We're not just limited by technology but by our ideas and our experimentation - Tim Sweeny
A bit of history and experimentation with the phones. Much of it put behind a cut due to the large volume of pictures:
5c, SE, 8, SE2, X, 13 mini
Arranged like this they all seem pretty similar in size.
Pictures were taken with the camera tripod taped in place, lighting and subject left in place, all taken in the app Adobe Lightroom (even the 5c, though I had to download “last compatible version”. The only real variable was the physical lens placement differing on the backs of the phones themselves. I positioned the phones horizontally with the lens in the bottom right corner to minimise the impact of phone width, I expect all lenses would have been within 1cm of each other.
Photos were downloaded off the phones and on PC cropped at 16:9 ratio, zoomed in (a lot) until the horizontal top and bottom edges of the diorama were aligned with the respective edges. Photos were centred horizontally on the Warhammer Quest doorway in the background, it should be dead center on all of them. Images were then scaled up (5c) or down (8, SE 2, X, 13 mini) until the image was a horizontal 1800 pixels. The 5c had to come up -350 pixels, the SE was unaltered, and the others had to come down by up to 100 pixels.
Files were saved in .png format rather than .jpg to better preserve quality, and put through a metadata sieve before uploading.
iPhone 5c (White - Kim's first)
iPhone SE (My first)
iPhone 8 (My work issue)
iPhone SE 2 ( Kim and I's second, Jack's current)
iPhone X (Secondhand for 3D scanning and photography)
iPhone 13 mini (my current)
The lack of differences in quality between most of them is amazing when viewed on a phone screen, (excepting the darkness of the iPhone 8, clearly the worst overall). On my dual 23" monitors with the photos blown up to fullscreen, some differences in focus depth can be observed. Of some interest is the differences in viewing angle (looking at the amount of each skeleton cut-off on the left and right hand sides) and perhaps there lies the biggest difference between newest and oldest. What the experiment also doesn't show is the differences in resolution. To make all the images a comparable size I had to expand the 5c, and everything newer than the first SE needed to be shrunk slightly.
Overall I'm not sure why on a technical level the X performs better than the 13 mini, but I am glad, it suits my workflow and helps justify having a defunct phone on my desk as scanner/camera.
The size difference between the first SE, which I was perfectly happy with 'til it malfunctioned, and the X, which I absolutely hated using day-to-day on account of its size. I couldn't use it one-handed, I couldn't button it safely into my work shirt pocket. This repaired X also seemed to have some colour display issues, everything is very green during night hours. So that's how I ended up justifying splurging on the 13 mini.
SE 2, 13 mini, SE
Smaller than the SE 2, but more useful screen space than the SE, I'm extremely happy with the 13 mini at this point.
5c, SE, 8, SE2, X, 13 mini
Arranged like this they all seem pretty similar in size.
Pictures were taken with the camera tripod taped in place, lighting and subject left in place, all taken in the app Adobe Lightroom (even the 5c, though I had to download “last compatible version”. The only real variable was the physical lens placement differing on the backs of the phones themselves. I positioned the phones horizontally with the lens in the bottom right corner to minimise the impact of phone width, I expect all lenses would have been within 1cm of each other.
Photos were downloaded off the phones and on PC cropped at 16:9 ratio, zoomed in (a lot) until the horizontal top and bottom edges of the diorama were aligned with the respective edges. Photos were centred horizontally on the Warhammer Quest doorway in the background, it should be dead center on all of them. Images were then scaled up (5c) or down (8, SE 2, X, 13 mini) until the image was a horizontal 1800 pixels. The 5c had to come up -350 pixels, the SE was unaltered, and the others had to come down by up to 100 pixels.
Files were saved in .png format rather than .jpg to better preserve quality, and put through a metadata sieve before uploading.
iPhone 5c (White - Kim's first)
iPhone SE (My first)
iPhone 8 (My work issue)
iPhone SE 2 ( Kim and I's second, Jack's current)
iPhone X (Secondhand for 3D scanning and photography)
iPhone 13 mini (my current)
The lack of differences in quality between most of them is amazing when viewed on a phone screen, (excepting the darkness of the iPhone 8, clearly the worst overall). On my dual 23" monitors with the photos blown up to fullscreen, some differences in focus depth can be observed. Of some interest is the differences in viewing angle (looking at the amount of each skeleton cut-off on the left and right hand sides) and perhaps there lies the biggest difference between newest and oldest. What the experiment also doesn't show is the differences in resolution. To make all the images a comparable size I had to expand the 5c, and everything newer than the first SE needed to be shrunk slightly.
Overall I'm not sure why on a technical level the X performs better than the 13 mini, but I am glad, it suits my workflow and helps justify having a defunct phone on my desk as scanner/camera.
The size difference between the first SE, which I was perfectly happy with 'til it malfunctioned, and the X, which I absolutely hated using day-to-day on account of its size. I couldn't use it one-handed, I couldn't button it safely into my work shirt pocket. This repaired X also seemed to have some colour display issues, everything is very green during night hours. So that's how I ended up justifying splurging on the 13 mini.
SE 2, 13 mini, SE
Smaller than the SE 2, but more useful screen space than the SE, I'm extremely happy with the 13 mini at this point.