The Lowdown on the New iPhone

It looks like both iPhone 14 "Pro" models—the Pro and Pro Max—will feature one camera with 48 MP. This can be used two ways—for expanded cropping options, or for pixel-binning down to 12-MP in low light. The sensor on the wide module is still 12 MP, but it's physically bigger. And multi-exposure computational photography isn't just for Night Mode any more—you can use it for normal shots as well, to get better quality. The range of focal lengths is also changed, to four: .5X, 1X, 2X, and 3X. How that works out is that the three modules are 13mm-equivalent (12-MP), 24mm-e (48-MP in Pro Raw), and 77mm-e (12-MP). The "2X" option is 48mm-e and uses a cropped section from the 48-MP module.

DPReview points out a very interesting little fact: that iPhones, in sensor size and number of megapixels, have now caught up to the old all-in-one small-sensor digicams such as the Canon Powershot G15 of ten years ago. Albeit with far more capability thanks to processing, binning, and image combining.

Check out Tom Burke's comment from the other day (you might remember Tom—scroll down a bit at that link):

TB: This summer I decided to be honest with myself and recognise that I was simply no longer using my DSLR and lenses. When we went to Dubai in late winter they never left the hotel room; I used the iPhone instead. So during the summer I sold all my photo equipment and I've been waiting for Apple's announcement. I like the hardware improvements in the iPhone camera system, such the bigger sensors, improved apertures, and the increased resolution of the main camera sensor which it seems can be used in either full resolution mode or in binned 12 mp mode. And of course the continued improvements in the software are also attractive.

But the camera and its surrounding system are just part of the story. What I've come to understand is that good technique is as important with an iPhone as it is with any system. Night mode, for example, works pretty well however you use it, but with the phone on a tripod and exposure triggered remotely (via my Apple Watch, for example), the results can be stunning. So I'm pretty sure I can see an iPhone 14 Pro in my future. Mastering it is going to be my next photographic journey, and I'm looking forward to it.

It's a perfectly legit approach, and I'll be interested to hear how he gets along with the new iPhone 14.

Mike

Peter Wright: "I watched the presentation today. Very slick! Looking at the camera section made we wonder why I even think of getting another camera any more. I doubt if anything I want to photograph can’t be done with the 14 pro. Seriously, isn’t buying a dedicated camera a waste of money for almost all of us? The only exceptions could be if you have some very special needs like professional wildlife, or some strange proclivities like the desire to photograph with a 'greys' camera."

Comments

[psu]

> multi-exposure computational photography

FWIW the various "smart HDR" modes have been doing this outside the context of night mode for a while now, even back to the iPhone X or 11 ... and in recent versions of the device this stuff runs on almost every shot.

One thing that I've noticed about it is that in some situations the phone will actually do essentially a separate HDR blend on every pixel in the image rather than running a masking algorithm like Photoshop or other image combining tools do. This can make it very hard to emulate or duplicate the contrast that you get from a phone shot on a "real" camera.

I've had an iPhone 13 for a few months now and have found that the more recent revs of the post-processing algorithms to be a bit of a mixed bag compared to my old 11. Some things are clearly much better, but others not as much better as you might have assumed. It will be interesting to see how the new machine is.

[darlene]

Sounds tempting, but for now my iPhone 12 does what I need it to do. Thank you for distilling the tech info down so someone like me with not enough time to read all the hype can understand the changes. Best to you!

[Yuan]

Ergonomics. That is the keyword for photographers rather than snap shooters.

[William Lewis]

I'll agree that it is a legitimate approach but it's not for me. I did take a delightful shot the other day with my phone, but I'd still rather carry my Leica M 240 for digital photography and my Rolleicord III for film photography.

It's how my brain works.

[Bill Skones]

It should be noted that the 48MP “quad pixel” sensor is not a conventional 48MP Bayer sensor. It breaks each R, G and B pixel into four sub-pixels of the same color. See the picture at 1:19:54 into the presentation. They perhaps use machine learning (ml) to help overcome this.

[Jeff1000]

As good as these cell phone cameras are becoming, or have become, the real advantage is instant access to the Internet for distributing or publishing your photos. Maybe someday Nikon and Canon will figure that out.

[Anton Wilhelm Stolzing]

All the bells and whistles that these smartphones have softwarewise can make their way into real cameras, and are already making their way into real cameras, and by real cameras I mean cameras with a not ridiculously small sensor size and with a decent interface and a decent finder.
I am not Ken Rockwell, hence I am not a fan of smartphone photography. Maybe history will prove me wrong. But I would bet a 100 Euros against it.

[Ben Rosengart]

@Peter Wright: I recently recommitted to using a "real camera", after a couple years of just using my phone. Why? I just didn't like the pictures that phones made. They look fine at a glance, but they seem to fall apart as soon as I try to adjust them, and there's something unsatisfying about them to me. This is kind of ironic, as I work for a phone maker.