Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#101

Post by mark-r » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:09 PM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #81

dietrichepp wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree that bigger cameras are better for macrophotography. I say this because of the physics of how light works in macrophotography, which matches my experience doing macrophotography with larger cameras (6x7cm and 4x5"). The long story short is that reducing the aperture has two effects on image sharpness. Smaller apertures increase the depth of field, bringing more of your scene into focus. Smaller apertures a…

I appreciate your perspective, but most folks who are at the top of the macrophotography game use 35mm cameras and macro lenses. It's not actually the case that smaller sensors are net beneficial for taking macro photographs, otherwise we'd see a different trend. Even if these folks were just looking for the "real camera" ergonomics, they'd be using m43, but few of them do. (Perhaps you get some advantage of more dep…

You're just looking in the wrong places. Check this out: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4438556

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#102

Post by m463 » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:11 PM UTC

dylan604 wrote: post #18

tomduncalf wrote: post #5

The macro capability is a really fun addition to the iPhone. It can be hard to get a good shot though, quite often focus is off – the best way I've found is to use the Halide app, then you can enable macro mode and "focus peaking", which will highlight the in-focus area with a colour. This means that a) you are definitely in macro mode all the time, and b) the focus is fixed and you adjust what is in focus by moving…

Focusing for macro is definitely a painstaking process. That's why they invented equipment to help like focus rails[0]. At macro sizes, the focus ring on the lens is just not going to help get that final focus. Instead, the camera is physically moved closer/further from the subject to get final focus. With the super shallow depth of field, millimeters matter so these rails allow you to make very tiny adjustments. [0]…

I would imagine focus stacking would be a future enhancement, like HDR has stacked images for a long time

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#103

Post by foldr » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:12 PM UTC

BenFranklin100 wrote: post #91

dylan604 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Macro photography requires extra light, it's not just anything to do specific to cell phones. That's why there are so many flash rigs designed for this. Also, the iPhone 13 camera has ridiculously fast lenses[0]: Pro 12MP camera system: Telephoto, Wide, and Ultra Wide cameras Telephoto: ƒ/2.8 aperture Wide: ƒ/1.5 aperture Ultra Wide: ƒ/1.8 aperture and 120° field of view If you search for lenses for "real" camera…

Stepping past the arrogance for a second, there’s more to macro photography than f#. A big factor is the working distance to the object. Not only is this important for skittish live subjects, it’s also important for static subjects for the practical reason that the extra distance provides space for proper lighting equipment. A good used Nikon macro lens can be had for less than a grand and a DX SLR body for less than…

>F# is a secondary consideration as macro often works best at f/8 or f/11.

At typical full frame focal lengths. With the shorter focal length of an iPhone you get much more depth of field for a given aperture.

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#104

Post by m463 » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:14 PM UTC

Auracle wrote: post #20

shagie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The issue is the working distance. You'll note that the photographer there is shooing with a lens that has a fairly long barrel. For the Nikkor 105mm macro lens - https://coinimaging.com/nikon_105vr.html At 1:1, there's 15.3 cm between the front of the lens and the subject. But if you're shooting with a rather short lens (e.g. those in the camera of a phone) then the working distance is very close. This becomes impor…

I would say most really good insect macro images are done with dead insects anyways, as they need to be stacked to get a decent depth of field. The “how to light it” is probably a bigger point. Even with a ~100mm lens, dealing with the lens’ shadow can be annoying.

why wouldn't a future phone camera macro lens have a ring light?

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#105

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:15 PM UTC

58x14 wrote: post #62

If I counted correctly, 8/10 of the selected submissions specifically mention the iPhone and the macro feature by name. Same with the comments on different submissions. Okay, okay, I know, it's Apple, this is a marketing campaign. I guess next time, I'm going to take a photo of the contents of my fridge, with the caption: "Every morning, when I check my new iPhone 14 Pro Max Plus, I'm filled with a sense of inspirati…

[deleted]

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#106

Post by dietrichepp » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:16 PM UTC

mark-r wrote: post #101

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your perspective, but most folks who are at the top of the macrophotography game use 35mm cameras and macro lenses. It's not actually the case that smaller sensors are net beneficial for taking macro photographs, otherwise we'd see a different trend. Even if these folks were just looking for the "real camera" ergonomics, they'd be using m43, but few of them do. (Perhaps you get some advantage of more dep…

You're just looking in the wrong places. Check this out: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4438556

I'm always floored by the amazing results you can get from focus stacking.

