Skip to main content

Photographer shows iPhone 6s Plus in relief of a DSLR at MLB game (Gallery)

How does the upgraded camera on the iPhone 6s Plus perform under real-world conditions? Today we get our best look yet thanks to a photo gallery of a recent MLB game shot by photographer Brad Mangin for Sports Illustrated.

Click for full-size images

While the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus don’t officially go on sale until this Friday, September 25, Apple appears to have allowed a few publications to take the device’s new camera for test drives ahead of an official public launch and full reviews. Late last week we posted images from Vogue who enlisted a photographer to shoot New York Fashion Week on the iPhone 6s Plus.

There’s one likely reason these early photo galleries are using the iPhone 6s Plus and not the iPhone 6s. The larger 6s Plus model includes one notable camera feature that isn’t present on the 6s: Optical image stabilization. Otherwise, both of the devices sport the same upgraded camera specs including a new 12-megapixel iSight camera with 1.22µ pixels, an improved auto focus, and other enhancements on the software side.

Click for full-size images

Sports Illustrated doesn’t mention if the images have been touched up after being shot on the iPhone 6s Plus. You can check out its full gallery here and the images from the Vogue photo shoot at New York Fashion Week here.

Click for full-size images

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

You’re reading 9to5Mac — experts who break news about Apple and its surrounding ecosystem, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow 9to5Mac on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our exclusive stories, reviews, how-tos, and subscribe to our YouTube channel

Comments

  1. Derek Duncan - 9 years ago

    actually not impressed with those photos. And a few are clearly touched up. Puzzling to me.

    • gigglybeast - 9 years ago

      Kind of disappointing, but pretty much expected. I still think it will take a long time and a technological breakthrough for phones’ photo quality and capabilities to come anywhere near a decent DSLR.

    • strawbis - 9 years ago

      Some of them do look over-saturated! Hopefully they’ve been touched up …poorly… and are not the results the rest of us can expect.

  2. Ryan Leone - 9 years ago

    Who’s the person at SI who said it was alright to use Instagram filters and boarders on these photos. Fire them.

  3. nonyabiness - 9 years ago

    Great color reproduction. If these photos aren’t retouched, that’s quite incredible.

  4. Good camera, better photographer.

  5. argyleo - 9 years ago

    I would like to see a side-by-side photo comparison between the iPhone 6 Plus and the 6s Plus.

    • ag80911 - 9 years ago

      My guess, during daytime probably similar – I am more interested in low light performance

  6. anekin007 - 9 years ago

    How about posting the original instead of using Instagram?! professional photographer but uses filters and borders.

  7. Serge (@sergewilson) - 9 years ago

    I’ve seen better on a samsung :/

    • myke2241 - 9 years ago

      its fare to beat you haven’t seen the same frame taken on any other phone. btw the statement ” I’ve seen better on a samsung :/ ” makes no sense

      • Sergewilson - 9 years ago

        I dont get your response. (Not being rude.) Ive seen similar pictures take with a samsung that turned out better. So yes i stand by my comment.

    • mytawalbeh - 9 years ago

      Your comment makes No Sense.
      Stand by mine and his.

  8. Kevin (@kcmhflyer) - 9 years ago

    Those don’t look all that good. Maybe they should send some engineers from that stupid car program to iOS…

    • BaoChao (@BaoMingChao) - 9 years ago

      “From that stupid car program” that you have read only rumors of and know nothing about. What a pretentious narcissistic asshat you are.

  9. martinouchou - 9 years ago

    Mhh.. Doesn’t show the potential the 6S Plus might have

  10. chrisl84 - 9 years ago

    Yeah now take them with a DSLR and you will see major differences….not saying these are bad in any way, but claiming its anywhere close to DSLR is not remotely accurate.

  11. Wondering if photog used any lenses or accessories. I’ve been looking at Ollo and Manfrotto and some others. Anyone using any lenses they recommend?

  12. wpcrumbley - 9 years ago

    Not sure what some of y’all are talking about. Those photos look amazing. Now the question is how much were they touched up? But just looking at the photos they look awesome to be from a CELL PHONE. And yes a DSLR camera will look way better but how many people carry around one.

    • gigglybeast - 9 years ago

      No they don’t. While good for a phone, they still look like they were taken with a phone. Any decent DSLR would make much better detailed pictures than these.

