Jason Hiner/ZDNET
Apple put quite a lot of its deal with the skilled digicam options within the new iPhone 15 Professional and Professional Max throughout this week’s launch occasion.
The truth is, Apple dropped so many ideas, phrases, and acronyms in such a brief area of time that it might need left your head spinning.
Additionally: Every thing Apple simply introduced: iPhone 15, Apple Watch Extremely 2, AirPods
Concern not, as now we have now time to breathe, we will return over these options and clarify their significance.
Let’s begin with the knowledge dump on this one slide:
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Focal size is a shorthand for explaining how large a picture the digicam lens will seize. The smaller the quantity, the broader the seize.
Technically right here, the lens is not a 24 millimeter lens, however a 24 millimeter-equivalent lens, however we are going to overlook that.
2.44 µm (micron) is the dimensions of the pixels capturing the sunshine within the sensor, and quad-pixel refers to how 4 pixels are grouped to behave as a bigger 2.44 micron pixel.
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Every 2×2 grouping of pixels is assigned a single coloration, and 4 of those pixel bundles are then grouped collectively in two inexperienced bundles and one blue and pink bundle. Inexperienced will get extra pixels as a result of the human eye is essentially the most delicate to that coloration.
100% focus pixels means all of the pixels are used for the needs of focusing the picture. Prior to now, solely a number of the pixels had been used, however utilizing all of the pixels is now widespread in high-end sensors.
Aperture refers to how a lot mild is let onto the sensor by the lens, and is measured in f-stop numbers. The decrease this quantity, the extra mild the lens permits.
OIS stands for Optical Picture Stabilization, which is a method the place the lens or sensor is shifted with a view to compensate for the motion of the digicam whereas the shot is being taken.
Different phrases dropped in the course of the occasion had been RAW and ProRAW.
RAW might be considered a digital detrimental (keep in mind movie negatives?), which is a file format that saves the uncooked knowledge captured by the sensor with out processing it or changing it right into a file, equivalent to a JPG. RAW recordsdata are larger and comprise extra element, however require modifying earlier than being printed or posted on social media.
ProRAW is an Apple file format that makes use of the trade commonplace digital detrimental (DNG) file format to permit the file to be edited in high-end modifying instruments, equivalent to Adobe Lightroom.
Additionally: What’s ProRes and why does Apple preserve mentioning it?
One other closely used time period was optical zoom, which is a method the place the picture is magnified by the lens itself, versus digital zoom, which merely crops in on the picture, and consequently loses element.
There’s additionally HDR, which stands for Excessive Dynamic Vary pictures. It is a method that mixes a number of pictures right into a single picture to get extra element within the highlights (vivid areas) and shadows (darkish areas).
Macro pictures is the place you get in near the topic — equivalent to flowers or bugs — to take close-up photographs.
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Now, let’s transfer onto video — and the very first thing I want to clarify is ProRes.
Apple talks rather a lot about ProRes as a result of it is a video codec (brief for encoder/decoder, or generally compressor/decompressor) developed by Apple. ProRes, which dates again to 2007, is particular as a result of, whereas it compresses the video — and this compression will invariably outcome within the lack of some picture element (that is sometimes called “lossy”) — this misplaced picture element will not be visually noticeable.
To place that one other manner, ProRes is a visually lossless, lossy video compression format.
The draw back of ProRes is that file sizes are large, but it surely does make modifying a lot simpler and higher.
To mitigate the massive storage wants that ProRes places on videographers, the iPhone 15 Professional helps recording to exterior drives — such because the Samsung T7 SSD — which signifies that you are not restricted to the space for storing you’ve gotten obtainable on the iPhone.
Two different bits of jargon sprinkled into the protection of the digicam had been Log encoding and LUTs.
Log encoding is a profile that information video with a flat, muted coloration profile to seize and keep extra particulars in highlights and shadows. The iPhone 15 Professional is the primary smartphone to help ACES, the Academy Shade Encoding System.
Additionally: iPhone 15 Professional vs. iPhone 14 Professional: Which mannequin is greatest to purchase?
The draw back is that this format must be edited earlier than use, and one of many modifying steps it to use a LUT, or Look Up Desk, which is a file that comprises data to remap and rework the flat footage into video that has coloration and distinction, which might then be additional edited to match no matter model is desired.
Modifying video that is formatted in Log — and dealing with LUTs — requires skilled instruments, equivalent to Adobe Premier Professional.
I hope this rundown helps these of you who had been confused by a number of the terminology used, and maybe it is even inspired you to be a little bit extra inventive — or technical — in your pictures or videography.