Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “1000 photos later: iPhone 15 Pro Max is still missing something”.
In 2007, Steve Jobs unveiled the very first iPhone it had: a 30 pin dock connector, a headphone jack, a volume rocker a mute switch and this a 2 megapixel camera, a camera that would grow and grow and grow into seven lenses of endless photographic possibilities. This is the iPhone 15 Pro Max and after taking a thousand photos on this 1200 system, I can say without a doubt that it is the best camera Apple has ever built. But if it’s really for pros it’s missing one big thing: I’m Becca welcome back to full frame. Here I go the thing the iPhone 15 Pro Max is.
Finally, not missing is a viable telephoto lens, the five times 120 millimeter telephoto lens on the iPhone 15 Pro Max is great and it is a welcome change from the three-time zoom on the iPhone 14 pro Max and even the iPhone 15 Pro, which is around 77 Millimeters, it is, of course not as far reaching as Samsung’s s23 Ultra with its 10 times or 230 millimeter lens, and therefore it doesn’t flatten out the image quite as much and it’s not as sharp in Perfect Light either, but like the s23 ultra, the iPhone’s telephoto Lens features Optical image, stabilization, which keeps photos not blurry, despite the longer focal length at night, though, the telephoto lenses small sensor creates a good deal of noise and in some situations the iPhone 15 Pro Max will automatically crop the main sensor instead of using the telephoto And there is no way to override this choice in the native camera app, but outside of the telephoto lens. On the hardware side, there isn’t a whole lot new here there is a new lens coating for Less Reflections at night, which I’m happy to report. There are less Reflections, although still some and apple claims low light portrait. Shots are made better by using a lidar Skinner which I’ll come back to shortly and, of course, there’s a usb-c port and an action button which I immediately set to open the camera Avi. But this is purely playing catch up to Android, where double tapping the power button launches the camera, and, thank God I I do wish the action button was below the volume rockers though it is far too high for a phone.
This large is doing even more on the software side this year, but more on that a moment. First, a message from our sponsor thanks Becca out here in Southern California, we’re all about putting the top down feeling the breeze and finding our next adventure in the new 2024 Jeep Wrangler in cluded. In the choose, your adventure, anytime and anywhere. The latest model has a huge 12.3 inch touchscreen and the 4xe hybrid model is the most capable Wrangler ever now.
Jeep doesn’t influence our editorial, but they do help us make videos like this possible. Alright, that’s for me back to y’all. I’Ve made it apple is, of course, touting the fact that users now have access to quote unquote: seven different lenses on the 15 Pro Max. So there are three native lenses: the 13 millimeter 12 megapixel Ultra wide, the 24 millimeter 48 megapixel main lens and the new 120 millimeter 12 megapixel telephoto lens. Then using deep fusion and a special pipeline as Apple likes to call it three other lenses are unlocked. You could say: there’s the 28 millimeter, the 35 millimeter and the 48 millimeter that all use the 48 megapixel main sensor, and I’m going to use two words about these quote-unquote lenses that I don’t often use with Apple’s camera systems.
The new lenses are fun and they are accessible. I’Ve become so used to tools being hidden behind confusing UI like a deep settings menu or this horrible arrow that unlocks camera controls, but these lenses they are right at your fingertips and quickly. I was playing around with Framing and focal lengths, far more than I usually do. The problem is they’re, not really different.
Lenses like when I put a 50 millimeter lens on the Sony a7r mark IV, for example, the photos have a different feeling than when I put the 24 millimeter on typically the longer the lens, the the flatter the image is going to be, and when you put Something wide like a 24 on there might be a little warping on the edges. So, no matter how good your image pipeline is, you are just cropping a sensor at the end of the day and obviously the iPhone 15 Pro Max cannot replicate the amount of detail that you’ll get from a full-frame camera. This phone loves faces I’ve never driven in sand before when the iPhone 15 Pro Max detects the face of a human, a cat or a dog, a small F will appear at the bottom left-hand side of the frame, meaning that the camera is automatically saving depth.
Information with the photo, which means that after the photo is taken, you can apply the portrait effect. It also will do this anytime. You tap on the frame.
Samsung has had a similar feature for many years, and Samsung still has a better cutout around faces. Folks, we got ta go easy on our iOS friends. This is new to them. They are very excited. Let’S let them have this moment.
