iPhone 14 Pro Confused about camera settings

[Geoff777]

I've seen plenty of threads and a few videos about the 48MP camera in the iPhone. There are a lot of different opinions ranging from always use 48MP to don't use 48MP unless you are heavily into editing.

The 48MP files are big at 75mB ish.

I get that raw files retain much more data and you can pull more from the shot before you develop.

However what I don't get is the option to save the raw file at either 48MP or 12MP.

To simplify, would it be better to:

A) Shoot in raw and save the files as 48MP.
B) Shoot in raw and save the file as 12MP
C) Forget about raw and capture jpg / heic straight off?

Finally, if you're using the main camera to shoot straight jpg, is it still using the full 48MP sensor and pixel binning, in which case the pixel size is bigger and therefore supposed to give better low-light shots?

I'm so confused my question probably doesn't make sense..... 🤣

Thanks for any help.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

However what I don't get is the option to save the raw file at either 48MP or 12MP.

When you say you “don’t get” that option - do you mean that option isn’t appearing for you, or you don’t understand it? If it’s not appearing - which iPhone and what iOS version are you on?

 

[Geoff777]

Thanks for replying FreakinEurekan.

No, I mean I don't understand what's going on 😄

I've had DSLRs before but now use a compact with a fairly big sensor. With that I can save raw, jpeg (in various sizes) or raw+jpeg (which is what I have it set to.).

I've never encountered being able to set the raw size.... I thought it was raw, or it wasn't't!

The iPhone lets you choose between saving as 12MP raw or 48 - if you choose 12MP are you losing a lot of the benefit of the 48MP sensor? In which case would it be as well to just not use raw?

EDIT - I am probably going through a "senior moment"! 🤣

 

[MegaBlue]

The iPhone lets you choose between saving as 12MP raw or 48 - if you choose 12MP are you losing a lot of the benefit of the 48MP sensor? In which case would it be as well to just not use raw?

When you take a photo in “12MP” mode, the sensor is combining the smaller pixels to create one “bigger” pixel. This allows you to artificially increase the amount of light you let in. RAW photos shot in 12MP will do much better in low light situations as a result, as the camera is acting as if it has larger pixels to work with. However since it’s still only 12MP, you don’t have a lot of room to work with when it comes to cropping, where some finer detail will be lost.

This means the opposite is true for a 48MP RAW photo. The camera is using all the pixels of the sensor individually, so you can get a photo with more detail and more options to work with like with cropping. However these pixels are going to be a lot smaller than if they were combined, so something like low light performance will suffer.

Which one you use really depends on the shot, but I usually leave my phone in 48MP mode. If I’m wanting to take a low light shot where that pixel size matters, I wouldn’t be using a phone for a RAW photo anyways.

 

[Geoff777]

Thank you @MegaBlue. So I guess using the main camera will always use the 48MP sensor but pixel-bin if you save as 12MP, which in turn will give bigger pixels and have the benefit if better shots in low light. The difference between this and shooting non-raw at 12MP is that the image is not processed in the iPhone. Well, it is, but the original data is intact......

I think then Option B (shoot in raw and save as 12MP) might be the best compromise. Will experiment and revert with any updates!

 

[JM]

Thank you @MegaBlue. So I guess using the main camera will always use the 48MP sensor but pixel-bin if you save as 12MP, which in turn will give bigger pixels and have the benefit if better shots in low light. The difference between this and shooting non-raw at 12MP is that the image is not processed in the iPhone. Well, it is, but the original data is intact......

I think then Option B (shoot in raw and save as 12MP) might be the best compromise. Will experiment and revert with any updates!

Actually… I remember the announcement saying that only the 2x uses 48 MP to simulate a 2x optical zoom (thus making it 12mp with pixel binning).

Or proRAW uses 48mp if you want it to.

Maybe you already knew that.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

I’ve never encountered being able to set the raw size.... I thought it was raw, or it wasn't't!

The iPhone lets you choose between saving as 12MP raw or 48 - if you choose 12MP are you losing a lot of the benefit of the 48MP sensor? In which case would it be as well to just not use raw?

ProRAW isn’t precisely Raw - this article explains a bit more, how iPhone can combine the “standard RAW format along with iPhone image processing” so yes, it is processing it. Not exactly “pixel-binning” in that the information from 4 pixels is used to create one final pixel, so it’s not that 1 is saved and 3 are binned exactly.

There are limitations on ProRAW as described in that article, so for me it’s a feature I’d only enable on very limited shots.

 

[Geoff777]

Thanks JM and FreakinEurekan for the help.
I'll get in lots of practice!