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

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

#111

Post by galaktus »

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…

> Most of these pictures were probably lit very carefully with high quality lights, or else were taken in bright daylight, and the phone was probably held in a high quality tripod. It is also likely that hundreds of dollars worth of software was used to edit each of these images.

Like they do with "professional" cameras as well.

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

#112

Post by galaktus »

ghostly_s wrote: post #47
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…

Most of the photos Apple highlights in this campaign are also shot with very expensive external lenses.

Why would you make such false claims?

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

#113

Post by jacobolus »

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…

> “Most of these pictures were probably lit very carefully with high quality lights, or else were taken in bright daylight [...] hundreds of dollars worth of software was used to edit [...] analogous to the videos of fake hamburgers”

You don’t have to speculate. Most of the photographers directly tell you how these were set up:

> love going on early morning walks with my iPhone 13 Pro. The ‘golden hour’ brings the best out of nature

> I’ve used a spot studio light on the lily with a dark background.

> This one instance was during the sliver of golden hour when the sun is shining directly into my window, illuminating all of the tiny cells in each leaf.

> I used two items that I found in my kitchen fridge: a strawberry and a can of soda. I placed a clear vase on my kitchen counter, poured the soda into the vase, and used a piece of black paper as the background. I then dropped the strawberry in the vase of soda and waited. Slowly, bubbles began to form on the surface of the strawberry, and its texture was completely transformed.

> This image was taken along the edge of Riverside Park in Manhattan while on a morning walk with our puppy this winter.

> This tiny, shimmering liquid jewel is delicately nestled at the base of a leaf after a tropical storm, almost imperceptible to the human eye.

> The photo was taken when my 3-year-old son discovered the blossom of the tulip at home. I then appreciated the flower with my son and took out my iPhone, trying to capture the moment when the sun kissed the flower, which created a perfect shadow at the petals. As I moved my iPhone closer to the flower, it automatically turned on macro mode,

It is entirely possible for someone on a tight budget to make their own studio-like lighting, and there are good photo editing tools available for free. Saying «don’t bother to be inspired by these lovely smartphone photos because some professionals spend thousands of dollars on lighting and Photoshop» is lazy cynical negativity in the extreme. And «people who win photography contests are typically more careful tool users than an average person with no experience» is hardly a deep insight.

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

#114

Post by BenFranklin100 »

foldr wrote: post #103
BenFranklin100 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Good point.

Lens to object distance is still an important issue in practice however.

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

#116

Post by Ma8ee »

foldr wrote: post #100
Ma8ee wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and a much smaller sensor will of course gather much less light.

For the same aperture, sure. But you are not going to be shooting macro photos at f1.5 on full frame (for depth of field reasons alone). For real world macro photography you'd typically be stopping down at least to f8 on a full frame camera. At that point the DSLR has a considerably smaller advantage in terms of the total amount of light gathered. One thing that people often miss is that you can think about all of th…

Why wouldn’t you need to stop down similarly on a phone camera?

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

#117

Post by foldr »

Ma8ee wrote: post #116
foldr wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the same aperture, sure. But you are not going to be shooting macro photos at f1.5 on full frame (for depth of field reasons alone). For real world macro photography you'd typically be stopping down at least to f8 on a full frame camera. At that point the DSLR has a considerably smaller advantage in terms of the total amount of light gathered. One thing that people often miss is that you can think about all of th…

Why wouldn’t you need to stop down similarly on a phone camera?

Because depth of field depends on focal length as well as f number. Or to put it another way, it depends on the absolute diameter of the aperture, not the ratio of the focal length to the aperture diameter (= the f number).

(Also, of course, you can't stop down on a phone camera as it has a fixed aperture.)

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

#118

Post by gnicholas »

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…

> the phone was probably held in a high quality tripod

Why is a high-quality tripod needed? You can just set the camera to be on a timer so that it's not shaking (from you touching the shutter button) when it captures the photo. I think it's also possible to use an Apple Watch to trigger the shutter.

> It is also likely that hundreds of dollars worth of software was used to edit each of these images.

Do photo contests typically allow entrants to heavily edit photos?

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

#119

Post by rococode »

gnicholas wrote: post #118
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…

> the phone was probably held in a high quality tripod Why is a high-quality tripod needed? You can just set the camera to be on a timer so that it's not shaking (from you touching the shutter button) when it captures the photo. I think it's also possible to use an Apple Watch to trigger the shutter. > It is also likely that hundreds of dollars worth of software was used to edit each of these images. Do photo contest…

I'm no expert but I think these shots often use slower shutter speeds, for example 0.5s instead of 0.01s. This increases the amount of light, but any movement that happens while the shutter is open will cause blur. Movement causes blur at fast shutter speeds too, but it's less noticeable because obviously you can move much less in 0.01s than you can in 0.5s.

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

#120

Post by gnicholas »

rococode wrote: post #119
gnicholas wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the phone was probably held in a high quality tripod Why is a high-quality tripod needed? You can just set the camera to be on a timer so that it's not shaking (from you touching the shutter button) when it captures the photo. I think it's also possible to use an Apple Watch to trigger the shutter. > It is also likely that hundreds of dollars worth of software was used to edit each of these images. Do photo contest…

I'm no expert but I think these shots often use slower shutter speeds, for example 0.5s instead of 0.01s. This increases the amount of light, but any movement that happens while the shutter is open will cause blur. Movement causes blur at fast shutter speeds too, but it's less noticeable because obviously you can move much less in 0.01s than you can in 0.5s.

I get that, but even a cheap tripod (I use a Joby) will hold a phone still for .5 seconds, won't it? You can put the phone on a 10 second delay, so any movement generated by you touching the shutter button would have dissipated by the time the photo is taken.
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