Not that obvious.

With the introduction of iOS 13.2 Apple has enabled Deep Fusion for the cameras in the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro. For an explanation of how this works click here. Note that Deep Fusion does not work with the ultrawide lens; it’s limited to the normal and telephoto. You must also turn off “Photo capture outside the frame” in Camera Settings. Finally, Deep Fusion does not work in burst mode and requires a current top of the line iPhone, meaning the 11 or 11 Pro.

By sampling and combining the best parts of multiple images Deep Fusion claims to further improve the already stellar results from the iPhone 11’s camera. It’s not easy to test, however, as it only kicks in with moderately lit subjects and there’s no indication that it’s working.

To compare results, I took one indoor image using iOS 13.1, downloaded the update, and took a second image with iOS 13.2, the one with Deep Fusion.

Here’s the original:

Before and after exposures and ISOs were identical. No processing was applied in Lightroom.

Here is the center of the image magnified to a print size of 60″ x 80″:

Regular (left) and Deep Fusion images.

There is just a little more detail (and less aggressive sharpening by the iPhone) in the butterfly’s wings in the Deep Fusion version, less smearing and slightly lower contrast.

Now let’s take a look at the shadows nearer the edge:

Regular (left) and Deep Fusion images.

Again there is a very small gain in definition but a significant reduction in grain and less smearing of the detail. Contrast in the Deep Fusion version is again lower.

So does Deep Fusion improve things? Yes. Is that improvement really significant? No.

But the above – these are enormous enlargements – confirm that the days of gargantuan sensors are numbered. A pinhead sized sensor combining multiple images shows barely any grain and more definition than any photographer looking at a 30″ display will ever need. Unlike on your DSLR, that sensor is dust and waterproof. As for web publication, it bears repeating: No one needs more than 3mp.

More than meets the eye.

Apple tells us that the exciting ultrawide (UWA) lens in the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro is fixed focus. At 1.3mm focal length (13mm FFE) that’s hardly a limiting factor. Looking at SOOC images from the UWA, everything is indeed sharp from some 6″ to infinity.

This SOOC image testifies to that:

The loudspeaker is 6″ from the UWA lens. No distortion correction applied.

But a quick look at this image in Focos discloses that a full depth map is saved with the photo, and it’s a matter of a second to change focus from ultra close to infinity, thus:

Focus alternatively on the speaker and at infinity, using Focos.
Distortion removed using my lens correction profile.

Is the definition any better? No. It’s identical. Are the creative possibilities great? You betcha! Can your $10,000 full frame DSLR do this? Nope.

iPhone 11 Pro.

No more mustaches.

Click here for an index of all iPhone articles.
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

It’s common when correcting distortions in ultrawide lenses to end up with a ‘mustache’ effect in originally straight lines. You can see it in my corrected images taken with the otherwise excellent 20mm f/3.5 UD Nikkor.

The 1.54mm (13mm equivalent on FFE) ultrawide (UWA) lens in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro suffers from this malady. Use the distortion correction slider in LR and you get the mustache.

Here’s the uncorrected original image – Apple applies no distortion correction to images taken with the UWA:

Straight out of camera image shows heavy distortion of straight lines.

You can correct the distortion using this setting in the LR Develop module, and get the mustache distortion:

Spherical distortion correction in LR yields the ‘mustache’ effect.

Or you can manually invoke my newly created lens correction profile for the UWA thus, using the Develop module, for truly straight lines at the edges:

How to invoke my iPhone 11/11Pro UWA lens correction profile.

Here is the comparison of the LR corrected image, left, with that corrected using my lens correction profile, on the right:

Comparing LR correction with that from my UWA lens correction profile.

Now you can use that wild UWA lens in the iPhone 11/11 Pro for architectural images.

Go to my Lens Profiles page to download the profile – jump to the end. That page includes installation instructions which must be followed carefully if the profile is to show up in the LR Develop module.

This profile works with JPGs only, not with RAW files unlike the other profiles in that linked page.

The digital zoom function.

Click here for an index of all iPhone articles.

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

Here’s the image before enlargement or zooming:

The original scene.

Here it is enlarged and zoomed:

LR enlargement at left. iPhone digital zoom at right. .

