Wesley's Tool-Box

One of the key improvements of iPhone 5S over previous generations would be the camera's performance. In this segment I'll look at the speed at which it can operate - namely, how fast the video and still photos are recorded.

1. Video

iPhone 5S introduces the "slo-mo" mode with 120fps capture at 720p (1280x720). What it actually does is that the phone records the video at 120fps fully. Then, when you view the video in the camera roll via the Camera or Photos app, a portion of the video is played in slow motion by reducing the playback speed to 30fps.


This results in playback at 1/4 the speed for the selected "zone". You can adjust where the slow motion starts and ends by moving the sliders just below the frame strip. One drawback is that you can't set two or more zones. You'll need a separate editor or app to achieve this.

Also, there are some interesting consequences when exporting the video clips.

UPDATE (Sept. 25, 2014): There has been some changes in activating LTE devices from overseas in Korea. [Read the related iPhone 6 Plus review.]

When my friend Andy lined up to get the new iPhone 5S, the Apple Store had specific supplies of the phone for each of the four major U.S. carriers. If three of the carriers supposedly use the same model as seen in Apple's website, it might seem strange that this division existed. It turns out that each of the phones have a SIM card for the designated carrier, as well as some specific device status configured (SIM lock, CDMA enable). As you can see, Andy got me an AT&T version of the iPhone 5S with model number A1533, with the AT&T NanoSIM as a proof.

Now, Apple mentions that the model number of the iPhone 5S planned to be released in Korea is A1530, which forgoes the AWS and 700MHz bands used in North America and instead supports TD-LTE bands used in places like China. Interestingly, both models (as a matter of fact, all models) support LTE bands currently active in Korea, so it seemed likely that A1533 iPhone 5S would be able to hop onto LTE networks in Korea. This was the reason I risked buying A1533 outright instead of trying to get A1530 from Hong Kong or wait for official Korean release. It turns out my hunch was correct, but it's not completely plug-and-play. Read on to minimize the chances of bumping into problems.

As my Twitter followers are already aware, my iPhone 5S arrived in the mail just before noon last Friday, September 27. My second daughter immediately had an early "hand-on" with the package. Since the device was released just 7 days before to only a handful of countries, this is no doubt one of the first iPhone 5S to land in Korea. No date has been set for Korean release yet - past experiences indicate November-December timeframe - so I'm going to be using this shiny new toy on behalf of other Koreans to see if this is something to wait for.

This particular phone was meant to be used on AT&T network in the United States. But my excellent friend Andy, who lives there, kindly picked it up along with his after lining up at an Apple Store on the morning of the launch day. It then crossed Pacific Ocean again to come into my hands. Naturally, this raises several questions - how well does it work in Korea, how different is it from the previous model, and so on. For this segment, I'll give my first impressions.

That's the question I had in the attempts to extend an already powerful 50x optical zoom on my Canon SX50 HS. The results aren't very impressive.

I bought two teleconverters for testing. The cheap one is a Vivitar Titanium 2.0X, at about US$40. The expensive one is a Raynox DCR-1540PRO with 1.54x zoom, at about $200. Unfortunately, the latter had been discontinued a long time ago (it came out at least in 2003), so I had to buy a dusty used one at half the price.

The collection of crops above really tells it all. The cheap Vivitar is trash. Completely unusable, chromatic aberrations and all. It works okay at low zoom, but that defeats the purpose.

Meanwhile, the expensive Raynox has been advertised as "for 25x or higher zoom" and "340lp/mm at center", so I was expecting better. Well, the colours are fine but it doesn't come into focus as well as I would want it to. Even at the best spot (seems to be at lower center region, not outright center for SX50 HS) it doesn't really add more detail. This might be usable for video mode, but not much value for still photos.

As for the actual multiplication, close (~5m) shots got about 1.3x for Raynox and 1.4x for Vivitar, getting roughly about half the spec. Far (~250m) shots are better, at about 1.52x for Raynox and 1.8x for Vivitar.

If anyone's searching around to see if one needs a teleconverter for a SX50 HS, I can easily tell you "don't bother".

If you're playing Simpsons: Tapped Out game (iOS / Android) on your spare time like me, and also happened to be a developer that upgraded your phone to iOS 7 (beta 1), then you may encounter a bizarre bug where you automatically get login to a completely random, but different account.

Some leafing through the web yielded some clues on what was likely going on. It seems to be caused by the way EA implemented the device and account management.

Apparently, EA decided to keep session information of both the device and the account that it's logged in on the server. When a user exits the game and comes back, the game checks the device and automatically login to the account it was last associated with. Seems harmless, right?