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.

Quirks and anomalies.

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

This article mostly examines some of the non-camera issues of the iPhone 11 Pro. Previous pieces have focused largely on the iPhone’s use as a still camera. The iPhone 11 is not all sweetness and light and in some instances the maker has regressed. I address these areas below.

Without a proper case the iPhone 11 is an accident waiting to happen. It’s slippery as an eel, will not sustain a drop on concrete – forget the Apple videos, it’s glass front and back, for heaven’s sake – and has thin, rounded sides which invite dropping. Get a protective case, and I don’t mean one of those poncy silicone designer things. Good stout leather is called for, affording a proper grip.

Face ID only works in vertical orientation with the screen notch pointing up. Other orientations do not work as, presumably, it only knows your facial contours one way up. Not a big deal but as I pre-visualize images before raising the camera, I learned that raising the iPhone 11 Pro in landscape mode expecting Face ID to do its thing is a non-starter.

Face ID seems especially sensitive if you switch between glasses/no glasses. I had originally programmed it wearing eyeglasses and noticed it would hesitate for several seconds on occasion if my glasses were removed. It must be especially sensitive to the detail in the eyes, I would guess. No matter. I programmed an additional ‘face’ without glasses and all is again well, and super fast. I still have difficulty believing just how fast it is and how it works even with relatively acute face-to-display angles. This is a magnificent implementation of a technology no one asked for.

FaceID is currently limited to two ‘faces’. More would be nice to allow use by friends and relatives.

I do find the notch at the top of the screen – where the Face ID sensors and selfie camera reside – much more of an irritant than I expected. Just something to get used to, I suppose.

You cannot get the battery percentage to show on the home screen. The notch at the top for all the Face ID and selfie tech leaves too little space. The quickest way is to swipe diagonally down from the top right and the percentage will be disclosed. Not that big a deal as the battery life is extraordinary. Despite several days of hard use I could not get it to fall below 65% at the end of the day.

Getting the battery percentage to show.

The option to show large app icons has gone. There’s a clunky workaround using zooming, but it’s sub-optimal. Like the inappropriate manner of its hipster Apple Store clerks, Apple has forgotten that the core of its affluent base is older people – with older eyes. They like hipsters as much as they do small icons.

Small icons only – a shame.

Taking screenshots is far trickier than of old. You have to press the ‘volume up’ button on the left briefly while holding down the power button on the right. Try that one handed.

Some genius at Apple has decided to remove the Loupe feature which made editing such a pleasure on the small screen; the replacement – a vertical cursor – is awful and makes editing far harder. Go figure. Change for change’s sake.

Apple makes its usual claims about enhanced thumbprint resistance, stating that new coatings help. The display still merrily gathers fingerprints, but I have to say it’s better than before.

Everything you have read about the extraordinary battery life of the latest iPhones is true. Even after a hard day’s use I find mine is still at 50% whereas with iPhone 7 it would be below 20%. As my third Kindle has now failed I will use the iPhone for reading on cross country flights. Despite Amazon’s dishonest claims (the real details are in the fine print), using decent brightness it is impossible to have your Kindle survive such a flight. None of my last five did. None. And as my third one has now failed – a crazed display this time – I am through with the gadget. So that’s $200 saved right there.

Apple states that the brightest display on any of its iPhones is the OLED one in the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max. It’s certainly the best I have yet used in bright sun, and that includes all I have tried on digital cameras, but it could still be brighter for really bright light. But one gets by. For what it’s worth the OLED display delivers true blacks, but OLED screens are far better used in big TVs, in my opinion, than in small hand held devices.

And processing images from the camera on that small display is not easy. Outlining small areas is very difficult and, frankly, the display is really too small to be of much use for photo editing. I export to an iPad when touch screen editing is called for, then on to LR on the desktop.

As for water resistance, I am not about to test this but such is the liability exposure for lying that I am inclined to believe Apple.

I can assure you your high priced DSLR cannot survive this.

Apple claims: “iPhone 11 is water resistant up to 2 meters for up to 30 minutes”. Having once fallen in the pool with my iPhone 6 attached by belt holster – it immediately died – that’s nice to know. I was drilling a hole for a thermometer lanyard, and the laws of physics disagreed with me.

Finally, the tricky subject of settings. The number of variables which can be set in the Settings app is now overwhelming. Given the modern fad for refusing to publish a proper instruction book, I am gradually working my way through these to see if there’s something which will make life simpler of which I am ignorant. Surely, Apple can do a better job of this?

My commitment to the iPhone 11 Pro can be gauged from the contents of my gear cabinet. All the MFT hardware has been sold, leaving film and digital FF Nikon bodies and some old lenses, mostly MF. Of these only the 50/2 Nikkor MF compares for resolution to the lenses in the iPhone. All the others are worse or far worse and neither body has a hope when it comes to proper control of dynamic range in the recorded image. The iPhone is simply in a different class in that regard.

Gear cabinet denuded.

All gear dies and why anyone would collect useless, depreciating, lumps of metal and plastic which will cease functioning in the near term, mystifies me. This is, let’s face it, obsolete, crappy old gear devoid of art or artifice, not an appreciating Ferrari collectible artwork clothed by a master like Pininfarina or Scaglietti.

Disclosure: I have no relationship with the Apple Corporation, I own no stock or derivatives in Apple, and I am in no way remunerated by them. I do think the iPhone 11 Pro is a groundbreaking device of unique value added to photographers. Finally, I would rather have a root canal then have to visit an Apple store.

The world of photography is irrevocably changed.

