ACJC.S
ROAR!!!
Stone lion, temple guardian.
Testing the simulated Bokeh from the iPhone 15 Pro Max (iP15PM).
This was originally a 24mp HEIF file. Replaced the upload on 4 March 2024 with a file post-processed with 3rd-party software with my usual selective adjustments and then exported as a JPEG file for upload to Flickr to avoid inconsistencies due to incompatibility with HEIF or ProRAW formats. Tried one more time 6 March 2024, this time it’s slightly better, slowing getting a handle on these iPhone files.
I’m still new to post-processing iPhone images externally, the source photo edited within the iPhone’s Photos App still has a lot more pop when viewed from my iPhone’s screen, something seemed to be lost in the HEIF conversion to JPEG, perhaps it’s due to HEIF being 16-bit colors vs 8-bit for JPEG. More likely it’s due to iPhone’s HDR capable display that is able to show off the HDR enabled 24mp photos at their best and the other image upload and display media have not caught up or adopted it yet.
What I learnt from this session about the Portrait mode on iP15PM;
1) ProRAW is not possible in this mode, highest resolution possible is 24mp JPEG/HEIF with the 1x camera, any other option will of course produce 12mp outputs. 1.2x and 1.5x are not available in this mode.
2) The power of Portrait mode are; ability to change both extent of f-stop bokeh simulation as well as focal point post shot. If we turn on “Portraits in Photo Mode” in Camera settings, the camera will default to “Portrait mode” and capture depth information whenever a face or cat/dog is prominent in the frame, except when we are in 1x camera with ProRAW Max activated. Ability to change amount of background blur (f-stop) post shot is not new, I could do this in my older iP11PM but the faux-keh (simulated bokeh) in the new iP15PM is so much better and more precise, while not always perfect it is now certainly good enough.
3) In Portrait mode under backlit conditions, the face is automatically brightened, we would need to use a camera fill flash to achieve a similar effect traditionally.
I took this shot both in Portrait mode (24mp HEIF) as well as with Portrait mode deactivated (48mp ProRAW Max), I liked the 24mp shot in Portrait mode better and the subject area within the plane of focus has just as much details as the one taken in 48mp ProRAW Max, to my eyes.
I’m seeing a lot of “photographers” still talking down on the latest smartphones in camera gear forums. I’m personally not at all held back by form factor, ultimately it’s only the end result that matters to me. Just as there are wine snobs, there are also camera snobs but all the more insufferable, such people absolutely infest the camera gear forums etc.
I could almost hear the condescending whispers from afar of Nikon fanbois shills opining that the iPhone’s ergonomics are too poor or that its mount is too small or if Nikon make phones it would have Nikon’s secret special sauce that only the shills themselves can ever see, in their wet dreams! These people have no idea what the latest premium smartphones are capable of.
With post-processing, these smartphone photos can be enhanced further just like camera RAW files but most of the smartphone photos we see are straight out of phone unedited JPEGs leaving much of the potential quality unfulfilled.
A word about sharing iPhone photos via WhatsApp, the photos are very severely downsampled such that they ended up looking dull, low contrast and soft to the receiver so we’ll need to counter these in post-processing to boost brilliance, contrast, saturation and sharpness before sending via WhatsApp. Apple should include some automatic profiles depending on viewing platform, whether it’s for display, print or sharing via WhatsApp or other social media for instance to ensure that iPhone photos look consistent as how they appeared on the iPhone’s screen.
The same issue plagues iPhone photos (be it HEIF or ProRAW) uploaded to Flickr, it simply lacks the pop of the original photos on the iPhone since HEIF and ProRAW formats are apparently not very well converted to JPEG on Flickr.
Postscript
=========
Discovered that I could in fact edit this on iMac with 3rd party software and export the processed photo as a JPEG file, this should solve the issue of the photo looking different when uploading to Flickr. The original iPhone image file should be a clean copy without any post shot processing with the Photos app otherwise artefacts will appear.