In addition to its choice of three lenses for non-selfie photography, the iPhone offers a digital zoom. In the Camera app you hold your finger on any one of the lens selection icons – 0.5X, 1X or 2X – and a rotatable protractor appears at the right allowing enlargement options up to 10X. While this protractor will appear for any of the three lenses, the iPhone only uses the best lens for digital zooming, the 1X optic. The digital zoom function is accessible in Photo mode, not in Portrait (blurred background) mode.

At 10x LR reports an effective FFE focal length of 270mm. That’s seriously long, but are the results any good?

To take a closer look I took one image using the 1X lens at the regular 1X un-zoomed setting and the other at the 10X digital zoom setting. Importing both into LR I enlarged the central section of the 1X un-zoomed image to the same size at that in the 10X digitally zoomed image. Stated differently, the first image was using enlargement in LR and the second was using the iPhone’s digital zoom function to enlarge the center when the original was snapped.

The results – see above – discloses that the iPhone digital zoom image (on the right) shows fewer artifacts than the LR enlarged one. It also shows meaningfully less grain/digital noise. So zooming ‘in camera’ beats selective enlargement in post-processing.

Is it usable?

At a pinch, yes. An 8″ x 10″ print from the digital zoom file is just about presentable if you avoid sticking your nose in the print, but the image is clearly breaking up. So on those occasions where you need to really zoom in, by all means use the digital zoom in preference to later enlargement in software, just be aware that there are limits as to what can be extracted from that tiny iPhone sensor.

To liven things up a bit and to increase apparent definition and blur the background, simply pass the iPhone’s digitally zoomed image through Focos and you get this:

Focos does not get blurring of the love knot-enclosed background right.

Not half bad, huh?

Control of dynamic range and Night Mode.

Click here for an index of all iPhone articles.

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

Outstanding results, no user input required.

This image, snapped handheld on my patio the other night, is of a subject with extreme dynamic range. The firepit and flowerbeds were in pitch darkness, but the iPhone 11 Pro came through, automatically switching to Night Mode. Unlike with the iPhone 7, HDR is not a switchable option. It’s working all the time – as it should be – and the superb Night Mode kicks in invisibly when needed. The image is straight out of the iPhone camera, absent a small crop to restore verticals. The cameras actually takes some 5 seconds to record nine images, with the CPU selecting the best bits for the final result. A moving indicator on the left of the screen reminds you to be patient. Note that Night Mode is not available when using the 0.5X lens; it’s automatically invoked in poor light with the 1X and 2X lenses. There are no stitching or digital artifacts visible.

Lightroom reports the exposure as 0.5 seconds at f/1.8, and the iPhone has cranked up the ISO to 800. Though the snap was made handheld, the details are tack sharp with grain barely visible in 1:1 pixel peeping on screen. That means a 30″ wide print. Further, an outstanding job has been done of color rendering, from the warm interior of the sitting room, to the white light on the love cross.

The only way to obtain a like image with big digital gear would be to take multiple images for HDR layering using a tripod, and applying extensive post processing labor. The post processing labor involved here was exactly zero, which can only ever be a good thing. Spending time at a computer display trying to make your poor pictures look better is time wasted. For me HC-B is the exemplar here. He never processed a single roll of film or printed an image. He had a back office functionary execute these mundane tasks, applying fungible skills, ones which could be executed by thousands of like operators. His time was better spent taking pictures. The dynamic range processing in the iPhone 11 provides that functionary at no extra charge.

There are many reasons to like the iPhone 11 but I’m learning that control of dynamic range may be the most important one for photographers.

Here are the EXIF data for that snap (GPS location hidden):

Note that the file is a mere 2.24mB in size, making Lightroom behave once more like a spring chicken. It is a JPG not RAW, and remains tack sharp at huge enlargements, virtually grain free. Data selection and computational photography are at work here. For reference, a 14mp RAW file from my (sold) Panasonic GX7 MFT camera saved as a TIFF/PSD/DNG or whatever uncompressed format you favor, balloons to 42mp. The 50mp sensor in a gigantic DSLR generates a 150mp (150mp!) uncompressed file which needs a faster computer and more hard drive storage to load in a reasonable time. And you will need to combine several of those files for one HDR image. I’ll take the iPhone’s 2mB over the DSLR’s terabyte (500 times larger) any day.