The improved cameras on the iPhone 14 Pro should be attractive to photographers, filmmakers, and other creative types who use TikTok and YouTube. Apple added a bigger, 48-megapixel sensor to the iPhone’s camera, among other important upgrades. Apple’s updated image processing technology, which is also used by the 14 Pro, is designed to enhance image quality in low-light situations. With the new A16 Bionic chip, you can take advantage of features like a new video stabilization mode, 4K Cinematic mode video recording, larger resolution ProRaw shots, and greater image quality for both still and moving images while shooting in medium- and low-light conditions.
The Mission District and the Embarcadero are two of my favourite sites in San Francisco, so I spent a week documenting them with the iPhone 14 Pro as my primary camera. I used the iPhone 14 Pro to take pictures of the fog, alcohol, college marching band, and numerous tacos that I experienced. On the 1TB iPhone 14 Pro review sample that Apple had supplied me, I eventually had hundreds of images and dozens of video recordings.
The 48-megapixel camera included with the iPhone 14 Pro
A primary wide-angle camera, an ultrawide camera, and a telephoto camera with a 3x optical zoom are the three back cameras on the iPhone 14 Pro. The primary camera’s lens has a broader field of view and a 24mm equivalent instead of the 26mm it had on earlier iPhone models. Although there aren’t many differences, it aids in filling the frame with more of the scene.
A new, bigger 48-megapixel sensor is also added to the primary camera. Apple separates the pixels into groups of four and combines the four in each group into one bigger pixel, even though having more megapixels doesn’t always equate to better images. Pixel binning is the name of the method, and Android phones have been using it for years. Brighter images with reduced image noise are the end result (and as a bonus, less noise-reduction blur).
The Photonic Engine, part of Apple’s new imaging pipeline, advances the situation by enhancing colour fidelity and safeguarding details. Look at the snapshot of a streetcar I took below taken shortly after dusk. Pay close attention to the structure and leaves behind the trolley, as well as the pavement’s roughness and the finer details. Although it’s not the nicest shot I’ve ever taken with the iPhone 14 Pro, this one demonstrates how the camera performs in conditions that aren’t always sunny and bright. The contrast in the shot is a little too high; if I were to alter it, I would probably lower it or create a Photographic Style with less contrast.
The primary camera produces top-notch images. For a phone photo, the image quality and details are excellent. I discovered that conditions with medium and low light showed the most improvement. The textures and colours seem nice. Look at the image I captured below on a morning when it was cloudy. Watch how the 14 Pro captured the fog progressively enveloping the top of Salesforce Tower and the textures in the bricks of the buildings.
I’ve been mostly using an iPhone 13 Pro as my everyday car for the past year. The photographs I shot during the week I owned the 14 Pro were better. Due in part to the new Photonic Engine processing pipeline, image detail was improved. Check out the photo below of a cookie and cappuccino from Four Barrel Coffee, a hip java spot in the Mission.
The image below was taken under the shadow of a palm tree. The varied textures in the stem and fronds were well-captured by the 14 Pro, which increased brightness.
Using the phone’s ProRaw option, you can take 48-megapixel pictures if you’d want. These files are large, so I should probably warn you. The image file for the Bay Bridge at dusk in the image below is 48 megabytes. The image is saved as a significantly smaller JPEG after modification. Look attentively at the colour gradient in the sky, the finer details on the vehicles, and the wires that support the bridge.
using the iPhone 14 Pro’s night mode
2019 saw the release of the iPhone 11 series, which introduced Night mode, which captures a number of photographs over a short period of time and merges them to produce a shot that is brighter, has better colours, and has less image noise. Three years later, Night mode on the 14 Pro has grown even more. The capture process is substantially quicker. Most of the time, Night mode just required a few seconds to get a quality image at a bar or other dim environment.
Look at the picture I shot inside Zeitgeist at the Mission, which is seen below. Essentially, the whole bar’s lighting is focused on the walls, leaving the Centre area pitch-black and the ideal environment for punk Gen Xers and millennials to drink IPAs while expressing their innermost anxieties. It took two seconds for night mode to take this picture. It did an excellent job of contrasting the bright lights on the wall covered in red signs with the dark area in the center of the bar. The 14 Pro performed a good job of catching skin tones even if the most of the subjects are in shadow.
