"Music"
Hey guys It’s Sagar from Tecworkz, and here
is my camera review of the iPhone XS Max.
In the past 2 and half weeks that I have had
this phone, I travelled to some of my favourite
locations in and around Pune, to shot a lot
of images and videos samples.
I have also shot a many images with the Pixel
2 and the OnePlus 6, which means there is
going to be a comparison videos in the coming
days.
So make sure you hit that subscribe button,
if you don't want to miss out the camera comparison
between the iPhone XS Max, Pixel 2 and the
OnePlus 6.
Now, before we get to the Image and video
samples from the iPhone XS Max, let us first
get its camera specifications out of the way.
The camera module is more or less similar
to that of the iPhone X, and it still sticks
out of the back.
But Apple tells us, that the primary camera
in this module has an all new bigger sensor,
with deeper pixels.
It has a 26mm wide lens, and the same resolution
of 12 megapixel, with a wide aperture of f/1.8
as we saw on the iPhone X.
But the actual sensor is now bigger and each
individual pixel has a size of 1.4micron,
so it captures much more light.
Secondary camera has a telephoto lens of 52mm
and again has a similar resolution of 12 megapixel
with an aperture of f/2.4.
Both the cameras are optically stabilised,
and now they have twice the number of autofocus
pixels, so the focusing speed is even faster
than before.
There is also a quad led true tone flash,
to assist while taking images in very low
lighting situations.
You still get Portrait lighting modes, which
lets you add various professional lighting
effects to your shots.
And now you can also change the amount of
blur in the background of the portrait images,
while editing.
You can shoot 4k videos at 24,30 and 60fps
and 1080p videos at 30,60,120 or 240fps, and
all these videos can now record stereo audio.
At the front you have a 7 megapixel True Depth
camera with an aperture of f/2.2, and it can
now shoot 1080p 60fps videos.
Apple is embracing computational photography.
So the camera hardware combined with some
smart software, is capable of delivering amazing
results.
Apple is still burring the options to change
any of the video resolutions, deep in the
settings app.
So every time you need to shoot at different
resolution, you gave to go to settings, scroll
down to camera settings, and then make the
desired changes.
I think, they should simplify things, and
let us make these changes, right from within
the camera app.
Now lets take a look at the image and video
samples from this phone.
All the images are shot in the auto mode,
with Smart HDR turned on.
I saw the sample images that Apple showed
in their keynote, and that had me really exited
for these new iPhones, and looking at these
image samples, I have to say I am pretty impressed.
Thanks to a larger sensor, there are much
more details in these images.
Everything is crisp and sharp, when capturing
images in bright day light.
Colours also look very good but they are a
bit warmer and slightly saturated, compared
to the actual scene.
From last year, Apple has made some changes
to its image processing.
Colours are a bit vibrant and saturated and
the overall images are slightly warmer.
Depending on your colour preference, you may
or may not like it.
The secondary lens allows you to take 2x zoomed
images like these.
The secondary lens does not have a larger
sensor, but it does have OIS, so the sensor
can capture more light, resulting in detailed
images.
These optically zoomed images have so much
more details compared to 2x digitally zoomed
images.
Now Smart HDR is one of the best addition
to these new iPhones.
It offers an amazing dynamic range.
Without this feature, the tree in this image
would have been completely black, and due
to the bright sun in the background, the sky
would have also be completely blown out.
Here is an example of 2 images with and without
Smart HDR turned on.
Look at the amount of details being brought
back from the shadows, and the colours being
preserved, thanks to Smart HDR.
Normal HDR feature on the iPhone X last year
was also pretty good, but it was nowhere close
to the HDR enhanced feature found on the Pixel
2.
With Smart HDR, that gap has been reduced
by quite a lot.
I have shot these same images with the Pixel
2 and the OnePlus 6 , so in my next video,
we will see if the Smart HDR on the iPhone
XS Max can take on the enhanced HDR mode of
Pixel 2.
In these overcast conditions, when there wasn’t
enough sunlight, XS Max was still able to
capture good looking images with lot of details.
Usually in these situations, there is lot
of noise in the darker parts of the images,
but image processing on the XS Max is doing
a good job of keeping the noise down.
Now there are twice the amount of focus pixels,
and as you can see, it can switch the focus
from a near to far object very quickly.
Quick and accurate focusing is important while
taking these close up shots.
thanks to a very wide F/1.8 aperture, the
background in these shots is blurred out very
nicely, leaving the subject in perfect sharp
focus.
Many people say that they don’t take a lot
of images with the portrait mode, but I am
not one of them.
Whenever possible, I prefer taking images
with the portrait mode turned on, specially
when there is ample light.
Portrait mode on the XS Max combined with
the smart HDR feature, is simply amazing.
