Apple iPhone 13 to have ProRes

Once again, it is embarrassing for the camera industry. The big three have just barely given is 10bit in $2,000+ hybrid category and a smartphone is still going to kick their butt in the codec department. But not a big deal as the images across the board are all better nowdays. I do not think I will be in this business anymore if shooting on a phone is the expected behavior.
 
DLD said:
You're right ... but, as Norbro says, people will resort to the smartphone cams because that's the only thing they know how to use. To quote a Hollywood icon, "Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life".
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the kids being churned out of film schools won't know how to use anything else?

do the clients who hire me expect me to use only equipment that THEY know how to use?

will I be required to use a phone because it's the most popular consumer imaging device?

I truly fail to follow the logic. 99% of people already don't know how to use the equipment I use or even what the different pieces are for
 
I think there is always a fear of change when technology makes a leap in a new direction.

I remember when digital photography began replacing film there was similar hand wringing. Some of the concerns were true that it became more accessible to the unskilled. Although I don’t have the statistics to say it actually hurt the industry but I’d guess high end weren’t effected, middle might be making less and a new low end photographer industry was created. Which is now being threatened by smart phones.

I think as long as you are flexible and have good transferable skills you’ll be ok no matter what happens with technology.
 
If a certain phone or camera is overhyped, clients might want you to shoot with it, because as far as they know it's the best camera ever made. Remember when the 5D MK II was requested, even long after better cameras had been released?

A couple weeks ago at my day job as a AV Tech, I assisted the Communications Specialist in setting up for an interview, which she decided to shoot on a couple iPhones, because their video quality beat the company's old prosumer Sony camcorders from 2009. The setup was a little sketchy, as we didn't have any phone tripod mounts, so I gaffers taped the phones onto right angle brackets and bolted the brackets onto QR plates.

Some companies, even fortune 500 ones, are getting away from a dedicated video person, and are having people from the communications department produce videos on their phones. They'll still hire an agency for more polished videos for commercials or important presentations though.
 
ahalpert said:
I truly fail to follow the logic
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No. You follow it really well.

Peter C. said:
I think there is always a fear of change when technology makes a leap in a new direction.

I remember when digital photography began replacing film there was similar hand wringing. Some of the concerns were true that it became more accessible to the unskilled. Although I don’t have the statistics to say it actually hurt the industry but I’d guess high end weren’t effected, middle might be making less and a new low end photographer industry was created. Which is now being threatened by smart phones..
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The industry, as a whole, has been destroyed by the smart phones and the smartphone cameras are getting better and better. At some point, the sensor limitations will be far less relevant than they are now. As I said earlier, it'll all look "good enough" and the primary variable will be the skill of the operator..
 
Imamacuser said:
If a certain phone or camera is overhyped, clients might want you to shoot with it, because as far as they know it's the best camera ever made. Remember when the 5D MK II was requested, even long after better cameras had been released?

A couple weeks ago at my day job as a AV Tech, I assisted the Communications Specialist in setting up for an interview, which she decided to shoot on a couple iPhones, because their video quality beat the company's old prosumer Sony camcorders from 2009. The setup was a little sketchy, as we didn't have any phone tripod mounts, so I gaffers taped the phones onto right angle brackets and bolted the brackets onto QR plates.

Some companies, even fortune 500 ones, are getting away from a dedicated video person, and are having people from the communications department produce videos on their phones. They'll still hire an agency for more polished videos for commercials or important presentations though.
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That’s interesting. So yeah new tech will effect certain areas more and it’s unpredictable. In my case I had to learn more IT related things like streaming, zoom, screen capturing etc. Which I enjoyed learning but I recognize in corporate your job might be absorbed by another department. Best you can do is keep up with new tech and be flexible not much else you can do.
 
DLD said:
No. You follow it really well.



The industry, as a whole, has been destroyed by the smart phones and the smartphone cameras are getting better and better. At some point, the sensor limitations will be far less relevant than they are now. As I said earlier, it'll all look "good enough" and the primary variable will be the skill of the operator..
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At least in my line a work I don’t feel the smart phone has had any effect.
 
