The opening shot of Jordan honestly looks like green screen with the soft edge around his entire silhouette. It was somewhat of a relief to see the improvement stopping down makes. As noted, I’m sure the effect will be improved in time. I don’t think filmmakers and camera makers need to worry about this being a threat, but it is interesting tech on a consumer level.
That was exactly my impression; not a great look. I do wonder about camera makers, though; while there will always be people willing to pay for specialist equipment, the continual improvements will keep nibbling further and further into the camera market.
@@rhythmace1 The recent eye tracking then animal eye tracking of professional cameras has been an exciting leg up on phones, though I wonder how long it might take to make there as well. Luckily for camera makers, phones just don't have the same lens reach to capture wildlife at a distance.
I’ve been trying cinematic mode on my 13 Pro Max for a while . I also found experimentally that stopping down a bit can make a major quality improvement, somehow, it’s rare that it’s mentioned in reviews, so I’m happy that it was here. It’s a very simple solution.
As I expected most reviewers won't try to stop down, they are not experimental enough. I always did portrait mode in f6.3 and above, not looking for crazy background blur.
@@unlokia easy for you to say since you obviously don’t have the phone. It’s better then you might think, and most people will never see the defects the reviewers love to point out.
@@unlokia I can't blame you, the amount of artefacts is incredibly high - it's like portrait mode with all those problems but 30 times per second, magnifying the issue.
The cinematic mode at Tony 9 actually looked pretty usable. The 4k is painfully over sharpened and gross. The lack of 7680 fps slow mo makes it a useless tool :)
@@silva_br1 But those modes were kinda useless and limited to literally recording for less than 1/4th of a second. Apple "only" offers you 240fps at 1080p but you can record as long as you want until your storage is full.
Agreed, though the 30fps restriction means I won't be using it much. I'd like to see a "pro mode" that lets you choose strip away that horrible sharpening. Looks like ProRes with Filmic gives a somewhat better result, but from the videos I've seen so far it still has the telltale smartphone video look. I suppose all that crazy computational stuff is probably the only thing that makes the footage halfway useable in the first place though, so maybe there's no benefit in fully disabling it.
Stopping down in cinematic mode is great advice! I’d love to see the ponytail test with those settings. As this review has pushed me closer to upgrading, I may try the test myself!
Pushing the f-stop really is an easy way to make the content look horrible. I kinda hate that in many reviews people are setting it to f2 or whatever and then blame this mode for doing a bad job. It's just like with Portrait Mode. stopping down helps a LOT. That way you still get a clean and good looking blurred background but without the mistakes around the subject all the time.
@@pa4482 Stopping down means increasing the f number, aka, f stop. In a practical sense, raising the f number increases the depth of field and lessens background blur. Here’s some wikipedia action: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-number
Excellent cameras for a smart phone, but I'm still not crazy about the software shallow DOF effect. It looks like some sort of weird haze filter surrounding the subject, instead of an even and smooth falloff. I hope Apple fixes that over time.
I wasn't convinced by the skin tones, but also wonder if you could turn the cinematic videos into 3D videos, like you can with the photos with depth maps? (12PM owner so won't be upgrading... it was a nice bump from the 7...)
I also noticed it. For younger people, the skin tone is not very bad when shooting with iPhone, but for older people skin tone is not good at all. I hate my dirty skin tone shot by iPhone.
Great vlog. Just bought the iPhone 13 Pro and loving it. Like you mentioned 99.9% of people aren’t camera reviewers and I believe the quality for social media is amazing. To have the versatility and quality that this phone gives you for photo and video from a smartphone is great. Would recommend this phone big time 📱❤️
I am not a camera reviewer, I'm not really into photography even as a hobby. I love seeing good work but I myself have no experience in learning what goes into a good shot or any real terminology about cameras or photography. That being said, my iPhone 13 Pro Max has allowed me to take some of the best photos I've ever seen. I filmed a very small wedding reception along with the professional photographer they hired, and with portrait mode, they preferred some of my shots to those shot on a professional Sony camera. They also aren't pros or camera buffs by any stretch, but the fact that a smartphone can keep up with a pro camera + lenses that combined cost 3x or more what my phone did, especially being used by a completely clueless operator, is super impressive in my opinion.
This is exactly why I don't use my expensive fullframe camera these days and photograph more and more with my phone. I learned about story telling and using the oldskool composition techniques. The images from my phone are amazing and people prefer them because the people look more natural (your not "taking a photograph"). Grandma doesn't see the technical imperfections. Yes, I see the quality difference. Even on my phone screen the fullframe camera looks "better", but the convenience takes over when using my iPhone. My wife laughs at me, because she uses her phone for many years now. :)
Great video thanks but you didn't mention anything about ProRes, is it worth it? What about the camera on the 13? do you think its worth going for the pro? A comparison review would be nice if you could.
Thank you for this great video. Could you advise if the audio was also captured by the iPhone or did you use an external microphone set up? Thanks again.
What's going on with the colors in this review? They're kind of all over the map, but the cinematic mode, in particular, seemed really oversaturated and made Jordan look like a tomato. Was this tweaked in editing, or is it straight outta camera(phone)? It didn't seem like the still images had this problem.
