The four cameras on the Apple iPhone 12 Pro are aimed at serious photographers

Apple’s iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini add important new photography features, but camera hardware and computational photography software are high-end. iPhone 12 Pro The models really show how hard Apple is trying to appeal to photo and video enthusiasts.

Among the changes to the iPhone Pro models are a larger sensor for better low-light performance, new capabilities to merge multiple frames into one superior shot, better stabilization to counter your shaky hands, and a new lidar sensor for better. autofocus. And on the iPhone 12 Pro Max, the telephoto camera can bring distant subjects closer together.

The iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone Pro, and iPhone Pro Max debuted in Apple iPhone 12 launch event Tuesday. The iPhone 12 (from $ 799, £ 799, AU $ 1,349) and 12 Mini (from $ 699, £ 699, AU $ 1,199) stick with last year’s design, with regular, ultra-wide and selfie cameras. The biggest photographic enhancements come with the Pro (from $ 999, £ 999, AU $ 1,699) and Pro Max (from $ 1,099, £ 1,099, AU $ 1,849), which also get a larger image sensor and a fourth camera. with telephoto lens for more distant subjects. The iPhone 12 Pro has the same 2X telephoto zoom range as previous iPhones, a 52mm equivalent focal length, but the Pro Max extends to a 2.5X zoom, or a 65mm equivalent lens.

Playing now:
See this:

iPhone 12 includes Smart HDR 3 and enhanced night mode

3:14

Cameras are one of the most important features of a new smartphone along with processor and network speeds. We take photos and videos to document our lives, to share with friends and family, and to enjoy artistic expression.

The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Mini also get significant improvements. They will benefit from night mode photos that now also work on ultrawide and selfie cameras, and an improved HDR mode for challenging scenes with bright and dark elements, Apple said.

Computational photography tricks

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range – the ability to capture shadow detail without turning highlights into washed out clutter. All new iPhones feature third-generation HDR technology designed to better capture details such as cropped faces, Apple said. It also uses machine learning technology to judge processing options, such as increasing brightness in dark areas, the company said.

The iPhone Pro models get another computational photography technique that Apple calls ProRaw. IPhones and Android phones have been able to take raw photos for years, a raw alternative to JPEG that allows photographers to decide the best way to edit an image. Apple ProRaw combines Apple’s computational photography with a raw format so that photographers benefit from noise reduction and dynamic range with the flexibility of raw images, Apple said. It’s similar to Google’s raw computational technology that came with the Pixel 3 in 2018.

Google pioneered work on the range of processing tricks called computational photography, helping to erase the comfortable lead in image quality that Apple’s early iPhones held for years.

But with the iPhone 11, Apple employed its own versions of some Google techniques, such as combining multiple low-exposure frames into a single shot to capture shadow detail without turning the skies into overexposed white. Google calls it HDR + and Apple calls it Deep Fusion.

In the iPhone 12, Apple’s deep fusion technology exercises all the major parts of the A14 Bionic chip inside: the main CPU, the image signal processor, the graphics processor, and the neural engine. That means Apple can apply deep fusion technology to all cameras on all iPhone models, Apple said. And it means iPhone portrait shots now work in night mode, matching a skill Google added with its Pixel 5.

Playing now:
See this:

Apple reveals iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max

10:05

Best iPhone camera hardware

The largest sensor in the iPhone Pro models, 47% larger than the main camera sensor in the iPhone 11, increases the pixel size. That engineering choice increases the cost of the sensor but allows it to collect more light for better color, less noise, and better low-light performance.

Pro phones also stabilize images by changing the sensor, not the lens elements, which, according to Apple, allows you to take photos in hand with a surprisingly long exposure time of 2 seconds.

All iPhone 12 models also benefit from a wider f1.6 aperture in the main camera for better light-gathering ability. And the ultra-wide camera now gets optical image stabilization, too.

The phones also get better video capabilities, with 10-bit encoding that should better capture color and brightness and support Dolby Vision HDR video technology. The iPhone Pro models can shoot HDR at 60 frames per second, but the iPhone 12 and 12 Mini max out at 30 fps.

They can be recorded in ordinary 4K and 1080p up to 60fps, but 1080p in slow motion can reach 240fps. Time-lapse videos are now stabilized.

What the iPhone doesn’t do

But Apple hasn’t gone as far as some in trying to grab photo headlines.

The iPhone 12 does not employ pixel binning, for example, a technique that uses much higher resolution sensors for photographic flexibility. Pixel grouping groups data from groups of four or nine neighboring pixels to produce the color information of a single pixel in the photo being taken. Or, if there is enough light when the photo is taken, the phone can skip pixel binning and take a photo at a much higher resolution. That offers more detail or more flexibility to cut out the important part of the scene.

Another newer trick that the iPhone skipped is the inclusion of a telephoto camera with a much higher magnification. The Huawei P40 Pro Plus has an impressive 10X optical zoom, for example. That’s difficult as the laws of physics make telephoto cameras physically large, but smartphone makers like Huawei and Samsung are trying to solve the problem with a mirror bending the path of light into the interior of the camera. phone.

But Apple might have tricks up its sleeve later. In 2017, Apple acquired image sensor startup InVisage, whose QuantumFilm technology showed promise for making image sensors smaller or improving image quality.

And he has done a lot with computational photography alone, in particular a portrait mode that simulates the “bokeh” of blurred backgrounds from high-end cameras and the lighting effects that can be applied to those portraits.