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iPhone 18 Pro Variable Aperture Camera Enters Production

rymc02 said:
Patents and rumors point to Apple using a membrane that can open and close. Traditional mechanical apertures use blades. Blades can sometimes create weird effects in the out of focus (bokeh). The hope is a membrane will create perfectly smooth bokeh when the membrane is closed down.
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Thanks ☺️
 
I’m skeptical of DOF benefits with both the sensor and the physical lens being so small. My guess is that the big improvement will be in HDR, particularly in bright scenes - the phone is already “bracketing” shots behind the scenes, but now it can physically change the aperture instead of doing a software approximation.
 
Abstract said:
No, the problem is that current cameras already shoot wide open (i.e. at max aperture), so you’re already getting the shallowest depth of field possible for the sensor size and lens.

Being able to change the aperture means you can now “stop down” (i.e. making the aperture smaller), which improves depth of field so that the background is less blurry.

The problem is (and someone else has already said this) is that current cameras have sensors so small that we almost have infinite depth of field already. The only time we don’t is for macro or near-macro photography, where we often get background blur.
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Great explanation but back to front, Wider the aperture the more depth of field or focus range of sharpness you have, the smaller the aperture the less range you have, DSLR, SLR or even a 3D program it's always the same
 
rikki_t said:
Wider the aperture the more depth of field or focus range of sharpness you have, the smaller the aperture the less range you have, DSLR, SLR or even a 3D program it's always the same
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Sorry, no! It's exactly the other way around:
The wider (smaller absolute value!) the aperture, the shallower the depth of field.
The narrower (greater absolute value!) the aperture, the greater the depth of field.

FYI: https://www.canon.ge/pro/infobank/aperture/#large-vs-small
 
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It will be interesting to see how Apple sells the fold as the “ultra” if it’s missing features like this from the Pro series…
 
wgaller said:
I wonder what percentage of buyers would use/care about/understand this feature?
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As a hobby photographer myself. I am very happy with this feature. More natural blurred background and depth of field instead of digitally enhanced images.
 
rymc02 said:
Samsung has been using an electronic ND filter for years now. Appears to work pretty great.
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Interesting, didn’t know about that. I’m going to read up on how they implemented it.

UPD: So it turns out it’s a software-based "ND", not a true physical filter.

rymc02 said:
Matching focal length of wide angle lens when using spatial video for more accurate imaging
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How so? I don’t quite get it.

rymc02 said:
Better portrait mode shots by letting the processor use a wide open shot and fully closed shot, essentially creating a depth map
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Hm, that does sound clever. Probably won’t make a striking difference in practice though.

Thanks for the input. Always nice to learn something new from online conversations.
 
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JeziLondon said:
Hi I’m not a real techie like most of you but will this variable aperture involve any physical moving parts?
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rymc02 said:
Patents and rumors point to Apple using a membrane that can open and close. Traditional mechanical apertures use blades. Blades can sometimes create weird effects in the out of focus (bokeh). The hope is a membrane will create perfectly smooth bokeh when the membrane is closed down.
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Perhaps some kind of thermally actuated aperture but honestly, that seems a technical step too far even for Apple. I'd bet on blades.
 
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Veoronox said:
As a hobby photographer myself. I am very happy with this feature. More natural blurred background and depth of field instead of digitally enhanced images.
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No. You are not going to get this.

If you want naturally blurred background (shallow depth of field), what you need is a lens with wider aperture. Current iPhone already shot at its widest aperture. So this variable aperture thing will only do the opposite: stopping down the aperture and make your background sharper.
 
a variable aperture will result in more boring pictures from smartphones, where everything is sharp.

as a photographer you want to shoot always in max open aperture. as a videographer you want this also. to reduce the light, pros use nd filters, they do not reduce aperture.
only some niche scenarios benefit from reducing the aperture like documentation, astro and maybe some sport categories, …
 
slatina said:
Sounds like a total gimmick to me. What kind of DOF difference are we even talking about with sensors this tiny?

> it closes to avoid overexposure

Not really an issue when you’ve got fully electronic shutters that can do absurdly short exposure times.
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It might enable longer exposure times for video in brighter lightning, making the video less jerky. But I still think an ND filter would be better.
 