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#107

Post by m463 » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:17 PM UTC

kens wrote: post #86

skhr0680 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A $20 extension tube or reversing ring will turn even any plain 50mm prime into a fine macro lens. There really isn’t an upper limit on lens hugeness or cost for people chasing that last 1% of performance.

I bought a cheap DSLR extension tube and a $15 ring light on eBay to do macro photography of electronic components. They work much better than I expected for the price. I'm sure an expensive macro lens would be better but this setup works fine for me.

My take on macro lenses is that they are sort of bulky lenses designed with the extension tube built in, so you can go from infinity to 1:1 or similar.

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#108

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

mark-r wrote: post #101

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate your perspective, but most folks who are at the top of the macrophotography game use 35mm cameras and macro lenses. It's not actually the case that smaller sensors are net beneficial for taking macro photographs, otherwise we'd see a different trend. Even if these folks were just looking for the "real camera" ergonomics, they'd be using m43, but few of them do. (Perhaps you get some advantage of more dep…

You're just looking in the wrong places. Check this out: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/4438556

I'm not surprised that there exist folks doing macro work on M43. And I'm not surprised that you can find such people in the corresponding forum on dpreview.com. :) I was not making a universal claim of nonexistence.

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#109

Post by subhro » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:27 PM UTC

Karawebnetwork wrote: post #89

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #2

The trick to getting the best out of camera phones is to shore up their weaknesses with external devices. Cell phone cameras are multiple stops slower than "real" cameras (i.e. they take in 1/4 to 1/8th as much light). So you add light to the scene to shore up that weakness. Most of these pictures were probably lit very carefully with high quality lights, or else were taken in bright daylight, and the phone was proba…

> It's pretty cool that you can get such nice results from a phone. But you'd probably have an easier time of it on a five year old aps-c camera with a macro lens, to say nothing of modern 35mm cameras. Sure, but how often do you have them on your person in time to take candid photos? I am in a lot of entomology and myrmecology online groups and people are able to take clear photos of insects that look like professio…

> Sure, but how often do you have them on your person in time to take candid photos?

Totally bad argument in justifying phone cameras. If you are having the expectation of getting photos of similar quality as shown on the page, my question is, how often do you have a high quality ring light on your person along with a stable tripod?

Re: Apple unveils the best photos from the Shot on iPhone Macro Challenge

#110

Post by foldr » Wed, Apr 13, 2022, 6:29 PM UTC

asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #37

dylan604 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All Macro photography requires extra light, it's not just anything to do specific to cell phones. That's why there are so many flash rigs designed for this. Also, the iPhone 13 camera has ridiculously fast lenses[0]: Pro 12MP camera system: Telephoto, Wide, and Ultra Wide cameras Telephoto: ƒ/2.8 aperture Wide: ƒ/1.5 aperture Ultra Wide: ƒ/1.8 aperture and 120° field of view If you search for lenses for "real" camera…

f-numbers do not have the same meaning across different sized sensors. For example, f/1.5 on the iPhone is equivalent to f/8.2 on a 35mm camera. This is pretty slow by the standards of full frame lenses, and as you can see in my other post, it is not expensive to acquire much better lenses than this that will achieve much better results with less effort. See the chart on the first page of this article: https://www.dp…

F numbers have exactly the same meaning across different sized sensors: the ratio of the focal length to the aperture diameter. The size of the sensor does not even enter into the definition of the f number.

>For example, f/1.5 on the iPhone is equivalent to f/8.2 on a 35mm camera

This is a meaningless statement unless you specify what sort of equivalence you're talking about. I assume you mean to say that they're equivalent in terms of depth of field and in terms of the total amount of light gathered for a given angle of view. This, however, just goes to show that the 35mm camera doesn't have much of an advantage for macro photography. If the 35mm camera has to stop down at least to f8 (which it probably will, to get sufficient depth of field) then it won't gather any more light than the phone.

The basic point here is that for a given angle of view, you can only gather more light than the iPhone if the iPhone has depth of field to spare. Otherwise you can only gather more light than the iPhone by sacrificing depth of field. This is because both the total amount of light gathered (for a given angle of view) and the depth of field (for a given angle of view) are determined by the absolute diameter of the aperture.