It was never really the recording format holding back the iPhone. ProRes isn't very practical for a limited recording space kind of a device. Plus apps like FilmicPro has provided higher data rates for a long time now. Its neat to support ProRes but that alone is not going to likely make a massive quality difference.

We still do not have the ability to adjust exposure with aperture or built in electronic ND filtering. That would matter 10000x more than adding ProRes. Adjusting video exposure outside with just shutter speed is far from professional.

Cinematic mode is neat and some of us were just having the discussion that the processing I camera would be virtually impossible. Doing it in post does however make sense. There are already some apps that shoot raw stills from the iPhone and wil capture from both cameras so the DOF can be adjusted in post just like portrait mode does. This essentially does that same thing. Double video recording one from each camera and in post that can be processed. Cool and nice they did it but you won't see it that way in camera. You will still see everything in focus while shooting which will make composition interesting. Its awesome that users have the option in post to create a larger sensor look but this is extremely far from a professional camera replacement.

Every year a new iPhone comes out we talk about how it just killed the profession camera market and yet I don't know a single professional that has sold their gear and started just using their iPhone. It may provide a better option in our pockets but it likely never will replace what we do. Even on the stills side I can't think of a single professional photographer that sold off their FF gear and started shooting a wedding or a fashion shoot with just their phone.

It provides cooler options for those that were likely never going to be in the professional camera market and it bridges the quality gap so what they post on social media looks more professional but all the processing and tools in the world still doesn't take the place of talent.

I can barely snap a iPhone photo in one second let along have something like raw bursts of 20 photos. Plus NR, sharpening and adjusting lighting and DOF are all forms of image processing and messing with pixels. The more Apple goes down this hole the more over processed the images get. Many of us are trying to get away from an over processed look and go closer to it. Pros are ditching m43 for FF because of edge enhancement and they want large MP to have fine detail without edge sharpening. NR can remove noise but it always creates a plastic electronic look. Again cool what Apple can do with a phone camera but at the end of the day the CPU and GPU can fix a bunch of stuff but its still a crappy sensor with a boatload of image processing thrown on to fix it. Much like shooting crappy video and throwing on Neatvideo, sharpening, heavy grading and so forth in post. There is making a clean image and there is making a natural image. Apple is moving further away from natural.

Manual control is still a professional requirement. Being able to quickly adjust focus, aperture, settings with muscle memory and real tactile controls. Again its cool that almost everyone on the planet can get this kind of quality now vs just the pro elite but in no way shape or form has it ever replaced us or pro gear. Has not then and will not now. Thinking it will takes a very narrow spec only view of what images are. It strips away the motion and art of why we buy the crap we do. I want a camera that snaps a photo the exact millisecond I tap the button and not one second later. They can throw on all this cool processing but they do not address the core of what pros actually want. They are addressing what consumers want to get closer to what pros can do. Huge difference.

With that said yes in some cases many of us could toss in an iPhone for another angle on a shoot or to pick up some b roll. I have shot some impressive video with my iPhone 12 Pro max and Filmic Pro but there is no way I would ever consider it my main or only camera.

I also don't believe for a second phone cameras have hurt DSLR sales. The vast majority of users with phone cameras were likely never going to buy a camera. The phones gave them a camera they likely would have never had. Again I cannot think of a single pro user that stopped buying gear because of their phone. now some average users who walk into BestBuy to buy a $100 point and shoot camera for Christmas photos may have hurt those sales but I just do not think the same applies to any kind of pro market. Just like point and shoot, disposable cameras, digital, auto focus or anything else has ever hurt the pro market.
 
I think the Blockbuster guy who didn't buy Netflix for 50 million had the same mindset.

Most of the above will be irrelevant because the phone will be a completely different tool in the future with different minds living on the planet.

There will be no DSLR sales to hurt because they won't exist. lol

The next 10 years will be faster than the previous 10 years and so on and so forth.
 
