn't look as good as the same photo taken with a DSLR would have":

One is that, to the vast majority of people who look at that cover or other photos taken by the artist, they look like interesting, engaging photos. Most--and most by far I would guess--people don't look at photos like these and say "it looks flat" or "the micro-contrast is weak" or "it's not sharp enough" or "there isn't enough subject isolation" or whatever else. They see an interesting photo, and appreciate it.

And the other is the more salient point from an artistic perspective: Indeed it's true that if you took the exact same photo with an EOS-1D X mk II and an expensive lens it would be sharper, higher resolution, and have more dynamic range. It would almost certainly look better.

Except it's quite possible that the photographer couldn't take that exact same photo with an EOS-1D X mk II. As noted in the description, the subject might well have reacted differently to a photographer holding a huge camera with the shutter clicking away, or she never would have been in that particular location carrying a large camera, or whatever other nuances of the actual act of photographing another human being in situ might have come out differently.

It's the same if the photographer had tried to take the same shots with a large flash kit versus only natural light--the photo might be better lit, but what the person in it is doing would probably be less natural, and depending on the intent of the photo, less interesting.

If you've got a tripod, sufficient time, and are photographing a landscape or model, sure, a large-sensor, large-lens camera is going to produce a better photo than an iPhone in every way. And sure, there are photos that an iPhone is incapable of taking for technical reasons--available light, field of view, depth of field, bokeh. But following around a human trying to take a certain kind of photo, the act of photography itself changes the result, possibly for the worse.

Heck, I'm just a casual photographer and I've noticed it plenty of times just taking street photos while on vacation. I hold up a smartphone to take a picture, nobody even notices. I hold up my bigger camera, people look at me, stiffen up, react like they're being photographed. Occasionally the effect can be positive, but more often it results in odd expressions and less natural behavior.

No wonder the picture looks blurry and has less quality.

Scrolled through the album on the linked site -- so cool to see Nikki Haley pictured! It's great to see her doing such big things. She was a heck of a job creator for our state, I can tell you that (South Carolinian here).

Great photos by Luisa Dörr. It's always a great reminder to see such great photos taken with a phone. It reminds me that it's not just about the gear. Sometimes when I don't have my DSLR with me, I feel that I'm unable to get great photos. However, once I pull out my phone and start shooting, it surprises me. Back in the day, I'd be a sitting duck without a dedicated camera, since phone cameras used to be terrible. While a phone isn't a replacement for a dedicated camera, it gives you a chance to get a photo that you otherwise would have never had the chance to get -- and that's really special, I think.

The shortest shoot was two minutes and the longest shoot lasted 20 minutes.

and she shoots with a smartphone.

Nothing about this sounds right.
This whole thing is just a lame promo for Apple. As digital cameras go (not smart phones) iPhone photo quality is near the bottom of the heap. But as a smartphone camera, the 7 is one of the best.

Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but at this point, I think I've tried every app capable of shooting RAW under the sun, and none of their output looks as crisp or noiseless as the stock camera app. Now I realize that the purpose of RAW is to capture exactly what the sensor is capable of, but IMO the majority of the output I received was just plain bad.

VSCO, ProCamera, RAW, Manual, ProCam, Manual Cam, Camera+, 645 Pro, Lightroom...

That's interesting. I should probably rephrase what I said and say that I don't actually get any better quality per se but I get much more latitude as far as exposure adjustments among other things. This is mostly a problem with the highlights in my opinion. I agree very much though that the stock camera app is the best and is usually my go to app, especially for quickness to catch a moment. I do find that I am able to get more out of photos captured with the default camera in a third party program. My absolute favorite at the moment and has been for a while is Snapseed. I recommend it if you haven't tried it yet.