iPhone Camera Quality and Resolution: A Complete Guide [2023]

What Are ProRAW Images on iPhone?

Apple ProRAW is a feature introduced with the iPhone 12 Pro and 12 Pro Max that provides the benefits of shooting in RAW with the computational photography capabilities that iPhones are known for.

In traditional photography, RAW is a file format that captures all image data recorded by the sensor when you take a photo. Unlike JPEG or HEIF images which are processed and compressed, RAW images are uncompressed and unprocessed. This gives photographers more control over parameters like white balance, exposure, tone mapping, and noise reduction in post-production.

Shooting in RAW does mean that you miss out on many of the advanced photography features that modern iPhones offer, like Deep Fusion and Smart HDR, which are applied at the moment of capture.

This is where ProRAW comes in. It gives you all the standard RAW information, along with the image processing and noise reduction techniques that iPhones apply. This allows photographers to manually adjust things like exposure, color, and tone in post-production without losing the benefits of the iPhone’s computational photography.

You can think of ProRAW as a hybrid between a traditional RAW format and the processed JPEG or HEIF formats that iPhones typically capture. It’s designed for people who want to manually edit their photos to achieve a specific look, while still benefiting from the iPhone’s advanced photography features.

What is Portrait Lighting on iPhone?

Portrait Lighting uses complex algorithms and the iPhone’s depth-sensing capabilities to manipulate the lighting on the subject of your photograph as you take it, almost as if you were changing real-world lighting setups in a studio environment.

There are six different Portrait Lighting effects:

1. Natural Light: Your subject’s face in sharp focus against a blurred background.
2. Studio Light: A clean look with your subject’s face brightly lit.
3. Contour Light: Dramatic directional lighting that highlights the subject’s facial features.
4. Stage Light: The subject’s face is spotlit against a deep black background.
5. Stage Light Mono: Like Stage Light, but in classic black and white.
6. High-Key Light Mono: The subject appears in grayscale against a white background.

What is Smart HDR on iPhone?

Traditionally, cameras have struggled with scenes that include both very bright and very dark areas, also known as high-contrast scenes. HDR technology is designed to remedy this by taking multiple photos at different exposure levels (one for highlights, one for shadows, and one in between) and then combining them into one photo. This results in an image that more accurately represents the range of light and dark areas that the human eye can see in the real world.

Smart HDR takes this concept a step further. When you take a photo, the iPhone’s camera actually captures a series of images almost simultaneously. These images are taken at different exposure levels: some are optimized for highlights, and others for shadows.

The iPhone then analyzes these images, chooses the best parts of each one, and merges them into a single photo. This happens almost instantly, thanks to the incredibly fast processing power of the iPhone’s chip.

Moreover, Smart HDR uses machine learning to recognize faces in your photos, ensuring that people are always well-exposed and detailed.

The result is photos that show more detail, have better balanced lighting, and look more like what you see with your own eyes. It’s particularly useful when you’re shooting in challenging lighting conditions, such as backlit scenes or situations with high contrast between bright and dark areas.

What is Night Mode on iPhone?

Traditionally, photos taken in dimly lit environments have been a challenge for most smartphones due to digital noise, loss of detail, and inaccurate colors. Night Mode on iPhone addresses these issues using a combination of longer exposure times, multiple shots, and computational algorithms.

Here’s how it works:

1. When you take a photo in a low-light situation and Night Mode is engaged, the camera automatically takes a series of images over a period of time (the exact duration varies depending on the light conditions). Each of these images is at a different exposure level to capture various levels of detail.
2. Then, the iPhone’s powerful chip and advanced software go to work. They align the images to correct for any movement (either from the subject or the camera), combine the best parts of each image, reduce noise, and enhance detail.
3. The result is a single, well-exposed photo that appears much brighter and more detailed than what you could typically achieve in a similar low-light situation.
4. One key thing to note about Night Mode is that it engages automatically when the camera sensor determines that the lighting conditions require it. You can tell when Night Mode is active because the Night Mode icon (a moon) at the top of the Camera app becomes yellow. You can also manually adjust the exposure time when Night Mode is active by tapping on the Night Mode icon and using the slider that appears.

What is Sensor-Shift Optical Image Stabilization?

In traditional optical image stabilization, the lens moves to counteract any minor movements of the camera (such as your hand shaking slightly) that might blur the image. The goal is to keep the lens stable so that the image hitting the sensor is as sharp as possible.

Sensor-shift OIS takes a different approach: instead of moving the lens, it moves the sensor. This allows for potentially more precise correction of camera movement, resulting in even sharper photos and steadier videos. It’s especially beneficial in situations where the camera might be moving a lot (like walking or riding in a vehicle) or in low-light conditions, where the camera needs to keep the shutter open longer and is therefore more susceptible to blur from camera shake.

One of the main advantages of sensor-shift OIS over traditional OIS is that it can correct movement along five axes (up/down, left/right, and rotation) rather than just two (up/down and left/right), providing a more comprehensive stabilization system.

This feature, which was previously found only in high-end DSLR and mirrorless cameras, is part of Apple’s ongoing effort to make the iPhone a serious tool for professional photographers and videographers.

What is Cinematic Mode on iPhone?

The standout characteristic of Cinematic Mode is its ability to automatically change the focus between subjects in a video in a way that mimics the focus changes in professional movies, hence the name “Cinematic”. This is also known as depth-of-field or “bokeh” effect, where the subject is in sharp focus while the background is blurred.

Here’s how it works:

1. When you’re shooting a video in Cinematic Mode, the iPhone uses machine learning and AI to identify people, animals, and objects in the scene. It then automatically creates a depth map of the scene, which allows it to keep certain subjects in sharp focus while blurring the background.
2. One of the most impressive aspects of Cinematic Mode is its ability to automatically switch focus when a subject enters the frame or even when a subject in the frame looks away. For example, if two people are in the frame and one looks at the other, Cinematic Mode will automatically shift the focus to the person being looked at.
3. Furthermore, you can manually change the focus and even adjust the level of bokeh effect during and after recording, offering a great deal of creative control. This is done with the help of Apple’s ProRAW and ProRes features.