Hacking Photography - one Picture at a time
Apple ProRAW is Apple’s latest technological addition to the smartphone photography industry and sets a new starting point for iPhone photography with its introduction to the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max in iOS 14.3.
It is no mystery that smartphone photography is increasingly replacing cameras in many situations: myself, who have been promoting it for at least 10 years, I’ve seen a crazy evolution in this sector.
I figured it probably wouldn’t be much longer until Apple officially released ProRAW. It popped up in the beta only a few weeks ago, and Adobe already supports it in their new M1 version of Lightroom, so it seemed quite obvious that it’d become available at any moment. Well, now it is. Apple has released iOS 14.3 which provides ProRAW support to the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max.
What this change is, in reality, is that Apple’s standard iOS camera app lets you shoot DNG raw files now, too. iOS has actually had the ability to capture DNG raw files for a while now, but you were reliant upon 3rd party camera applications like the camera built into the App. Now, it’s native. But also works in conjunction with Apple’s computational photography features.
Apple recently announced the developer beta for iOS 14.3 which brings with it Apple’s new ProRAW photo feature. iPhones have actually had DNG RAW capabilities since iOS 10, but it’s never offered this capability in the built-in camera app before. You’ve always had to go for third party solutions, like Camera+ or Lightroom.
But now, Apple is implementing it in their own camera app and they’re calling it “ProRAW”. And according to PetaPixel, the cameras within the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max will allow it to capture 12-bit DNG files with up to 14-stops of dynamic range. Other than the capabilities of the actual camera module itself, though, I’m not sure what it offers that iPhone users couldn’t do already.
Even though I’m not an Apple fangirl, I have to admit that the iPhone has come a long way when it comes to camera capabilities. It’s the only smartphone that supports Dolby Vision, so Apple wanted to demonstrate what it can do. In this one-minute ad, you can see a preview of all the crazy, creative, and unexpected ways an iPhone 12 Pro can be used in a Hollywood movie.
No matter what brand of phone you choose to use yourself, the biggest spectacle in the smartphone world each year is undoubtedly the new iPhone releases. This year, that meant the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro (well, and the iPhone 12 Pro Max, but that’s not available yet). And, following on from that announcement is the obligatory teardown from iFixit.
In an hour and a half live stream, Taylor Dixon, iFixit’s Teardown Engineer, took apart both the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro to see how easy it is to dismantle and to take a look at the components inside – including the camera modules (the camera talk is around the 44-minute mark).
I’m not an Apple fanboy by any stretch of the imagination. Before the iPhone 3GS was released, I hadn’t owned an Apple product since the Apple IIe, and I haven’t owned iPhones in a few years now, either. But I have to say, this footage from aerial photographer and filmmaker Toby Harriman shot on the new iPhone 12 Pro is just gorgeous.
Toby was given the chance to test out the newly announced iPhone 12 Pro to see how the hardware handled the challenges of his typical shoots – which means shooting from a helicopter. So, that’s what he did, filming from the air over the beautiful San Francisco bay.
You can find out more about John on his website and follow his adventures on YouTube.
His videos have over a hundred million views, have been extensively published by news outlets, and has even received recognition from a few film festivals, such as International Ocean Festival
FIND THIS INTERESTING? SHARE IT WITH YOUR FRIENDS!