From XT to iPhone 15 Pro Max

[Paul Spinnler]

Photographer Reuben Wu Showcases the Power of iPhone 15 Pro Max

Talented artist Reuben Wu demonstrates the power of mobile photography in new iPhone 15 Pro Max series.

petapixel.com

Reuben was the ambassador for XT back in 2019 – now he's doing the same stuff with an iphone, albeit with 48 megapixels. He still mentions that the larger systems are not (yet) being replaced, but I think this is interesting ...

Time for P1 to again lead with innovation. True 17 stops of DR like color neg film (like Arri's Alexa 35) and / or higher resolution would be nice.

 

[Vilpo]

Same same, but different

 

[ThdeDude]

"I lock the camera on a tripod ... shooting in ProRAW using the 24mm 1x lens (which offers the highest resolution of all three lenses),” Wu says of shooting “The Inner Landscape.”

The 48-megapixel 24mm lens/sensor was introduced on the iPhone 14 Pro. Hence, nothing new or unique to the iPhone 15 Pro Max.

Apparently there is no substantial difference between the camera setup of the iPhone 14 Pro and that of the iPhone 15 Pro. (Biggest difference apparently: Apple said that they are using a new, better coating on the lens to reduce camera lens flare!)

The iPhone 15 Pro Max has a new tetraprism 120mm lens but does not have the 77mm lens.

This ad "showcase" would have made much more sense a year ago when the 48-megapixel 24mm lens/sensor was introduced on the iPhone 14 Pro.


P.S. The iPhone 15 Pro line also has a programable "Action button" which could be quite useful for any camera app.

 

[Paul2660]

Not sure what camera he has but the iPhone 14 Pro camera IMO for landscape work is worthless. Apple applies way way too much noise reduction to the files. So any distance subject is smeared and has not details. You can’t control the noise reduction amount either and get anything but proraw dngs which have been over cooked by Apple. At least if you want 48MP output. Any zoom past 1.0 I also found too soft to use. Lots of hype actual camera not so good. 3rd part phone apps can’t do anything about it either as Apple won’t unlock the proraw dng so they are forced to have the same amount of overkill noise reduction.

Paul

 

[Paul Spinnler]

I have an older iPhone - didn't know that the Apple proraw is pre-cooked with NR – that's of course half as useful then. Can one open these files in C1 or LR?

 

[AlexeyDanilchenko]

You can’t control the noise reduction amount either and get anything but proraw dngs which have been over cooked by Apple.

This is not a new problem - the solution is not to use ProRaw and use standard raw instead. Plenty of third party camera apps supporting standard raw without Apple ProRaw cludge. I use Halide and have it permanently set to just raw because of ProRaw aggressive and untunable noise reduction. On iPhone 13 Pro versions for example there were a lot of reviews about how bad telephoto camera is in low light, details etc and all of this mainly comes from jpegs and ProRaws where the noise reduction was super aggressive. I did a number of panoramas using standard unprocessed raw on that telephoto and results are way better than just using standard or wide. And in general I prefer shooting on iPhone using standard raw and not ProRaw - plenty of examples of my shots are in iPhone thread here

 

[lookbook]

... he has to see where he can get a job if po no longer awards advertising contracts -
and Apple certainly pays a lot more!

the business people among us will understand his change -
the photographers rather not!
: )

 

[tenmangu81]

I would be surprised if the pictures taken by an iPhone were not too cooked. Strong cooking is necessary, even compulsory, when using a "camera" with so tiny lens and sensor with the purpose of showing "edible" images.

 

[Paul Spinnler]

... he has to see where he can get a job if po no longer awards advertising contracts -
and Apple certainly pays a lot more!

the business people among us will understand his change -
the photographers rather not!
: )

True that – I think a social media post by Tim Cook beats a P1 post 1000x, I am sorry, but this is truly an awesome step to be tweeted by the CEO of the most valuable tech company in the world. All P1 manages to do is bring out a 65k compact setup no one buys. I am getting spammed on a felt weekly basis now by P1 advertising the XC.

 

[tenmangu81]

I am getting spammed on a felt weekly basis now by P1 advertising the XC.

Indeed, so am I !!

 

[Paul Spinnler]

I would be surprised if the pictures taken by an iPhone were not too cooked. Strong cooking is necessary, even compulsory, when using a "camera" with so tiny lens and sensor with the purpose of showing "edible" images.

I think one (we) need to be aware of potential pre-conceived notions when considering technological advances. Althrough the tenet of small sensor < bigger sensor may be a good rule in general, you should not underestimate: small sensor * Apple resources * global scale vs. large sensor * normal camera / P1 manufacturer * small scale ...

There's no reason why technology should not at one point allow for low noise high res small sensor photography that's better than old-school tech.

Iphones have now the computing power of supercomputers 20 years ago ...

 

[Ray Harrison]

Recently, I was interested in learning a bit more about what proRAW actually is and was surprised that there wasn’t a lot of really good information. This is an interesting article by Ben Sandofsky, one of the developers/founders of Halide, that I personally found informative.

https://lux.camera/understanding-proraw/

Also, there’s an interview with Ben here discussing some of this and Apple’s work with Adobe on the DNG spec changes to accommodate. The video is just north of 20 minutes if you’re interested:

 

[hcubell]

As long as we are on the subject, I am curious what app you all use to shoot with and/or process your iPhone raw files. I am sure you have all had the experience of using your iPhone as a "compositional tool" and you take a photo with it and you think, wow, that looks amazing. You pull out your "real camera" and take the same photo, you go home and pull up the raw file from your "real camera" in LR or C1, and look at the raw file. Hmmm, I thought that looked amazing when I took the photo! The magic of computational photography.
TIA.

 

[tenmangu81]

I think one (we) need to be aware of potential pre-conceived notions when considering technological advances. Althrough the tenet of small sensor < bigger sensor may be a good rule in general, you should not underestimate: small sensor * Apple resources * global scale vs. large sensor * normal camera / P1 manufacturer * small scale ...

There's no reason why technology should not at one point allow for low noise high res small sensor photography that's better than old-school tech.

Iphones have now the computing power of supercomputers 20 years ago ...

This is not what I am saying. Small sensors with 48 Mpx have necessarily small pixels (accordingly strong noise), and small lenses are very difficult to design without distortions and optical defects. What I am saying is that Apple cook all of this (noise, lens aberrations, etc...) with a very well done internal software in such a way that, in the end, the iPhone delivers "edible" images. And this is what you say in your last sentence...

 

[ThdeDude]

I think a social media post by Tim Cook ... this is truly an awesome step to be tweeted by the CEO of the most valuable tech company in the world.

Priceless what it does to Wu's name and brand recognition.

 

[AlexeyDanilchenko]

As long as we are on the subject, I am curious what app you all use to shoot with and/or process your iPhone raw files.

I use Halide camera app for shooting (and use proper raw not ProRaw where I can control noise reduction and sharpness in post processing) and Lightroom for postprocessing. Works very well although with Apple built in profile saturation and sharpness need to be increased to get the best out of the raw files if processing purely in Lightroom. Lately however, I import to Lightroom, set the developed baseline there and finish in Dehancer photoshop plugin. Works very well.