iPhone 11 Pro

[Jim Dockery]

I just ordered an iPhone 11 Pro for delivery next Friday. My iPhone 6 had served well over the years, but has been glitching out recently, so it was time to upgrade. The price made me gulp, but I think it will be worth it for the computational photography advances. I'll report back here on the results. I plan on using it for more video and time lapses too so I'm ordering the DJI Osmo Mobile 3 to go with it.

 

[JimFox]

How interesting Jim. I will be looking forward to your thoughts on it.

I am still using the iPhone 6S, but I know at some point I will need to upgrade. The price for the iPhone 11 Pro made me cringe a bit, but I also like the idea of being able to use it for video. So I will have to see.

 

[AlanLichty]

I will be curious to hear your experiences as well. The camera upgrades do sound interesting.

I think I can get another year out of my iPhone 7 so am going to hold out for 5G and hopefully a more moderate size device. I am not a big fan of phones that are basically mini tablets and all of the iPhone 11 series offerings are considerably larger than my iPhone 7. The iPhone 8 doesn't really offer any better camera than my 7.

 

[Jim Dockery]

My 11 pro was delivered yesterday. I managed to switch the SIM myself, then transfer all the apps and data from my old phone and was up and running an hour later. Went out in the backyard to play with the cameras, then walked down to the library with my wife. These have obviously been resized for the web, an a tiny bit of smart sharpen to compensate for downsizing, but no other adjustments.

First pano

The new wide angle lens

NE side of the yard pano

Debbie, portrait mode

Lake Stevens pano

Glass pumpkins

Close up of small wood mosaic picture.

Too early to make any pronouncements other than I'm glad I went pro - the wide angle is a great addition, but I also want the "tele".

 

[AlanLichty]

Thanks for the update - that wide view looks like a nice addition. Hard to speak to image quality at web sized resolution but these look pretty good for starters.

 

[Ben Egbert]

Great report. I just got my first I-phone, I think its an 8 a few months back, still learning to use it. I get 30 images when I try to take a picture I also learned to text.

The image quality will depend on sensor size and quality, and also on lens quality. Tell me again why we need $2,000 dollar prime lenses for our Cameras?

 

[Jim Dockery]

Here are a couple more from this morning. Debbie and I took our new paddle boards out on the lake. The new iPhone is water proof down to 2 meters for 30 min. so I wasn't too worried about falling in (which I haven't done since our first day renting boards). I did a bit of cropping and editing in PS on these. I also shot a bit of video from the dock when she first started out that looks great.

backyard pano

 

[JimFox]

These are all great samples Jim.

On question, since it has 3 lenses, when you are shooting does it seamlessly switch between ultra wide all the way to the normal lens? Or are you selecting which lens to use before you take the photo?

 

[Jim Dockery]

Good question Jim. It does do a smooth zoom through computation, but it doesn't while shooting video - it just jumps to the next lens.

Edit: I just didn't know how to do the zoom, when you press and hold on the lens choice button you can bring up the zoom controls in either stills or video.

 

[AlanLichty]

I can add a bit more to this thread since I just one of these a couple of weeks ago and gave it a workout a trip down the Oregon coast that I just got back from.

The zoom appears to be continuous. Just flick or tap the lens choice button area and it brings up a dial like graphic you can rotate to choose how to frame your shot. This has to be one of the best features of the camera for my books - I love being able to choose my own framing for a shot. Phone cameras to date have been sorely lacking on how to get the shot you want - it always boiled down to zooming with your feet which wasn't always possible.

Full wide angle can show a bit of fish eye distortion but the lens appears to somewhere around a 14-15mm equivalent field of view so not an unexpected result. Keeping the horizon centered in the frame can minimize the effect.

I did not try the low light mode but images I took late in a sunset had a surprising level of detail on the shadow side of the sea stacks straight out of the camera.

The last two versions of Lightroom import the iPhone camera images using a .heic file extension which contain 16 bit color and have some similarities to a type of RAW file. I make that statement with qualifications - I am pretty sure there is some software work being done to the raw sensor data before it gets stored as a .heic file format on the iPhone so what I am importing into Lightroom is not a real equivalent to the RAW sensor data file we expect from our Canon/Fuji/Nikon/Sony/whatever larger cameras. It still has a lot more latitude for LR/ACR type edits than the .jpg files FWIW.

 

[Vieri]

Thank you everyone for your review, images & comments I am normally skipping a couple generations, when upgrading my phones, but I have to say that this is the first time I am very seriously tempted to update even though I got a 10 XR a little over a year ago (coming from a 6). The new triple lenses & cameras, together with AI photography, definitely create images that simply look amazing compared to anything available before - and video too.

Best regards,

Vieri