iPhone 15 Pro: 24 MP > 48 MP?

[purdnost]

According to this article, iPhone 15 Pro's 24-megapixel photos are better than 48-megapixel shots. I’m confused by this. Does this apply to just HEIF format or HEIF and RAW?

Apple Explains What the iPhone 15 Camera Can and Can't Do – and Why

Pulling back the curtain on design philosophy.

petapixel.com

The details:

Photographers might want to know why last year Apple limited the default settings to 12 megapixels and this year it’s limited to 24 megapixels, despite the main camera’s sensor boasting a total of 48 megapixels — shooting in HEIF, the files generated there aren’t that large. Photographers might think that they should just shoot these higher-resolution HEIF files whenever they want that extra detail, but there are reasons to keep using Apple’s defaults.

“You get a little bit more dynamic range in the 24-megapixel photos,” McCormack explains. “Because when shooting at 24-megapixels, we shoot 12 high and 12 low — we actually shoot multiple of those — and we pick and then merge. There is, basically, a bigger bracket between the 12 high and the 12 low. Then, the 48 is an ‘extended dynamic range,’ versus ‘high dynamic range,’ which basically just limits the amount of processing. Because just in the little bit of processing time available [in the 24 megapixel] we can get a bit more dynamic range into Deep Fusion. So what you end up with in the 24, it’s a bit of a ‘Goldilocks moment’ of you get all of the extra dynamic range that comes from the 12 and the detail transfer that comes in from the 48.”

McCormack adds that photographers will also get zero shutter lag when they’re shooting at 24-megapixels — shooting at full 48-megapixel resolution means that you don’t get an instantaneous shutter.

 

[r.harris1]

It’s all related to pixel binning but they’re doing some other computational techniques to bring in the detail piece and to get to 24mp from 12mp.

I found this article fro DP Review to be informative: https://www.dpreview.com/articles/2668153890/apple-s-iphone-15-and-15-pro-imaging-tech-examined

 

[newton4000]

Anybody test out the differences between the 48 mp proraw and the 24 mp heifs?
I love the ability to work with the 48 mp proraw captures, but they are very space hungry. Anyone tested how they compare and how malleable are the 24 mp heifs in Lightroom?

 

[Benz63amg]

I have my 15 pro set to take photos in HEIF MAX to shoot 48MP photos. Any downside to doing that other than the slightly larger file size per each photo compared to the default setting which shoots in max 24mp? ProRAw images are way too large in size so that’s why I opted for HEIF MAX instead.

 

[ctjack]

Proraw has a lot of unnecessary information for just looking at the pics - i take raw if i need details. Lets say car hit and run and 48mp raw has higher chance of taking the plates. Eventually all raw meant to be edited, so heif max sounds like a good option introduced with 15 pro lineup.

 

[Benz63amg]

Proraw has a lot of unnecessary information for just looking at the pics - i take raw if i need details. Lets say car hit and run and 48mp raw has higher chance of taking the plates. Eventually all raw meant to be edited, so heif max sounds like a good option introduced with 15 pro lineup.

I’m confused after reading the article linked to above by purdnost. So should I use HEIF Max and shoot photos at 48mp on my iPhone 15 Pro or the apple default of 24MP?

 

[ctjack]

I’m confused after reading the article linked to above by purdnost. So should I use HEIF Max and shoot photos at 48mp on my iPhone 15 Pro or the apple default of 24MP?

From the article:

Then, the 48 is an ‘extended dynamic range,’ versus ‘high dynamic range,’ which basically just limits the amount of processing.

To me this alone sounds like a reason to use 48MP Heif Max.
From the dpreview thread, please find the pic of the lighthouse on the shore: in the very dark areas under the roof, bricks indeed don't look black on 24MP due to higher dynamic range, while Heif Max has that space almost blacked out. But overall the difference in dynamic range is minimal and need to look for it with a magnifier, while sharpness of 48MP Heif Max is easy to spot.

I would vote to use only 48MP Heif Max if the space is no object. 2.6mb vs 5.2mb simply means that the owners of 128GB Pros who don't pay for icloud will get to shoot exactly 2x less pictures until they get full.

 

[Benz63amg]

From the article:

To me this alone sounds like a reason to use 48MP Heif Max.
From the dpreview thread, please find the pic of the lighthouse on the shore: in the very dark areas under the roof, bricks indeed don't look black on 24MP due to higher dynamic range, while Heif Max has that space almost blacked out. But overall the difference in dynamic range is minimal and need to look for it with a magnifier, while sharpness of 48MP Heif Max is easy to spot.

I would vote to use only 48MP Heif Max if the space is no object. 2.6mb vs 5.2mb simply means that the owners of 128GB Pros who don't pay for icloud will get to shoot exactly 2x less pictures until they get full.

Thanks for the input, i just read the two articles posted here in the thread and i ended up reverting back to use the default 24mp mode on my iPhone 15 Pro as opposed to 48 mp HEIF. All the stuff Jon McCormack said in that article just convinced me that using the 48 mp mode doesn't add much if anything at all and makes taking the photo slower (shutter speed)

 

[ctjack]

Thanks for the input, i just read the two articles posted here in the thread and i ended up reverting back to use the default 24mp mode on my iPhone 15 Pro as opposed to 48 mp HEIF. All the stuff Jon McCormack said in that article just convinced me that using the 48 mp mode doesn't add much if anything at all and makes taking the photo slower (shutter speed)

I think i abandoned 48MP because it was slow at the beginning. Right now with ios updates, it seems to be working faster than i can recall back in september. Anyways tad slower than 24MP of course.