iPhone 11 Pro
The camera for everybody?
Have we reached a point where the compact camera just isn’t really necessary for the average person? And are smartphone starting to become a viable options for professional photographers and keen enthusiasts?
I wont be going into detail about all of the phones features or iOS 13, although there are one or two things that to me, have really improved and need a mention. But I will go over the capabilities of this phone, from a photographic perspective.
How very, ‘Apple’
You’ll notice that by no coincidence the focal length of each camera is exactly double that of the next widest. The main camera is a 26mm F1.8) and uses a 1/2.5 inch sensor, which by all accounts is normal for a phone, but very small compared to stand alone camera. But phone manufacturers have already proven that raw specifications mean hardly anything. The tele (52mm) and the ultra wide (13mm) cameras use something smaller, like a 1/3.2 inch type. But this has not been confirmed yet.
Intelligent Exposure
What is immediately noticeable when first shooting is how insanely fast the camera blends frames together, giving a near perfect exposure. What you end up with is a very well balanced imaged that is primed for post processing. Of course, you don’t have to edit further if you do not wish to and the base images looks superb on their own. The ‘Smart HDR’ function is to thank for this, ensuring that dark shadows and bright highlights are captured in the same frame. You will get some slightly surreal, flatter looking images by nature of the Hight Dynamic Range process but it saves you blowing highlights and losing shadow information.
Here is a great example of an extremely high contrast image, with dark shadows and direct sun, but the iPhone handles it very well. Something that a ‘normal’ camera would struggle with. You either need a large sensor with high dynamic range, or to manually bracket your shots (take under and over exposed images) and blend them together. A time consuming process.
Not bad at all for ISO 500. Which for a mobile (cell) phone is a high number.
Lens Quality
There is no doubt that for me, the pick of the lenses is the main 26mm, both in terms of perspective and quality. It’s still very wide, but with very well corrected distortion and even sharpness from corner to corner. Apple has developed a superb lens. Couple this with the larger sensor and Apples great software, and you have some very appealing images with little effort.
The Ultra wide lens is my next favourite, although technically it’s the weakest. It apparently lacks optical image stabilisation, but for a 13mm lens that is really not overly important. What it does give you is a real creative license. Sprawling skier and tall trees are just a couple of awesome examples.
The tele lens is technically very good. It’s super sharp but doesn’t inspire me quite as much at the other two do. But if you are wanting to shoot pictures of people, you need something longer than 26mm, and this really does the job well.
See how evenly sharp the below image is, there is no discernible difference between the centre and edges of the frame. Impressive.
Apples Processing is not all perfect
So, I mentioned above that the iPhone will produce a fantastic image in a split second. Taking multiple frames, analysing and blending them all before you realised you pressed the shutter button. Apples new A13 chip clearly has a large part to play in the speed and intelligence of the camera, but apples choice in how it renders the final image is not always perfect. For one, I would love a way to dial down the sharpness. It’s a little strong for my taste and leaves some artefacts, that are pretty obvious when viewing on a larger screen. However, this judgement is purely from the HEIC file from apples own camera app, maybe someone else like Halide will give you more control.
Power, on overtime.
The battery life. For once! This could be a landmark for apple and it’s ‘Pro’ range. For years their design teams have been hell bent on slimming and weight saving wherever possible with little to no real concern about the reducing longevity of the device. My current MacBook Pro 13 inch, is by far the best laptop I have ever owned, but the battery life is dreadful. I wouldn’t last much more than 5-6 hours with normal use.
The new iPhone is superb in this department. With ‘normal’ use, it lasted me around 2 days, I shot a few videos, 150 photos and general calls, messages and browsing the web. No games though. It hit around 20% battery before plugging it in. Impressive. Yes, I know, android devices have been giving their users this battery life for years.
Not only that, but the power that the iPhone possess these days is crazy. It can edit my 50 megapixel RAW files from my Fuji Medium format camera. Not that I ever need to, but a clear demonstration that the power here is really helping the computational photography potential.
‘Deep Fusion’ is deeply interesting.
These were the two words that made me buy the new iPhone 11. I have not idea exactly what to expect, but improved detail and a higher effective megapixel count is what I am looking for. Apple and the plethora of review sites out there have all hyped this ‘future feature’ up so much that is has to be something special.
Things to consider…
- The Ultra-Wide lens is fixed focus and doesn’t allow you to shoot RAW, neither of which should be a concern
- Deep Fusion has yet to be released and there is not date for when, either
- And there is no guarantee of how good it’ll be either
- The iPhone 11 is much cheaper and keeps most of the ‘Pro’ features
- Currently, HEIC is better than JPEG and also better than any RAW image from alternative camera apps
- The Google Pixel 4 is just around the corner, for Android fans
For now folks, this is it. It’s early days for the iPhone 11 range. I will be back soon with more images and more badly worded sentences to accompany.