Samsung had variable apertures back in 2018-2019 and stopped using them. I hope Apple's venture yields better results.
 
Good to see this and the yearly camera improvements. A bigger sensor will also help alongside the variable aperture.
 
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rikki_t said:
Great explanation but back to front, Wider the aperture the more depth of field or focus range of sharpness you have, the smaller the aperture the less range you have, DSLR, SLR or even a 3D program it's always the same
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No, what I said was correct. What you said is “back to front”.

A wider aperture doesn’t give you more depth of field. The opposite is true.

Maybe you’re confused by f-number. The f-number gets smaller as aperture increases (gets bigger). It’s because the number is a ratio between aperture diameter and focal length.
 
Abstract said:
No, what I said was correct. What you said is “back to front”.

A wider aperture doesn’t give you more depth of field. The opposite is true.

Maybe you’re confused by f-number. The f-number gets smaller as aperture increases (gets bigger). It’s because the number is a ratio between aperture diameter and focal length.
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Semantics, 'no depth of field' means everything is sharp, having 'deapth of field' on the other hand means only what you focus on is sharp Fi and lower gives you total depth of field, F16 and above wipes it out. Im sitting here in my 3D program and I have an aperture of F.01 set for my camera and what I am focused on is pin sharp but nothing else, if I render out a depth pass for this camera it will give me graduations of solid black in the foregrownd to pure white at the horizon, on the other hand if I crank the F stop to something very high my depth map will give me either a pure black or a pure white value because there e is no in-between depth information.
 
rikki_t said:
Semantics, 'no depth of field' means everything is sharp, having 'deapth of field' on the other hand means only what you focus on is sharp Fi and lower gives you total depth of field, F16 and above wipes it out. Im sitting here in my 3D program and I have an aperture of F.01 set for my camera and what I am focused on is pin sharp but nothing else, if I render out a depth pass for this camera it will give me graduations of solid black in the foregrownd to pure white at the horizon, on the other hand if I crank the F stop to something very high my depth map will give me either a pure black or a pure white value because there e is no in-between depth information.
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I think it's the other way round. Abstract is correct. And don't get confused with aperture and F value. Small aperture means large F value. Large/wide aperture means small F value.
 
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whwang said:
I think it's the other way round. Abstract is correct. And don't get confused with aperture and F value. Small aperture means large F value. Large/wide aperture means small F value.
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So Apple is introducing depth of field to it's new lenses which according to your definition is to make things sharper, so given the current lenses are not deficient in this regard, what is are they are actually adding do you think. Depth of field implies a range of values over a given focal distance, no depth of field equals no values, try figuring it out
 
rikki_t said:
So Apple is introducing depth of field to it's new lenses which according to your definition is to make things sharper, so given the current lenses are not deficient in this regard, what is are they are actually adding do you think. Depth of field implies a range of values over a given focal distance, no depth of field equals no values, try figuring it out
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A couple of observations on the dialog on this topic.
  1. You referred to ‘no depth of field’ as meaning everything is sharp. I think of this actually as ‘infinite’ depth of field. Means the range of distances in which subjects are sharp approaches infinity, therefore, everything is effectively sharp. That’s why we rely on a ‘shallow’ depth of field to get blurred backgrounds.
  2. As to the question of “what are they actually adding”, as I and others have stated, this addition is effectively a nothing burger unless you are shooting very close up or macro due to the lens and sensor sizes involved.
 
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Mr_Ed said:
A couple of observations on the dialog on this topic.
  1. You referred to ‘no depth of field’ as meaning everything is sharp. I think of this actually as ‘infinite’ depth of field. Means the range of distances in which subjects are sharp approaches infinity, therefore, everything is effectively sharp. That’s why we rely on a ‘shallow’ depth of field to get blurred backgrounds.
  2. As to the question of “what are they actually adding”, as I and others have stated, this addition is effectively a nothing burger unless you are shooting very close up or macro due to the lens and sensor sizes involved.
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No they are adding depth, a function that hither to was only available in a faux form with portrait mode, an ai cheat, and also something that is only possible with the use of larger sensors
 
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