Last year, one of the most severe compromises Apple made with the iPhone XR and its lower price point was to ditch the iPhone X's second camera β the effective 53mm telephoto.
This year, with the iPhone 11, Apple is bringing the second camera back. But β plot twist β not as a telephoto β as an effective 13mm 120ΒΊ ultra-wide-angle.
And I think that's clever. You can always zoom in and enhance the regular wide-angle data to fake telephoto well enough in most cases. But you can't simulate a wider angle. There's just no data for it at all.
So, this combo ultimately provides more flexibility and capability than the alternative.
The ultra wide doesn't fisheye either, if anyone has any concerns about that. It does stretch out as it gets close to the edges. You know, like an Unbox Therapy video when he holds his arms out towards the camera.
Apple leaned into that in their demo, showing how you could use it to create an elongated effect. But, it's something to be aware of if you have faces or other elements that'd look more⦠comedically distorted near the edges. Unless that's what you're going for.
The camera app interface has been jazzed up to support ultra-wide as well. From the moment you launch it you'll see the familiar wide-angle preview but, also, transparently at both sides now, a hint at what the ultra-wide angle camera is seeing as well. Not a simulation either, but an actual, real-time fusion from the real camera, because the iPhone 11's silicon system is cool β and ridiculously powerful β like that.
Switching between wide angle and ultra wide angle is the same as switching between wide angle and telephoto on previous iPhones. You just tap the little button, only now it toggles between 0.5 and 1 on the iPhone 11 instead of 1 and 2.
Yeah, it's a 0.5x optical zoom⦠out.
And I love all of this. It's just so classically Apple, but you only really appreciate it once you've seen how some other companies have implemented their interfaces, with buttons where you can't easily reach them or worse, ultra wide-angle cameras that don't come anywhere close to matching the color or quality of the primary.
People in tech love throwing around the word innovation but it's almost always totally misused. Innovation isn't just bolting on an extra camera to add a checkmark to a spec sheet. It's not about yelling FIRST!! into the equivalent of a comment box. That's what's more properly called a gimmick, a stunt.
Innovation is making that extra camera truly useful β part of a consistent, cohesive experience. It's the difference between a throw away and a tool. Apple didn't make the first MP3 player, they made the iPod. Not the first smartphone but the iPhone. Not the first tablet or smart watch or wireless earbuds, and on and on. Apple's innovation today remains the same as it's always been: In packaging technologies in a way that provides the best experience possible for mainstream customers. And that's what they're doing here with wide-angle.
End rant.
There's a new, next-generation Smart HDR pipeline that seems to fix at least some of the overly warm, overly smooth results last year's version was producing on skin tones. I'll have to shoot a lot more with it to know for sure, but properly cast, properly swirled fingers crossed, Apple's camera team has hard corrected back to their previous, more naturalistic photo philosophy.
Because the iPhone 11 doesn't have a telephoto camera like the X, XS, or Pro, it still takes Portrait Mode photos using the wide angle. That means they're still not as up close and personal, which some people like worse and others like better.
I like having the option for both, but we'll talk about that in the Pro review.
Because the iPhone 11 does have an ultra-wide angle camera, though, it can now pull real depth data, and not just have to rely on the Focus Pixels and segmentation masks the way the iPhone XR and Pixels 2 and 3 did.
That means you can capture better portrait shots and of many more things, including and especially Pet-trait Modes of your cats and dogs.