Below is a picture of Taqueria El Buen Sabor, a great spot for burritos after a few drinks. I took the shot in Night mode because it was so dark. Although this isn’t my finest Night Mode photo taken with the new phone, it does demonstrate what is possible in less than perfect lighting. I believe the shot would have been better if I had mounted the phone on a tripod for a longer Night mode exposure period or if the lights weren’t so brilliant (in comparison to the dark clouded sky). Yet it’s still respectable. The building’s features are a tad faint, and there is some picture noise in the foggy sky.
With some pals, I went to Tacolicious, another taco place in the Mission. (I forewarned you that this review contains a lot of tacos.) The picture below was captured with Night mode. Although it wasn’t quite as pitch-black as when I shot the other two Night mode pictures, it wasn’t particularly light either. Pay great attention to the cilantro’s finer points and the tortillas’ texture. I’m pleased with the outcomes considering I was hand-holding the 14 Pro.
A new lens is added to the iPhone 14 Pro’s ultrawide camera.
A new sensor with more focus pixels and a lens with a smaller f/2.2 aperture is added to the ultrawide camera. All of this results in far crisper ultrawide images. The sensor and Photonic Engine work together to enhance image quality in less than perfect circumstances. Although these advancements are nice, ultrawide images and movies still lag behind those taken with the primary camera.
The 14 Pro’s ultrawide camera’s limitations are clearly seen in the image below. Particularly note how the sky’s highlights have been entirely blown out to white.
The improvements to the ultrawide cameras also improve macro photographs. The iPhone 14 Pro turns to the ultrawide camera and crops the frame to resemble the main camera when you try to capture a shot with the main camera while standing very near to a subject. This enables a tighter focus, which is excellent for taking close-up pictures of little objects.
Similar functionality was included in the 13 Pro from a year ago, but the new ultrawide lens improves the image quality of macro photographs, especially in dimly lit environments.
The telephoto camera on the 14 Pro sports a 3x optical zoom.
Although it receives a boost from the Photonic Engine on the 14 Pro, the telephoto camera is essentially the same as the one on the 13 Pro from the previous year. The telephoto camera produces high-quality images in well-lit conditions, like in the shot below. Pay attention to the colors and the way the camera captures skin tones in particular.
Similar to the ultrawide, the primary camera’s image quality falls short, especially in low-light situations.
Here is a telephoto camera shot of Maisie the cat taken indoors in Portrait mode. The 14 Pro’s Photonic Engine and ability to establish the right white balance and capture the fine details in Maisie’s fur were both impressive.
The telephoto image below shows how foggy summers in San Francisco can be. I’m pleased by how well the 14 Pro captured the clouds in the otherwise grey, foggy sky. The way the 14 Pro captured the stick toss player in the bottom right’s motion is equally astounding.
You can take better selfies with the iPhone 14 Pro.
The lens on the True Depth camera was improved and now has a brighter f/1.9 aperture. For the first time ever on an iPhone, the selfie camera has autofocus. For taking group selfies, the autofocus is excellent. Take a look at the selfie I took with Jessica Fierro, a coworker of mine at TECHJAZZUP, below.
Selfies appear better, perhaps because to the new Photonic Engine. Selfie shots taken on earlier iPhone models appear subdued and almost lifeless. The front-facing camera on the 14 Pro handles skin tones with more finesse and better definition.
The iPhone 14 Pro produces high-quality movies.
Videos now appear even better thanks to all the camera and processing advancements. Cinematic mode may now record in 4K and at 24 frames per second thanks to a change made by Apple. Action mode is a brand-new video image-stabilization tool. When you turn it on during video recording, the phone slightly crops the view to maintain the horizon level and the image in the center. Action mode reduces the resolution while filming in 4K to 2.8K, but the results are still stunning. Despite the fact that some other phones, such the Galaxy S22 Ultra, offer comparable stabilizing features, it’s great to have the feature available on the iPhone. And it functions with each of the three back cameras.
Videos now appear even better thanks to all the camera and processing advancements. Cinematic mode may now record in 4K and at 24 frames per second thanks to a change made by Apple. Action mode is a brand-new video image-stabilization tool. When you turn it on during video recording, the phone slightly crops the view to maintain the horizon level and the image in the centre. Action mode reduces the resolution while filming in 4K to 2.8K, but the results are still stunning. Despite the fact that some other phones, such the Galaxy S22 Ultra, offer comparable stabilising features, it’s great to have the feature available on the iPhone. And it functions with each of the three back cameras.
READ MORE ALSO HERE:
Should You Upgrade to Best iPhone 14? How It Compares to Older iPhones