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

Back in 1971, having diligently saved my pennies for two years, I finally picked up my first serious camera, a Leica M3, nicely used, with a collapsible 50mm Elmar lens. We were made for one another and great snaps and – more importantly for this impoverished student – prize money, came to me like a tsunami. The possibilities seemed endless – one camera, one lens, one film and one developer. TriX and D76, of course. It worked for HC-B. Who was I to argue?

I felt that thrill, along with an awestruck realization that anything was possible, just twice in my life as a snapper. The second time it came in the combination of the iPhone 11 Pro and a $13 application named Focos. The latter was recommended to me by a friend who just happens to be a professor at CalTech. A blown away friend of the prof’s had demonstrated Focos to my friend, who was in turn blown away. Now there are three exploded heads to be found. I have joined the caste of the blown away.

First, before we get to the fancy stuff, Focos offers a raft of aspect ratios, from square to letterbox.

By contrast, the iPhone offers just square, the unutterably boring 4:3 of Kodak prints of yesteryear, and the too-wide-most-of-the-time 16:9. Naturally, I immediately switched to 3:2 because that’s the way Oskar Barnack decreed it and it’s how I learned to see with the film Leica. I still see in 3:2 today, unless I’m watching a movie.

But that’s just the tip of the Focos iceberg. Focos integrates the picture taking and cataloging/processing functions into one app. There’s a horizon level which beats anything I have used, using rangefinder Leica style alignment lines plus a haptic buzz when the camera is level. You can’t miss it, even in bright light when the lines are hard to see. That’s great for architecture photographers and for ultrawide lens users and with a killer ultrawide in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro, it could not be more useful.

Now the magic begins as every still image captured by the iPhone 11records its own depth map, telling the software the distance of every point of detail. Yes, that even includes images taken with the ultrawide, which is fixed focus. And Focos allows you to add your favorite lens blur from a choice of 15 classic lenses, not to mention your specification of focus point (just touch the screen) and aperture. It’s all trivially easy to do, the only problem being it gets harder as your head has just exploded.

Long time readers may recall my ruminations about the Lytro camera which tried to bring depth data to image recording. That valiant effort failed, courtesy of a minuscule capital budget, and I rather unfairly styled it “a solution looking for a problem”. It was the quality and implementation of the solution that were poor. The idea itself, enhancing creative options in post processing, remains valid and Apple’s infinite funds and the genius of a brilliant Chinese developer behind Focos have made the Lytro dream a reality.

Let me cut to the chase.

Here’s a straight-out-of-camera ultrawide image, the fixed focus lens option of the iPhone’s trio of choices:

As usual the vast dynamic range is automatically controlled and everything is sharp from here to eternity.

Here are some of the lens profiles available for blur in Focos:

Now, loading the image in Focos, I touched the central area of the yellow Lantana blooms, and cracked the aperture slider to f/2. As it was Barnack time I elected the blur profile of the Elmar lens and here is the happy result:

Another touch on the horizon and a second later I got:

So now you can get an ultrawide field of view with crazy narrow focus – or not – and your lens blur of choice.

And just as I was writing the above, contemplating the evening cocktail, who should email me but that self same CalTech prof, the one with the large brain which dictates widened doors in his abode, who tells me that you can distinguish focus and exposure points when taking the picture using Focos. Sure enough. You touch the ‘x’ sign on the yellow focus rectangle and a purple circle appears which is the exposure metering area. Oskar is now spinning in his grave.

This is serious magic.

The world of computational photography, with an additional layer of depth data stored with every image, has changed how we see picture taking and processing for ever. I cannot wait to explore the creative possibilities of limited depth of focus, something unavailable in my last decade with Micro Four-Thirds hardware, where everything is pretty much sharp all the time. The world of Auto Blur is now a great deal easier to enjoy.

Other magic? Why, yes. You don’t like the direction of the lighting? The 3D map and Focos can fix that. Do I want to do that? No. But it’s nice to know that I can.

By the way, for these aging eyes the iPhone display is too small to work on. I simply export the image to the iPad where I have also installed Focos, and have at it on a decent sized display.

The telephoto lens.

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

Traditionally, a ‘telephoto’ lens was one whose physical length was lower than it’s optical length. One of the great early designs was the Tele-Elmarit for the Leica M which squeezed its 90mm into something
more like 70mm. In modern vernacular ‘telephoto’ implies ‘long’, which I suppose means anything from an 85mm portrait lens (FFE) to a 500mm monster beloved of animal spotters and Kremlin operatives.

So while it’s a stretch calling the 52mm FFE 2X lens in the iPhone Pro a telephoto, it is a nice long length compared with the other two lenses and is distinguished by its presence on the iPhone 11 Pro and Pro Max only. The regular iPhone 11 gets the two shorter lenses only.

As with the 1x standard optic, the 2X works in Portrait mode, meaning blurred backgrounds are automatically added in processing in the iPhone.

There’s not a lot to be said about the telephoto that is not obvious, and suffice it to say that it’s nice to have and trivial to switch to with a touch of the screen. And I’ll bet you dollars to dougnuts that a future iteration of the iPhone will add a fourth rear facing lens of 100mm focal length.

Here are some snaps from the 2X lens:

All of these are straight out-of-camera. The absence for much need for post processing with the iPhone 11 Pro’s images is a noteworthy enhancement, care of the clever software programming powered by that wondrous A13 CPU. It’s also notable in adjacent snaps switching between the three lenses that color, dynamic range and exposure are superbly balanced.

The standard lens.

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

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:

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.