Wow the skin tones and natural bokeh are good enough for me. The cinematic mode when you stop down a bit looks pretty cool a detail pretty much every other reviewer missed but you guys didn’t. Keep up the good work 👏👏
Wonder what’s the mic you were using on this video, and one thing you did not mention when you talked about the video mode was audio quality, and the solution for audio recording
That image stabilisation is mindblowing to me! The only thing stopping me from buying one of these and using it is Apple's image processing: I really don't like how they tone map the image, because it makes skin tones look unnaturally flat and bizarre-looking 😬
well Apple kinda has you covered then with the new Photography Styles. You can set up the look you want and the iPhone then will take every shot in those settings.
Yes thank you Clayton! It’s terrible the post processing makes you look dead and dull. Called apple supportt and they had no idea what I was talking about
while the cinematic mode aims to produce subject/background separation, the strong hdr is actually doing the opposite.. my brain is so confused! great review though! DPReview is the best!
Thanks once again for both an entertaining and useful video! Quite impressed overall with the new lens features; especially when you consider this a camera you always have with you. Likely wouldn’t use cinematic mode (just like I rarely use portrait mode on my iPhone 11, still on occasion it works well), but otherwise could be a great tool. Still wish it performed better in low light, but I say that about all small cameras too. This seemed reasonable. Was just about to pick up a ZV1 as a small carry along camera, but this actually might be the better choice! A bit more perhaps, but so convenient for often same quality. Colors here however seemed a bit too much at times.
I got the 13 pro because it’s a decent camera that’s always with you for day-to-day snapshots. I’m not going to carry my big Sony everywhere but when it matters, I’ll always opt for a real camera and good glass.
I think the cinematic mode looks fine, the weird blur and halo is there if you look for it, but many common people wouldn't notice as they don't know or care how actual depth looks like. Hope they can make it shoot at least 2.7k instead of 1080 though.
I have a 12promax and I am a blind content creator and I am shooting with my iPhone and my Insta360 OneR. I will upgrade when I have cinematic modes of my iPhone and my 360 camera
Would you say this covers most if not all the family snapshot photography + video needs? Or are there better systems out there that are still lightweight with much better quality
Great review !!! I love you guys :-) :-) Love the review for teaching the HUGE difference between a smartphone and mirrorless 4K quality camera👍👍👌👌Also appreciate that you didn't create a war between Android and Apple because you taught us and then showed us the facts. Fun to watch too with lots of giggles :-) :-) Thank you !!!! 🙏
Thanks for doing such a thorough review! Even though I can't afford and likely wouldn't buy one anyway, it's still nice to be informed. Those colours are just way off for me. Combined with the crazy good stabilisation, it makes it look like a video game.
7:47 The cinematic mode still looks very fake even at f8...it's not as bad, but the halo effect around the subject is still there and and distracting to watch. However, this is a commendable effort from Apple, and with further improvements on the algorithm/software...it's probably be outstanding when iPhone 14 comes along.
"It is NOT literal torture watching footage shot in cinematic mode" Are you sure? 😂 Looks pretty painful to me. Easily the worst footage I've seen on this channel.
Coming from the iPhone 7 and so far I’m underwhelmed! I can’t stand the hdr/over sharpened look in a lot of these photos. Apple better give me the option to turn that off ASAP!!!
except for the slightly higher saturation or reds, and some slightly excessive processing. the video is impressive, like you can use this regularly for youtube. edit: the cinematic mode somehow smoothens quite sharpened/distracting background but 1080p30?🤔
My photography has been on pause for a few years now but I still watch each and every one of your videos featuring Chris and Jordan. Almost feels like family at this point 😁
I think you should do a tutorial for DLSR users. I spent a lot of time learning my Fuji X-T3 and can shoot quickly without a lot of thinking. Whenever I use my iPhone (I’m always thinking “Now what do I do?”
I’m more of an enthusiast, but as someone that would like to travel and make content, I think the pocketable nature of the iPhone form factor, I’d kinda like it if Apple would start to make a dedicated camera, I know a lot of people wouldn’t like it, but I think it could be cool. I’d like to see how far they could push the form factor while also improving the camera quality and the computational quality. There’s probably not a market for it though.
Great video and thanks for pointing out what should be obvious to other reviewers but has escaped them...stopping the "aperture" down in Cinematic mode. It seems f/5.6 or so seems to be the sweet spot for still getting some nice background blur but lessening that halo effect. Also, having the camera a bit further back and not so close up on your subject helps too. With the telephoto camera, you can stop down even more to around f/8 or f/9 and still get really nice compression and background blur while having your subject looking cleaner. Lets not forget this is Apple's first iteration of Cinematic video. Just wait until they perfect it in a few years. You get 3 really good lenses that shoot killer photo and video with gimbal-like stabilization on a PHONE that fits in your pocket. Its gotten to the point now that these iPhones are so great for photos and videos, unless you are a working professional, you no longer need a dedicated camera with lenses.