What’S more exciting, though, is how much better the iPhone has gotten at taking photos of people at night with its new lidar sensor. Perfect, the pixel 7 Pro once reigned Supreme in this department, but now the iPhone makes those photos look dark and not as sharp it’s a huge win for apple and even though these images border on too contrasty and at times over sharpened, especially on a larger screen. They look great for social, but when there is not a face in the frame, the iPhone’s low light performance leaves a bit to be desired.
Photos simply aren’t as sharp as the pixels, but surprisingly, even with a maximum 30. Second exposure. The 15 Pro Max did incredibly well at capturing the Stars, giving the pixel 7 Pro’s Astro mode a run for its money. Digital lenses and better night portraits are great, but this system’s shining achievement is it’s video quality.
I got my sick desert shades on and I’m ready to go. Apple has always produced great video that is true to life and color and sharp without being crunchy I’ll hike. The East Coast till I die, but this is pretty cool, hair. Relaxing mountains.
Look at all them rocks chunks of crystals. You can bring this back to Brooklyn and make a small fortune, but new this year are two very Pro features: prores log and the ability to plug in a hard drive or SD card via the usb-c port. Log footage is helpful for color matching footage to other cameras or having more dynamic range. Basically, you aren’t stuck with Apple’s color profile baked into your footage.
Just be aware that in low light situations there is a good deal of grain having USBC Port allows for faster transfer speeds, which means you can write directly to an external drive. Once you have a drive connected and are shooting in prores, a USBC label will appear at the bottom of the camera app to indicate its writing to the drive. This also unlocks 4K 60 frames per second prores log, shooting hey edit Becca.
Here, it’s good to see you, oh my gosh. How have you been uh anyway, thanks for tuning in you may notice that my 4K 60 frames per second video is not 60 frames per? Second, that’s because, while I was out roaming free in the desert, I was using uh the wrong Cable. In fact, a cable that isn’t fast enough and at no time did the 15 Pro Max.
Tell me that my tech wasn’t up to spec. So when I got back and into the edit and all my footage was choppy, I was just left sad, really really sad and now I’m in an ugly office and it’s night time out, and so you know, here’s some footage of me spinning in a chair to Prove that you can shoot 4k60 prores, you just need to have all the right things, and you need to know that you have the right things, because the camera will not tell you all right back to the video for folks. Looking for smaller file sizes and perfect lighting conditions, the 4K 20 frames per second video quality is great and, as a few folks online have pointed out action mode which further stabilizes your footage is perfectly paired with the new telephoto lens.
This feature is not available at night, though, when the sun sets, the main lens is able to hold on to the blacks and provide a decent image, but the ultrawide continues to be far too dark and the telephoto lens falls into a grainy mess. I haven’t spent a lot of time talking about color, science, sharpness or contrast, and that’s because it’s great I mean it’s always been great. This is kind of amazing check this out.
When you put the 15 Pro Max’s photos next to photos from the very first iPhone. The quality has, of course improved, but they both produce pleasing images, and I don’t know that first iPhone just has this nice kind of like filmic quality to it, plus it’s such a joy to use it’s just so cute, okay, back to the iPhone 15 Pro Max. As per usual with Apple’s camera systems, colors are vivid without slapping you in the face and there’s a good amount of contrast without losing details in the shadows and like last year, the 48 megapixel Raw photos provide an amazing amount of detail. What everyone is calling a slow year of advancements in the iPhone lineup is far from true for the 15 Pro Max’s camera system willy-nilly.
Use of the word lenses aside, having more framing options is great. The video quality is the best you can get on a smartphone and always having portrait mode without having to tell everyone. Use. Portrait mode is very much welcomed, not to mention portraits of people at night.
Look much better, but the missing thing. What is the missing thing? Becca come on it’s control. If this really wants to be a professional camera, you should be able to operate it as such natively. I spoke earlier about being able to film and log and color your footage to your liking.
The problem is, you can’t record your footage to your liking and, yes, there are great apps that allow full manual control, but I don’t understand what is keeping Apple from building it in if I can shoot 4K 60 frames per second prores log, video to an external Drive, I should be able to Rack my own Focus, set my own ISO or change the white balance, even relying solely on the camera system to make these decisions is anything but Pro, and this just feels like the missing puzzle, piece to an otherwise very capable system And while you’re at it it’s time to put all the camera settings into the camera, app yeah, that’s fine. Next day we are lost in the desert Out of Water, Rebecca just went off a cliff and and it’s 110 degrees outside man. I wish I could call for help, but I don’t have the iPhone 15.
So .