So as many of you know, I’m a computer geek by day. I thought it would be appropriate to do some testing with the new 5 megapixel camera on the back of Apple’s new iPhone 4. Previous to the iPhone 4 I had the iPhone 3G. With the 3G, I did not have tap-to-focus capability and this camera didn’t perform well in dark settings. Close up photos of food was even more problematic as the camera could not focus. In fact, I purchased a case that had a built-in macro lens (Griffin Technology’s Clarifi Case for the iPhone 3G and 3GS) that I could slide over the iPhone’s camera and take macro shots. This certainly was much better than anything and for almost 2 years I have used my 3G for photos. If you are a regular reader to FID, a good portion of the food photos are taken with my old iPhone 3G.

So, was I excited when Apple announced a better camera? Oh yes. Below in the photo gallery, I selected some photos that I recently took for some recipe testing I was working on for a client. I was impressed by the quality of the photos, especially up close. I’m sorry I don’t have my old iPhone 3G or I would have done some side-by-side comparisons – but honestly, the iPhone 3G would not have been able to get as close as I did with the iPhone 4.

Now, let me say that the photos in this set were taken under better than average lighting conditions. The burger and onion ring shots were taken after sunset with nearby overhead lighting. I will try to take some photos this weekend in deliberate dark locations and see how the pictures come out.

None of the photo’s below had any retouching or brightness level changes done in Photoshop. These are the raw images as they came off the iPhone 4 directly. No digital zoom was used as the iPhone 4 is capable of 5x digital zoom. The tap-to-focus capability allows you to tap on the screen and the camera will focus on that point. Focusing also adjusts exposure and white balance automatically. If you notice in the Endive Taco shows, there is a shot with the blue chips as the focal and the endives as the other focal point. The brightness levels are different as the lighting towards the back of the dish was different from the front.

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So what grade to I give the iPhone 4 as it pertains to his set of photos? In my honest opinion, I give them a 4 out of 5 stars.