Unleashing the Full Potential of Your Photography with the iPhone 11 Camera

With the release of the iPhone XR with a single-lens camera, Apple did not succeed in providing a practical product for the photography enthusiast segment compared to the competitors, but this has changed this year, with the great iPhone 11 camera experience, as the company added 120-degree lenses for ultra-wide photography, To enrich the captured scene even more, which you won't find with Google's Pixel 4.

Lens kit

The main lens came with 12 megapixels, and f / 1.8 lens slot, which is the same as the iPhone 11 Pro. Several improvements have been added this year, starting with Autofocus, which has become three times faster in low-light conditions, through to Smart HDR optimization for more balanced photography with high contrast in lighting, as well as a new feature called Semantic Rendering or Semantic Image Output, which We'll cover them in detail later in this article.

As mentioned, the device is enhanced with wide-angle imaging capabilities (Wide-Angle) with a larger and more powerful sensor for light sensing, in addition to a working mechanism or 100% Focus Pixel feature, and it has been equipped with a telephoto lens with f / 2.0 aperture to be able to capture a quantity of light 40% better than the latest version.

The Ultra-Wide camera does not offer shooting capabilities with Focus Pixels or even OIS, and it is 5-element instead of six, so it is somewhat limited in capacity, but at the same time it is capable of capturing deep imaging data to allow for a true Portrait mode. Or the real iPhone 11, and custom Portrait Mode with Wide-Angle and Telephoto lens on both iPhone 11 Pro. Also, there is a new virtual lens style Wide-Angel to improve image output; It's not just about actions and calculations in real physical lenses, with the addition of the High Key Mono Portrait Lighting effect.

The imaging system also enables the semantic image output feature; That is, the ability to understand the elements of a scene, and the procedures required to interact and interact with them in photography, in addition to the dual-scale rendering of layers and impressions of the elements, which makes the Smart HDR feature more intelligent and effective, especially when it comes to photographing the skin.

Now, given the three cameras or lenses - Telephoto, Wide-Angle, and Ultra-Wide-Angle - with multiple and different shooting modes - Smart HDR, Deep Fusion, and Night Mode - the iPhone 11's imaging system looks really complicated, but looking at how it works Apple For all that, this complexity becomes very simple.

The nature and features of iPhone 11 cameras

Apparent; It's like zooming out or zooming in on an Ultra-Wide camera when using a telephoto lens. Actually, Apple has fused everything into one melting pot, so the lenses share scene data and shooting actions. Entire, to deliver an experience that is seamless and stable, so that the scene, the color balance, and everything remain exactly as they are.

Smart HDR

The Smart HDR feature is mainly used for effects such as Portrait Mode, as is the case with all Ultra-Wide camera photos, Wide-angel bright images, and also high-bright scenes with a telephoto lens, such as shooting a scene. From nature on a sunny day, where the dynamic dimension is high to handle sharp contrast, intrinsically preserving the greatest detail and shadows. Today, and in its second generation, Smart HDR is enhanced with machine learning capabilities to distinguish humans in the scene and treat them accordingly, allowing the smallest details, shadows and skin tones to be optimized.

Deep Fusion

This feature is currently under development and experimentation, and is used for medium-to-weak-light images, as is the case with photography inside the home or room, and the processes that take place with this pattern are highly intelligent and sophisticated, beyond imagination. The camera initially takes four shots or basic scenes, as well as four short or quick scenes, before the actual photo is taken, and then takes a long scene when taking the photo.

After that, the best scene is selected from the four short (or fast) scenes, the closest to the actual shooting time, and least affected by movement or camera delay, and all this is submitted to the machine learning system.

Now, each of the two 12-megapixel lens images are locked in a series of neural networks, which compare each pixel from the first to its counterpart separately, and across the entire image, to combine the best possible color layer with the finest details inspired by the scene, side by side. With the clearest and least intrusive build.

The camera is able to recognize and understand faces and skin, the sky, trees and plants, logs and pieces of wood, the ripples of clothes, and customize all of that in one final image, with the smallest details and the best colors.

In short, just as Portrait Mode is dedicated to creating a level of depth when photographing with this type of relatively small camera system, Deep Fusion is concerned with capturing a greater level of detail in the scene, which usually requires very large lenses and larger and more accurate sensors, but by Accurate and ultra-intelligent processing operations within the phone.

IPhone 11 camera experience in night mode

IPhone 11 shines brightly in this field, and although the night mode here is not as customizable as it is on Google's Pixel devices, it automatically detects conditions in the middle of photography to provide an excellent and smooth photography experience. Of course, it can be disabled, or left to run automatically, or set to shoot according to the longest possible scene, as determined by the camera, and here most shots require between two to three seconds.

At the physical hardware level; Night mode works at less than 10 Lux on a Wide-Angle camera, and uses wide apertures and 100% Focus Pixels to soak up the captured scene as much light as possible.

From the image processing side; The night mode uses units of separation or distinction whose work is, of course, based on what can be described and determined from the elements of the scene, and these units can be very short in character with increased susceptibility to movement, or long with more shadows, and then they are combined together, in order to Reducing blurring in the scene on the one hand, and increasing the amount of captured details on the other hand, with the ability to distinguish and output image components such as the face and its parts, and skin tones with the best color and detail.

Compared to the Pixel 3 XL, the iPhone 11 offers more natural colors, and gives a more vivid and realistic impression of the scene with lighting only certain parts, while the Pixel 3 XL suspiciously increases the white color contrast, and exaggerates the lighting of the whole scene.

IPhone 11 front camera experience

The front camera got a good upgrade with a 12-megapixel sensor compared to a 7-megapixel resolution on the iPhone XR, which is a better judgment, especially with the Portrait Mode for selfies, and to take note; The default setting for Portrait mode selfie photography is that you only capture 7 megapixel photos. Speaking of the video on this camera, Apple has confirmed again, as the phone is capable of capturing 4K video at 60 frames per second with a fair amount of stability, and here it is necessary to commend the new Apple feature; Slofie, which allows shooting selfies at a rate of 120 frames per second at a resolution of 1080p.

Simplicity and perfection in the iPhone 11 camera experience

Perhaps more important than all of the above is the ease with which the iPhone 11 camera experience can be made, as you only have to press the shutter button, and here it is, we're done! The imaging system simply selects the best photography mode available, whether it is Smart HDR, Deep Fusion, or Night Mode, and there is no need to bear any burdens about manual adjustment or waiting, as nothing can prevent you from getting the best picture directly from your phone.

However, this does not mean that you cannot select the shooting mode manually. For example, you can turn off the night mode and choose the normal shooting method instead, and in general, this means that the cameras on the phone - especially at night - have become purely abstract cameras, only. And when it comes to Portrait Mode or Panorama, these are two things that are very practical and fast, and there's no harm in adopting them always. In any case, Apple's main idea is to experiment with the iPhone 11 camera as a whole by providing the best and fastest possible imaging process without bothering the user, but rather to reassure that his phone is always ready to provide the best and most beautiful picture possible as soon as it is captured directly.