It has been getting better with time, ever
since it was announced with the iPhone 7 Plus,
and now it is nearly perfect.
Just look look at how well it differentiates
the subject from the background, and now it
is much better around the hair and glasses.
It still struggles a bit at times, but if
you take a few seconds to compose the shot,
results are amazing.
You still get various portrait lighting effects,
but I don’t use the too often.
And now you also have the ability to change
the blur in the background of the portrait
mode images, after you have clicked an image.
Apple is definitely no the first one to implement
this, but the way in which the blur is applied
is definitely unique.
Other manufacturers detect the subject that
should be in focus, and then apply same amount
of blur to the remaining background.
Whereas these new iPhones, detect how far
away various elements in the background are
and then depending on the distance, they are
blurred out more or less.
You can play around with this aperture slider
while editing portrait shots, but I found
somewhere around 4 to 5.5 to be the sweet
spot where the image looks most natural.
Portrait mode on any smartphone is designed
to take images of people, but I love to try
this mode on objects, and here are the results.
With time, iPhone cameras have got very good
at detecting the edges of non human objects.
It is definitely not perfect at detecting
the edges of complex objects, or with things
like straws or glasses of water, but it is
much better than before.
I have seen smartphones priced much lower
than this, take better portrait mode images
of objects, So I think Apple should work even
harder to make this mode perfect.
As we move to indoor and artificial lighting
conditions, cameras on the XS Max still continue
to impress.
The dynamic range is still on point, and you
can see lot of details inside and also out
of the window.
Colours are a bit warm as I said before, but
they look good for the most point.
Thanks to a bigger sensor and optical image
stabilisation, the camera can gather more
details, and even be open for few extra milliseconds
to let in more light, so the images are are
detailed and and there is is less amount of
noise in them.
As we start moving to even lower lighting
situations, you can still pull of some very
good shots.
Normally, there would be much more noise,
in these images and the text in low light
would be pretty much unreadable, but as you
can see, these images are clear and the text
is perfectly sharp.
There is some noise when we click images in
even lower light, but it doesn’t make the
image distracting or unusable.
If you like taking images with the front facing
camera, the 7 megapixel true depth sensor
delivered great results in ample light.
Colours and the dynamic range from the front
facing camera are also very good.
The beauty gate issue has been blown out of
proportion.
It is just the new aggressive noise reduction
at work, and it is not a big deal.
There are plenty of details in these daylight
selfies, and the dynamic range is much improved
for this front camera as well.
Here are some low light selfies, and you can
see that even these are filled with details.
They might be a bit softer when compared side
by side to some of the other phones, but on
their own, these images look pretty good.
You can take portrait images with the true
depth selfie camera, and the results are much
better than any of the previous iPhones.
It is much better at detecting the edges and
separating the background, but it can still
miss certain parts of your hair and blur it
out.
Again the dynamic range on the front facing
camera is great improved.
But it still has a problem if you have multiple
people in the shot.
It keeps the face closest to the camera in
sharp focus, while it blurs out the other
faces in the shot.
I would say Portrait mode on the front facing
camera is better than the iPhone X, but it
is not as good as some of the other Android
smartphones.
Here is a video from the front facing camera
of the iPhone XS Max.
You can see how it handles the exposure of
the scene, overall colours and the stabilisation
when I walk with it.
Coming to the video footage, the iPhone XS
Max is one of the best in its class.
It can shoot 4k 30fps videos with an amazing
dynamic range.
Stabilisation is really good, since both of
its cameras have optical image stabilisation.
It can also shoot 4k 60fps videos.
You can play these videos as they are, or
even slow them down to have a nice cinematic
video experience.
For slow motion, you have the option to shoot
at 120 or 240fps in 1080p resolution.
And you get to choose the parts of the video
that you want to slow down, later on.
This is without a doubt, the best camera on
an iPhone yet.
Thanks to the larger sensor, wide aperture,
telephoto lens, optical stabilisation on both
the lenses and software features like smart
HDR, you can take amazing images and videos.
Its definitely an improvement over the iPhone
X in the camera department.
If you are using an iPhone 7 or any phone
from before that, upgrading to the iPhone
XS or XS Max will get you a much needed bump
in the camera performance.
But if you already have the iPhone X, then
unless you absolutely want to spend the extra
money, want that new gold colour, or need
a bigger display, I would say you can skip
this years iPhones and see what Apple has
to offer next year.
So after looking at over 90 image and video
samples, what do you guys think about the
cameras on this new iPhone XS Max, and with
which phones do you want me to compare its
camera with?
let me know in the comments section.
That is it for this video guys.
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This has been Sagar, and i’ll catch you
guys in the next video.
Take care.