NorBro said:
I think the Blockbuster guy who didn't buy Netflix for 50 million had the same mindset.

Most of the above will be irrelevant because the phone will be a completely different tool in the future with different minds living on the planet.

There will be no DSLR sales to hurt because they won't exist. lol

The next 10 years will be faster than the previous 10 years and so on and so forth.
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I don't really care what they can do five or ten years from now. I care about what it can do today. DSLRS will also advance.

My point isn't how good they will get in ten years but how this next model is not going to hurt us. We have this same discussion since phones first added cameras. Its been years now and I still don't see the impact.

There is predicting the future and being ahead and there is over hyping something. Every single time a new iPhone is announced we go through this discussion and then once the phone comes out we no longer talk about it and go back to talking about 45 MP sensors, raw video, how much over sampling 4k video is using and so forth. The same exact will be true this time as well.

I'm of course not ignoring what advances Apple is creating but I'm also trying to be a bit realistic about all of this. I am a Apple user and super impressed with what they are doing but I can put into perspective what this means and what it doesn't mean.

Take a look at raw stills from the iPhone. Super low res and soft and a ton of noise. There is an insane amount of processing going on in the camera to make that look decent. Raw stills from the iPhone can be made to look better in post but they are still heavily processed. That sensor size and lens size can only resolve so much detail. A ton of sharpness needs to be added to make the images look detailed. Then there is the dynamic range. No processing can fix that unless they start doing multiple exposures at once and doing a fake HDR from that. Sure all can be done potentially but its always, always, always going to be a over processed look.
 
Thomas Smet said:
I don't really care what they can do five or ten years from now. I care about what it can do today. DSLRS will also advance.

My point isn't how good they will get in ten years but how this next model is not going to hurt us. We have this same discussion since phones first added cameras. Its been years now and I still don't see the impact.

There is predicting the future and being ahead and there is over hyping something. Every single time a new iPhone is announced we go through this discussion and then once the phone comes out we no longer talk about it and go back to talking about 45 MP sensors, raw video, how much over sampling 4k video is using and so forth. The same exact will be true this time as well.

I'm of course not ignoring what advances Apple is creating but I'm also trying to be a bit realistic about all of this. I am a Apple user and super impressed with what they are doing but I can put into perspective what this means and what it doesn't mean.

Take a look at raw stills from the iPhone. Super low res and soft and a ton of noise. There is an insane amount of processing going on in the camera to make that look decent. Raw stills from the iPhone can be made to look better in post but they are still heavily processed. That sensor size and lens size can only resolve so much detail. A ton of sharpness needs to be added to make the images look detailed. Then there is the dynamic range. No processing can fix that unless they start doing multiple exposures at once and doing a fake HDR from that. Sure all can be done potentially but its always, always, always going to be a over processed look.
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But you're basing the future on the current model...no one does that. You can use it to evaluate changes and determine other factors, but the tech needed time to develop...surely anyone can understand this?

Did digital cameras from the 80s look like they do in the 2020s?

It took 15 years for DSLRs/mirrorless to offer 10-bit and decent HD and 4K.

___

Today, at 1:28pm Eastern Time, an iPhone isn't much of a threat.

So if it's about you and what it can do for you right now, you're good.
 
DLD said:
No. You follow it really well.
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Not a single bullet point that I listed is true now nor do I expect to become true.

Someone referenced the 5dmk2. But the 5D could deliver a look unlike anything else in its price tier.

And if the iPhone somehow becomes an unbeatable light field camera or something and does things that no other camera can do then fine I'll probably have one anyway and include it in my kit

Also - the industry as a whole has not been destroyed by smartphones. Interchangeable lens camera sales have barely budged because professionals are not trading in their nikons for iphones
 
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DLD said:
Every camera company executive thinks otherwise. (of course, the cartel has only itself to blame)
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I think thats just an excuse and a blame game. It is true it may have hurt the bottom end sales but how many people used to go through life and never own a camera. In my own family holidays maybe one family member actually owned a camera. Thats why at one point disposable cameras were actually a thing. Those buying disposable cameras likely were never going to buy a camera anyway. Having disposables gave the ability for anyone to finally have a camera but I don't think it had a huge impact on actual camera sales.

