ACJC.S
Portrait Teddy
Handmade, mohair.
No real artistic merit, just a casual snap to demonstrate the feature. Indoors shot with iPhone 11 Pro Max in Portrait Mode (52mm), normal indoor LED lighting in the evening.
Where I chose to focus and how much headroom will affect the bokeh simulation. In-phone editing software, adjustable parameters include Black Point, Definition and Keystone in addition to various normal parameters but all are global in nature only. The range of edits we can do is a fair bit more than what we get from in-cam editing of current ILCs of any brand.
By tapping the screen or on each control during edit, I can review the before vs after edit effect(s) and adjust accordingly. Even after I’ve saved the edits, I can still choose to Revert to the original. Shadow lifting is rather good given such a tiny sensor, likely due to the large amount of data captured thanks to Deep Fusion stacking?
What I do find impressive is I can change Lighting and Aperture post shot. This shot was taken with Studio Lighting selected, auto Aperture was at f4.5 but post shot I changed it to f1.4 for more background blur.
The f-stop is just a bokeh/DOF simulation as I can narrow or widen the f-stop post shot from f1.4 to f16. It is of course not perfect and can get confused but it’ll undoubtedly get much better in future versions. By being perfect I meant absence of obvious mistakes, not esoteric arguments such as smoothness/falloff of transition zone. Bokeh balls are also decently simulated.
What is natural looking bokeh is afterall a specious argument since our eyes don’t see bokeh on their own. Attractive bokeh however is fundamentally about deemphasized background to allow the subject to stand out. With sophisticated 3-D ToF sensors and algorithms, perhaps one day the expensive and bulky fast Prime lenses will become obsolete and maybe even expensive APO Primes as well. As Night mode gets better, fast lenses for low light will also be unnecessary.
It may take a while yet to get there for serious photogs but for casual snappers, this is already good enough. I won’t be giving up my FE 85mm f1.4 GM anytime soon for instance but I’m now disinclined to plonk down too much $ for exotic Primes. Perhaps one day even f4.0 ILC zooms is good enough to simulate f1.2 bokeh with ToF sensor embeded. The silly ergonomics chant of Nikon fanbois influencers, the best ergonomics is in fact the slippery eel form factor of smartphones simply because it can easily fit into our pockets like no other camera can!
Ultimately, the smartphone does not even need to be as good as a proper camera. For the majority of the casual snap shooters, the latest high-end smartphones are already more than sufficient.
Portrait Teddy
Handmade, mohair.
No real artistic merit, just a casual snap to demonstrate the feature. Indoors shot with iPhone 11 Pro Max in Portrait Mode (52mm), normal indoor LED lighting in the evening.
Where I chose to focus and how much headroom will affect the bokeh simulation. In-phone editing software, adjustable parameters include Black Point, Definition and Keystone in addition to various normal parameters but all are global in nature only. The range of edits we can do is a fair bit more than what we get from in-cam editing of current ILCs of any brand.
By tapping the screen or on each control during edit, I can review the before vs after edit effect(s) and adjust accordingly. Even after I’ve saved the edits, I can still choose to Revert to the original. Shadow lifting is rather good given such a tiny sensor, likely due to the large amount of data captured thanks to Deep Fusion stacking?
What I do find impressive is I can change Lighting and Aperture post shot. This shot was taken with Studio Lighting selected, auto Aperture was at f4.5 but post shot I changed it to f1.4 for more background blur.
The f-stop is just a bokeh/DOF simulation as I can narrow or widen the f-stop post shot from f1.4 to f16. It is of course not perfect and can get confused but it’ll undoubtedly get much better in future versions. By being perfect I meant absence of obvious mistakes, not esoteric arguments such as smoothness/falloff of transition zone. Bokeh balls are also decently simulated.
What is natural looking bokeh is afterall a specious argument since our eyes don’t see bokeh on their own. Attractive bokeh however is fundamentally about deemphasized background to allow the subject to stand out. With sophisticated 3-D ToF sensors and algorithms, perhaps one day the expensive and bulky fast Prime lenses will become obsolete and maybe even expensive APO Primes as well. As Night mode gets better, fast lenses for low light will also be unnecessary.
It may take a while yet to get there for serious photogs but for casual snappers, this is already good enough. I won’t be giving up my FE 85mm f1.4 GM anytime soon for instance but I’m now disinclined to plonk down too much $ for exotic Primes. Perhaps one day even f4.0 ILC zooms is good enough to simulate f1.2 bokeh with ToF sensor embeded. The silly ergonomics chant of Nikon fanbois influencers, the best ergonomics is in fact the slippery eel form factor of smartphones simply because it can easily fit into our pockets like no other camera can!
Ultimately, the smartphone does not even need to be as good as a proper camera. For the majority of the casual snap shooters, the latest high-end smartphones are already more than sufficient.