How iPhone 14 Pro's Whopping 48MP Camera Will Change Your Phone Photography
How iPhone 14 Pro's Whopping 48MP Camera Will Change Your Phone PhotographyApple follows Samsung and others with sensors that can capture more photo detail.Apple's iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Plus phone get better main and selfie cameras, but serious smartphone photographers will be more interested in the iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max announced Wednesday. These higher-end phones come with a 48-megapixel main camera designed to capture more detail and, in effect, add a whole new telephoto camera.
The $999 iPhone 14 Pro and $1,099 iPhone 14 Pro Max start with a better hardware foundation. Their main camera's image sensor is 65% larger than last year's, a boost that helps double its low-light performance, said Victor Silva, an iPhone product manager. Low-light performance, a critical shortcoming in smartphone cameras, triples on the ultrawide angle camera and triples on the telephoto.
But it's the 48-megapixel sensor that deserves the most attention. It can be used two ways. First, the central 12 megapixels of the image can act as a 2X zoom telephoto camera by cropping out the outer portion of the image. Second, when shooting in Apple's more advanced ProRaw format, you can take 48-megapixel images. That's good for taking big landscape photos with lots of detail or for giving yourself more flexibility to crop a photo without losing too much resolution.
Cameras are one of the most noticeable changes in smartphone models from one year to the next, especially since engineers have embraced thicker, protruding lenses as a signature design element. Customers who might not notice a faster processor do notice the arrival of new camera modules, like the ultrawide angle and telephoto options that now are common on high-end phones.
Apple unveiled the new camera technology at its fall product launch event, a major moment on the annual technology calendar. The iPhone itself is an enormous business, but it's also a foundation of a huge technology ecosystem deeply embedded into millions of peoples' lives, including services like iCloud and Apple Arcade and accessories like the new second-generation AirPods Pro and Apple Watch Series 8.
Pixel binning comes to the iPhone
Apple has stuck with 12-megapixel main cameras since first using them in the iPhone 6S in 2015. The approach offered a reasonable balance of detail and low-light performance without breaking the bank or overtaxing the phone processors that handle image data. But rivals, most notably Samsung, have added image sensors with 48 megapixels and even 108 megapixels.
More pixels aren't necessarily better. Increasing megapixel counts means decreasing the size of each pixel, and that can hurt image quality unless there's lots of light.
But by joining 2x2 or 3x3 pixel groups together into a single virtual pixel, an approach called pixel binning, camera makers get more flexibility. When there's abundant light, the camera can take a 48-megapixel image that lets you dive into the photo's details better. But if it's dim, the camera will use the virtual pixels to take a 12-megapixel shot that suffers less from image noise and other problems.
Apple event: Full coverage
Everything Apple Announced: iPhone 14, Apple Watch Series 8 and More
iPhone 14 and 14 Plus Start at $799 Featuring Camera Updates
Apple's New AirPods Pro 2 Get Better Noise Canceling
iPhone 14 Pro, Pro Max Get New Notch with Dynamic Island Feature
Apple Watch Series 8 Unveiled
When shooting ordinary photos with the iPhone 14 Pro models, Apple will take 12-megapixel shots, whether with the ultrawide camera, the main wide-angle camera, the 3X telephoto camera or the new 2X telephoto option that uses the middle of the main camera sensor. To get the full 48 megapixels, you'll have to use Apple's ProRaw mode, which offers more detail and editing flexibility but requires some manual labor to convert into a conveniently shareable JPEG or HEIC image.
"You can now shoot ProRaw at 48 megapixel resolution, taking advantage of every pixel in the main camera," Silva said. "It's unbelievable how much we can zoom in."
2022-09-07 20:04:47
