It's a few days after the iPhone 15 and 15 Pro have been made available, and everyone is sharing their opinions about the phone, the cameras, and the new features that Apple has added in their latest and greatest (yet) iPhone release. Something that has always been difficult to get is the raw details of how well iPhone camera sensors perform. This year, one of the features that was highlighted in the Apple presentation was the phone's ability to connect external media via the USB-C port. This allows you to hig- quality video (using the new Apple Log and ProRes codecs) to an external SSD, or as some have experimented and found out, you can even save files to an SD card via an adapter.
In this video, Gerald from the popular YouTube channel Gerald Undone takes a deep dive into the numbers behind the iPhone 15 Pro sensor output. Dynamic range is one of the sensor properties that video shooters want to know about before they start using a camera, so that they know how to work with the footage, but at the same time, this is information that is kind of hard to measure accurately.
Gerald tests the sensor for dynamic range at various ISO settings, using the Blackmagic App and the Imatest XYLA, producing hard numbers to analyze. The video is densely packed with information about the iPhone 15 Pro's main camera, and you may want to re-watch certain parts to make sure that you don't miss out some of the nuances that they're talking about. They talk about the sensor's native ISO, how to get the best output in bright light, as well as in low light situations, while ensuring that you don't get choppy-looking video.
What's your biggest takeaway from the video?
Good for you for not ... spoiling...Gerald's work, Susheel!