(embiggenable) • iPhone
UNLIKE THE GOOD OL' DAYS IN THE DIGITAL CAMERA WORLD, wherein the upgrade treadmill eventually reached a point of enough-is-enough, a place where one could jump off the treadmill and be very satisfied with the picture making device one had in his/her hand, the treadmill is still moving at top speed in the smartphone picture making device world.
Hence, the new iPhone 12 PRO MAX.
In the "real" camera world, I am quite happy with my 6-7 year old, 16mp camera. Although, when compared to the results I obtain from an iPhone and its hardworking AI, not so much. True be told, I am absolutely stupified by the fact that "real" camera makers seem to be totally oblivious to the picture making AI world. I mean, what the f**k are the waiting for?
In any event, here I sit staring down the barrel of the iPhone 12 PRO MAX get-it-now gun.
The primary reason for that impulse is that a 47% larger sensor (with larger pixels) is a significant improvement. It is also possile that the new Night Mode-applied across more lenses-is also a big improvement. However, the other brand new-perhaps very significant-feature is the Apple ProRAW tool ... (from the Apple site) ProRAW gives you all the standard RAW information, along with the Apple image pipeline data. So you can get a head start on editing, with noise reduction and multiframe exposure adjustments already in place — and have more time to tweak color and white balance.
And here's the thing, Apple image pipeline data is not a preset. It is the AI data specific to that image. They have given a picture maker the ability to customize / override or whatever it is the Apple techs think a picture should look like. I find that very interesting and, maybe, even a little bit brave.
In any event, I will be acquiring an iPhone 12 PRO MAX soon. And, what I am hoping for is that the upgrade might just be good enough to let me get off the treadmill (at least for a while).