The standard lens.
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Here’s an index of the iPhone 11 Pro pieces:
Part I – The revolution realized
Part II – Upgrading
Part III – The ultrawide lens
Part IV – The Normal lens
Part V – The Telephoto lens
Part VI – The Focos app
Part VII – Quirks and anomalies
Part VIII – HDR and the Night Mode
Part IX – The digital zoom function
Part X – A lens correction profile for the ultrawide optic
When I was a lad, happily snapping away with my Leica, a 35mm lens was the street lens to have. Not too wide, not too long, small and fast, it was just the ticket for my preferred genre. Times have changed as the ‘standard’ lens for the iPhone Pro is just 26mm long in Full Frame Equivalent terms. That used to be seriously wide, meaning close subject distances, but with the inherently stealthy nature of a cellphone it works well for street action. Pixel peeping imports from the three iPhone Pro lenses in Lightroom, it’s just about discernible that the 1X or Standard lens has the best micro contrast of the three, but that’s barely distinguishable on my 30″ Apple Cinema Display (yes, old tech, but still superb).
I find that just a tad of sharpening helps matters along with all the lenses when importing images to LR, and here are my preferred settings:
The definition, even in big enlargements , is extraordinary. Easily equal to anything from FF or MFT hardware.
Here’s an image from the full frame:
And here’s a 1:1 enlargement, meaning a 30″ wide print – straight out of camera, no post-processing:
There, in one prosaic image, you have the story of the demise of MFT, APS-C and most FF writ large. The iPhone effortlessly equals what they can deliver, and in high contrast situations its ‘always on’ HDR processing is streets ahead of the big hardware. Add a little sharpening on import to LR and the resolution in the image is breathtaking.
Here are some snaps taken with the standard lens:
No flare with the sun in the image. Auto HDR does its magic here.
Gatorade man. Using the 1X lens with 2X digital zoom.
Babe. Outstanding control of dynamic range. This is what ‘computational photography’ is all about.
Another high dynamic range image, tamed by the iPhone’s processing.
Artsy fartsy with color removed and grain added in LR.
Straight out of camera. No need for those shadows and highlights sliders in LR.
In the iPhone 7, HDR was a switchable option. It’s on all the time in iPhone 11 Pro, there when it’s needed. Washed out highlights and heavy post processing, like you are used to with your traditional hardware, are things of the past. You can spend all your time on clicking the button, wasting none stuck in front of a computer display trying to get Photoshop or whatever to fix the issues. The standard lens in the iPhone 11 Pro, along with the brilliant on board image processing, are wonders of the designers’ art.