ROAR!!!
Stone lion, temple guardian.
Testing the simulated Bokeh from the iPhone 15 Pro Max (iP15PM).
This was originally a 24mp HEIF file. Replaced the upload on 4 March 2024 with a file post-processed with 3rd-party software with my usual selective adjustments and then exported as a JPEG file for upload to Flickr to avoid inconsistencies due to incompatibility with HEIF or ProRAW formats. Tried one more time 6 March 2024, this time it’s slightly better, slowing getting a handle on these iPhone files.
I’m still new to post-processing iPhone images externally, the source photo edited within the iPhone’s Photos App still has a lot more pop when viewed from my iPhone’s screen, something seemed to be lost in the HEIF conversion to JPEG, perhaps it’s due to HEIF being 16-bit colors vs 8-bit for JPEG. More likely it’s due to iPhone’s HDR capable display that is able to show off the HDR enabled 24mp photos at their best and the other image upload and display media have not caught up or adopted it yet.
What I learnt from this session about the Portrait mode on iP15PM;
1) ProRAW is not possible in this mode, highest resolution possible is 24mp JPEG/HEIF with the 1x camera, any other option will of course produce 12mp outputs. 1.2x and 1.5x are not available in this mode.
2) The power of Portrait mode are; ability to change both extent of f-stop bokeh simulation as well as focal point post shot. If we turn on “Portraits in Photo Mode” in Camera settings, the camera will default to “Portrait mode” and capture depth information whenever a face or cat/dog is prominent in the frame, except when we are in 1x camera with ProRAW Max activated. Ability to change amount of background blur (f-stop) post shot is not new, I could do this in my older iP11PM but the faux-keh (simulated bokeh) in the new iP15PM is so much better and more precise, while not always perfect it is now certainly good enough.
3) In Portrait mode under backlit conditions, the face is automatically brightened, we would need to use a camera fill flash to achieve a similar effect traditionally.
I took this shot both in Portrait mode (24mp HEIF) as well as with Portrait mode deactivated (48mp ProRAW Max), I liked the 24mp shot in Portrait mode better and the subject area within the plane of focus has just as much details as the one taken in 48mp ProRAW Max, to my eyes.
I’m seeing a lot of “photographers” still talking down on the latest smartphones in camera gear forums. I’m personally not at all held back by form factor, ultimately it’s only the end result that matters to me. Just as there are wine snobs, there are also camera snobs but all the more insufferable, such people absolutely infest the camera gear forums etc.
I could almost hear the condescending whispers from afar of Nikon fanbois shills opining that the iPhone’s ergonomics are too poor or that its mount is too small or if Nikon make phones it would have Nikon’s secret special sauce that only the shills themselves can ever see, in their wet dreams! These people have no idea what the latest premium smartphones are capable of.
With post-processing, these smartphone photos can be enhanced further just like camera RAW files but most of the smartphone photos we see are straight out of phone unedited JPEGs leaving much of the potential quality unfulfilled.
A word about sharing iPhone photos via WhatsApp, the photos are very severely downsampled such that they ended up looking dull, low contrast and soft to the receiver so we’ll need to counter these in post-processing to boost brilliance, contrast, saturation and sharpness before sending via WhatsApp. Apple should include some automatic profiles depending on viewing platform, whether it’s for display, print or sharing via WhatsApp or other social media for instance to ensure that iPhone photos look consistent as how they appeared on the iPhone’s screen.
The same issue plagues iPhone photos (be it HEIF or ProRAW) uploaded to Flickr, it simply lacks the pop of the original photos on the iPhone since HEIF and ProRAW formats are apparently not very well converted to JPEG on Flickr.
Postscript
=========
Discovered that I could in fact edit this on iMac with 3rd party software and export the processed photo as a JPEG file, this should solve the issue of the photo looking different when uploading to Flickr. The original iPhone image file should be a clean copy without any post shot processing with the Photos app otherwise artefacts will appear.