Panoramas with the iPhone
Update: these images and more examples with additional commentary are shown in Guide to Mirrorless in iPhone 6s Plus: Panoramas.
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Last week I posted some iPhone panoramas. This page collects those images and more, here with comments on each, as well as these general comments:
- iPhone 6s Plus stills are frequently very disappointing, but with panoramas, the incredible ease of use and fabulous display of the iPhone 6s Plus make a strong argument. The “real” camera market cries for a solution that doesn’t suck—for example, the Sony A7R II bangs the shutter violently when taking a pano, so I consider its pano feature completely useless.
- iPhone 6s Plus pixel quality is marginal under many conditions for still shots, but with panoramas, downsampling by 2X linearly (3X in some cases) yields a good quality image that still can be 10-20 megapixels.
- The iPhone 6s Plus actually makes panos with people in it, often with good clarity (though it has some limits as the examples below will show). Panorama portraits are eminently feasible.
- The limited gamut of sRGB means that many colors are destroyed. The green T-shirt, red sunsets, etc—blasted into dullness.
- Color balance is frequently has a green tint. All of these images but one required +3 magenta in Photoshop for non-sickly color.
- The “pocket factor” is a big deal. A camera not carried does not take pictures.
- The lack of exposure control leads to blowing-out of details. It is a classic case of “make it as simple as possible but no simpler”: Apple made it too simple, meaning flat-out frustrating in too many cases—no control. While the iPhone uses HDR, it destroys things like sunsets and bright areas when/if darker areas are included. There are ways to trick it into better exposure (used for some images below), but this generally means a composition that was not desired (to trick the metering).
I would have killed (squirrels) for an iPhone 6S Plus when I was a teenager. Well, I shot 'em anyway—for the crock pot. Stringy, but good tasting after 2-3 hours. The trick was not getting hair onto them while skinning.
Below, a classic panorama shot. The iPhone 6s Plus does well on such shots, but contrast and tint had to be corrected to eliminate flare and an unpleasant green tint.
This panorama below was made by rotating the iPhone 6s Plus, yet the face and hair are sharp: very impressive software processing, perhaps tuned for people/faces?
iPhone 6s Plus pixel quality and dynamic range has dynamic range and noise problems in scenes like this, but sometimes the result can be saved with a black and white rendition, including some wide radius unsharp masking to pop the contrast.
Lots of motion defects here (edge of boat in particular, also distant mountains), but the face is good. Exposure was not so good, so I did some burning to brighten it and fixed up the lousy iPhone contrast. All in all, it’s still an impressive result: a panorama on a moving boat shot handheld!
Motion is not always handled well. Below, the body is sharp and not duplicated, and only the hat is affected. Clearly some “smarts” are involved that could be improved. TIP: if the subject is moving to the right as here, rotate the camera to the left. This reduces the time the camera is over a moving area.
The iPhone 6s Plus works great on scenes with a range of contrast that doesn’t make the camera do destructive things to bright or dark areas. The moving water is handled well.
By framing a bit differently, I was able to save this image by tricking the iPhone 6s Plus into not blowing-out the peaks overly much. It’s not great, but it can be far worse with the iPhone metering—terrible in wanting to destroy sunsets and open up shadows.
Just started that morning as we headed north, the Lee Vining 'Marina Fire' was confirmed human-caused (cigarette?), but the exact cause not yet determined as I wrote this. Jeff Sullivan has a cool time lapse video of the fire.
Camping at Junction Campground just outside Yosemite. I usually avoid campgrounds but with my daughter along, a campground works better.
The iPhone 6s Plus does well on subjects that while bright, actually are not particularly high contrast.
Moving subjects are dealt with adroitly by the iPhone panorama feature.
The road from Owens Lake / Keeler up to the old Cerro Gordo mine. Well worth a visit to the min.