After years of unprofessional iPhones, Apple’s new 48-megapixel iPhone 14 Pro was enough to convince me to pull the trigger. I’m ready to use Apple’s AI-powered ProRAW format. Although it has its uses, in its current state it is still a kind of mixed bag.
When Apple first launched ProRAW with the iPhone 12 Pro series, I wonder how “raw” ProRAW files arewhat happens to some AI-powered processing. After a few years and a few hardware modifications, the answer is clear: Very.
In good light, there’s barely a noticeable improvement from the AI, and the quality of photos taken from the iPhone 14’s main camera in ProRaw shines bright:
In these Quinnipiac University campus photos, I’m pitted against a Canon EOS R5 with RF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM . Lens Against the best lens/sensor the iPhone 14 Pro has to offer, the 1x lens (24mm equivalent) has 48 megapixels. While it’s hard to tell what the AI is doing in any of the photos, since Apple isn’t very transparent about it, both photos are pretty much the same quality. The corners are a bit sharper on the iPhone (AI-powered maybe?) but the trees are a bit less detailed. Both photos were processed from each camera’s raw files in Photoshop to match each other as closely as possible.
But that’s when I pushed the iPhone in low light against the R5 with a man in his late 20s. Canon EF 17-40mm f/4L USM . Lens that even older lenses can be pulled out of an iPhone with ease.
Below is an image of the Castle Hill lighthouse of Newport, Rhode Island with both the R5 and the iPhone at the same focal length.
The difference is obvious even at the small size. It’s clear, at least in my eyes, what the AI is doing. The shadow details in the rock have essentially disappeared, and so the iPhone has filled in the shadow details to its best predictability, resulting in “wax-like, texture-like patterns” that I described two years ago. All that time and some hardware modifications have passed, and it’s still just as bad. Even simpler patterns, such as the tiles on the lighthouse itself, show the “vaseline smeared on the lens” look I described back then.
Much of this also involves the ability to change settings. If I wanted to use ProRAW, I’d have trouble using Apple’s default camera app, which chose a shutter speed of 1/19 at ISO 1000 with the main lens’ f/1.8 aperture. For comparison, I shot 0.6 seconds, ISO 100 at f/8 exposure for Canon.
Oddly, however, my initial reaction when I saw these photos on the small screen of my phone was awe at their beauty. In my blind (unscientific) tests of both sets of photos on social media, most photographers and media professionals follow, even seasoned veterans alike. guess wrong on both photos, with many preferring the iPhone.
And I think that’s what Apple is betting here is that the AI will make the photo look better to most people instead of creating what’s accurate.
Where this worries most photographers is that Apple calls this mode “ProRAW,” when, with this sort of heavy-handed editing of what is supposed to be a digital negative, it’s a no-brainer. anything except.
All that said, I would probably notice the slightly lower light levels on the iPhone column of the lighthouse above. Indeed, the photos were taken 9 minutes apart at sunset, but for comparison, here’s one taken with an iPhone at the same time as the R5, and although it’s better, it still has the same issues. To some extent:
While the issues with what’s going on in the ProRAW files are still there at the same points (bricks, shadows of the rocks), this shot follows much closer to the R5 image.
All of this leads me to the question: How did camera manufacturers get it to come so close? When a phone can compete almost equally with professional cameras and lenses, or at least good enough for most people, what’s the point of it all?
What do you think of Apple’s approach to raw files? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