I do think the disposable market was killed by phone cameras and some very low end point and shoot cameras. I would love to some evidence however that it has hurt DSLR sales. I think what hurt DSLR sales more was there was a flood of DSLR sales when they added video and once that market was saturated the sales tampered off. I guess one could argue budding film makers who would have bought a Canon T2i or another low end DSLR decided to use their phone instead but thats also a market that never really existed before the DSLR video era. So realistically camera sales should be back to where they were before the indie film making age with DSLRs.

I think there was a hope that more users would want to start buying cameras for photos and video but thanks to phones that never happened.

I guess its all about how one looks at the market as half full or half empty. I think the camera companies are looking at it as half empty and lamenting for what could have been vs the reality of cameras were never really a super hot market to begin with. How many people goin on vacation before the 2000's had cameras with them? Not many. Maybe that was different in Asian or European countries but in the US I hardly ever saw a camera anywhere I went. An occasional DSLR here and there and some point and shoots but for the most part people didn't buy a ton of cameras. Even if they did they tended to buy one, leave it sit in a closet for years and hardly ever buy a new one. Consumers could go a decade and keep their same film camera.

Video was a bit different of a situation since it advanced so much in a few decades but even then I rarely saw someone on vacation with a vide camera. If they had one they didn't use it very often and I'm almost Sur they were not buying a new one every year. Its only us gear freaks that upgrade cameras every year and we still do that no matter what phones camera come out. We slowed down our upgrades because we are starting to get to a good enough state. Much like computers. We eventually have god enough and there is less desire to upgrade. Tablets are starting to go through this as tablets handle almost anything most users do with flying colors. Upgrading fro ma iPad1 made more sense because they sucked. Now a base model iPad has great day to day performance and can handle most games made for the iPad. Same is true for cameras. Most of us now have 4k and most of the features we want. sure we would like a feature or two here and there but not enough so to rush out and buy another camera. Even my GH4 can still do fairly well today and thats seven years old. GH5 users may be even less likely to upgrade since they already have 10bit 4k, IBIS and good stills. If they mostly shoot in good lighting there is very little to no reason for most of them to upgrade. Panasonic made a solid camera that checked off almost every box and its hard for users now to justify spending more when they already have most of what they want. Previously we had incremental updates that solved a lot of things we hated. Now we mostly have good enough or better than we hoped for.

I upgraded from the GH1 to the GH2 then GH3 and GH4. After that I started to see less of a reason to upgrade. So they kind of lost a sale in me. I skipped the GH5 and GH5S. Most GH5 users skipped the GH5S and are likely skipping the GH5 II. Unless the Gh6 blows people away with ground breaking features they may skip the GH6 as well. Right now its hard to think of how a GH4 will have better 10bit 4:2:2 over sampled 4k vide compared to the GH5. Maybe a 1/2 stop more sensitive but 5.2k vs 5.7k for oversampling likely will not yield a ton of extra sharpness. You can't really get better than 400mbps 10bit 4:2:2 either unless they go for ProRes internal or ProResRaw internal. Even then thats not for everybody who still prefers the size of 150 mbps 10bit 4k which to this day looks stunning.

Thats why I don't think its accurate to blame iPhone cameras. Its really more to do with many of us have all the tools we need now. Those that feel they did not have moved on to cinema cameras which is ultimately what those users wanted anyway. The DSLRS were just the best solution at the time. Even external ProResRaw may be too little too late. Four years ago it would have been a massive smash but now its kind of an annoyance for those already doing internal raw. When we had crappy internal 8bit over compressed recording external still didn't have a huge impact. A few tried it and gave up. The same will likely be true for external raw. Cool that it can happen but a Gh6 plus Ninja V assuming the GH6 has external raw is a $3,200 investment vs a $1,300 P4k. Sure it may handle 5.7k and not just 4k raw but to many thats perfectly fine if the have $2k left over for lenses and other gear.