      • gigglybeast - 9 years ago

        The detail on the headline photo of the whole field is terrible.

  13. Don Horne (@DonHorne) - 9 years ago

    The headline is misleading, Mangin has been using the iPhone for years for certain kinds of shots (http://manginphotography.net/2012/07/how-i-made-instagram-images-that-were-good-enough-for-sports-illustrated/). Knowing the gear a sports photographer uses the iPhone wouldn’t be used as a replacement, more of a different kind of camera for seeing things and intimacy. Most likely he used the phone for shots where the large pro body DSLR lens combo would have ruined the moment.

  14. Mike Hiteshew - 9 years ago

    And cue Apple haters and DSLR snobs… I get the same “love” when I post pics from my Fuji X camera.

  15. SKR Imaging - 9 years ago

    The borders really ruined the photos imho… To make me ditch my DSLR will be a real hard sell.. the amount of manual control and quality I get from a DSLR is unequaled on a mobile device.. of course I use iPhone a lot to shoot pictures but when it comes down to it, my DSLR always gives me better flexibility in terms of lenses (albeit some more expensive than the iPhone itself).. If Apple really wants to target Photographers and not just consumers taking clicks, it need to allow RAW access data.. just release an ARW format or something (Apple RAW).. then let user choose to save photos to that format from the Camera settings.. I use Shoot app by Pro cam (http://www.procamapp.com/shoot-by-procam.html) to do just that and have always gotten better results at night from my iPhone because it saves to a TIFF (uncompressed) RAW format.. it essentially takes the RAW data from sensor and exports as a Lossless TIFF file.. this way, I can boost exposure in Snapseed without any loss.. Shooting straight from stock Camera app exports to JPEG and when editing, I have no flexibility (essentially ruining the JPEG even more an losing quality every-time)… Apple needs to embrace RAW photography on mobile devices.. of course 1 photo will take up 32 MB of space but if user selects option, only shots they want will be captured RAW (put a little switch or option on top of UI)..

  16. @dannypwins - 9 years ago

    Should have taken his DSLR..

  17. rodvmunchiii - 9 years ago

    These are wayyyy oversharpened.

    The picture quality of the 6 Plus is fantastic, even in low light, but these are not very impressive at all in that they are clearly touched up.

  18. gigglybeast - 9 years ago

    Weren’t the Vogue photos found out to have actually be taken with a 6 Plus running iOS 8?

  19. MaxBay - 9 years ago

    They are not good photos, especially since the photographer should have used a DSLR.

    Reminds me of the Chicago paper that fired their photographers and had the writers take their own photos.

    These photos are a great reason to buy a genuine digital camera. The iPhones are great…up to a point, but no match just yet for the real thing.

  20. Radek Miszczu Górny - 9 years ago

    He should have do a DSLR vs. iPhone comparison. Then we could see how average those iPhone photos are.

  21. cdm283813 - 9 years ago

    The pictures sucks. Way to blotchy with loss detail. When you zoom in it will look horrible.

  22. Mike Cebulak - 9 years ago

    None of those images are full resolution including the supposed “full-size” images that can be clicked to. The cover image seems to have been downsized then upsized that’s why the quality is absolutely lousy. No one is going to post full size 12mp images on a website unless they want their bandwidth to be choked out.

  23. iphonery - 9 years ago

    Link to the same pictures on the SI gallery looks better compared to the ones posted on here.

  24. danieljcox - 9 years ago

    OMG, when enlarged to full scale these images arenot that impressive. All images, from just about any camera, look good on a small computer screen. Not to mention, where are the telephoto shots of a slide in to second base, home plate or a closeup of a center fielder picking the ball off just before it leaves the field. There is always so much hype about how these minuscule phones can produce “DSLR quality”. Not in these frames it hasn’t. The really amazing images people care and love involve action and being in the middle of it all by way of a telephoto lens. Not a single image in this gallery that shows anything like that. I’m not picking on the iPhone just to be picky. I point this out since the headlines always make these toys for the masses sound like they can do it all. Obviously from this collection of images they can not. Just sayin…..

Author

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Jordan Kahn

Jordan writes about all things Apple as Senior Editor of 9to5Mac, & contributes to 9to5Google, 9to5Toys, & Electrek.co. He also co-authors 9to5Mac’s Logic Pros series.