The new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are already proving themselves fabulous phones in many aspects, but their camera features are a special highlight: I've been doing hands-on testing with both phone cameras, and wanted to share some of our early results.
The video above displays the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus's timelapse features, digital and optical image stabilization, and examples of all the different shooting modes and sizes: 720P, 1080P, and 4K. I've also included a few comparison shots in each mode from my iPhone 6 camera.
I deliberately chose harder-than-usual lighting situations to truly test the range of the sensor, and both phone models performed admirably.
Timelapse mode on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus largely shows improvement in lighting definition; colors are subtler with a slight advantage in definition.
Color definition is also better in the 6s's 720P and 1080P shots, and the 6s Plus's optical image stabilization simply shines. My bike path tests were done on skates, actively striding, with the phones free-form in my hands. The 6 and 6s showed mild to moderate bouncing and shaking as I skated, but the 6s Plus came through with only light bobbing and weaving. The end result largely looks as if I was shooting with Hyperlapse, rather than the stock Camera app.
For the true stabilization test, I took the phones and my skates across an old wooden bridge. Skating that bridge even without shooting video feels shaky—the tiny slats in the bridge aren't the most fun to roll across. Equipped with the three phones, I shot three segments while rolling across the bridge. The iPhone 6 and 6s employed digital image stabilization valiantly—the shakes from my body and hands as I rolled across were much reduced in the resulting video. Again, though, the iPhone 6s Plus blows both smaller phones out of the water: The video looks almost as smooth as regular bike path skating. It's incredible, and makes me even more excited to use an iPhone 6s Plus this upgrade year.
We'll have more video tests (slo-mo!) and a full range of camera tests coming soon. If you want us to test something camera-related (or anything else), give us a shout in the comments!