If Panasonic wants more sales they need to forget the iPhone and compete per features and price with BMD. If Canon wants more sales they need to stop crippling the R and RP tier cameras and stop neglecting Ef-M cameras. They also need to figure out how to build a FF DSLR like Sony has that does not overheat. they all need to figure out a way to have at the very least external raw and better yet internal raw.
 
NorBro said:
But you're basing the future on the current model...no one does that. You can use it to evaluate changes and determine other factors, but the tech needed time to develop...surely anyone can understand this?

Did digital cameras from the 80s look like they do in the 2020s?

It took 15 years for DSLRs/mirrorless to offer 10-bit and decent HD and 4K.

___

Today, at 1:28pm Eastern Time, an iPhone isn't much of a threat.

So if it's about you and what it can do for you right now, you're good.
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No I'm basing what I said that the iPhone13 is neat but it likely has very little impact on what we do. I'm not talking about the iPhone 21 but the 13. Yeah maybe someday we will have organic sensors that have 100x the signal to noise ratio we do now and we will have glass that can resolve 100x more detail. I'm not worried about that yet and thats kind of a the sky is falling topic to worry about right now.

I'm saying we go through this same song and dance every single year and the outcome is always the same. Hey thats neat but then it has zero impact on any of us.
 
It has little, zero impact on what YOU do, right now...and maybe that won't change for you, but there's a difference.

Trust I would not want to be replaced by a nobody with a phone, that would hurt.

But it's inevitable for many and if that can't be seen or understood then I don't know, it is what it is.
 
I feel like there's an association between how much people shoot professionally and how little they expect smartphones to displace real cameras. Perhaps because they can look at their own work and try to imagine a smartphone in use vs just considering the whole thing theoretically
 
I didn’t think there’s a debate that why camera manufacturers are in trouble is because the majority of their profits and sales came from personal use retail. The pro market in comparison to millions of ordinary consumers is tiny. That’s why they’ve shifted to full frame higher end cameras.

Apple now has the technology advantage because most consumers put there money into a phone instead of a camera. The billions of dollars can be used to fund r & d that camera manufacturers lost. But despite that the phone without features like interchangeable lenses, large sensor, manual controls, etc limit its professional applications. No matter the tech form factor matters. This is the same reason dslr hasn’t replaced the camcorder and why the phone won’t replace the dslr/mirrorless.
 
The moment film and video entered the digital age we knew where it was all going. Cheaper, smaller, better, more expendable, more accessible. Just like computers, and everything else digital. In the end, all this really does is separate the tech heads, who value themselves based entirely on their gear, from the artists, who value themselves based entirely on their talent.
 
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The discussion is at times useless because it has moving parts.

IMO, here is the bottom line:

Companies care about two things; money and data.

What we do, as camera operators and editors, is create data (visual data) so companies can make money, directly or indirectly.

___

If this data can be created by phones, which we see day in and day out on social media - which companies salivate at those leads/opportunities to reach millions of eyes like normal people do - then what purpose do handheld cameras serve for the future?

Certain industries? Sure, fine, maybe at first. But the phones will improve greatly and industries adjust and change as well.

If the quality is excellent and the phones have a variety of features that can product an end-result with shallow DOF, amazing detail, no noise, high FPS, etc. etc. in which there is no perceivable difference compared to the end-result with a traditional camera, why wouldn't a large portion of professional camera ops use it?

What is the difference on YouTube?

Most of us have been around for at least 25, 30 years to have lived through hardware being replaced in our lives. Why is this different?

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Will high-end content be replaced by phones?

No, no, NO. Of course not.

But everything else - seriously, everything else that's not in the 1% - one percent - could be replaced by phones, or at least have a much larger split with other gear.

___

Video production is not difficult (for most of us because we don't have the money to make it difficult).

People can learn the skills we have in a short amount of time and can apply them when using phones.
 
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