Needless to say, after a month of shooting photos with the iPhone 12, I’ve quickly ditched the iPhone 11 Pro. With an improved sharpness and low light capability using the wide-angle, I’ve been able to shoot a considerable amount of satisfying photos with the iPhone at night time.
Photos with the new iPhone 12 also have more information, making my heavy editing habits on photos better as they are not affecting the photo quality as much as it did in the past. These phones are definitely getting better every year.
I can only wonder how the Raw file on the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max would make the photos even more fantastic.
I’m leaving you with photos I’ve been snapping around Singapore during the last month of November shooting with the iPhone 12. Photos are all edited using Lightroom Mobile. I’ve then re-exported them on Lightroom desktop to optimize the size for the website so photo load faster, with the addition of noise reduction.
Let’s start this photo journal around Singapore with my favourite shot! This was taken at low light after the rain, with the epic reflection of the neon lights at the Capitol Theatre Singapore. As usual, I love my wide-angle perspective, giving more of a dramatic angle and “badass” vibes to myself. Of course, the distortion of the wide-angle makes me taller which I obviously do not mind at all. The downside of shooting wide angle at night is per usual the higher noise and less sharpness in the picture, but the improvement of the wide-angle from the iPhone 11 Pro to iPhone 12 is considerate enough that I can say with confidence that with my older iPhone 11 Pro, I would’ve not shot this photo. The photo was edited on Lightroom with our very own AdventureFakory presets. It was then additionally edited on Lightleap using one of their filters to add a bit of a neon feel to the final result. See below the un-edited version.
Continuing on the low light photography, these two photos were taken literally the first night I received the iPhone 12. I couldn’t resist to bring myself out to Haji Lane, a very hip spot in Singapore, perfect for night photography. Needless to say, I was a bit excited shooting wide-angle photos during the night, something I would’ve simply never done in the past. Never would I also ever post a low light photo taken on the iPhone before the iPhone 12 because I was never satisfied enough with the quality. Lastly, I don’t take selfies that much, but I know for a fact the new iPhone 12 takes much better low light selfies and still offers a seamless “bokeh” effect with the front camera! PS: I did add a lot of Noise removal on post-processing on Lightroom so my face and skin are smooth like a baby’s bum!
Rewinding back on the clock, sharing with you photos I took during blue hour from the famous Marina Bay Sands, Singapore’s precious signature landmark. Again, with the improved low light camera, I couldn’t resist taking a landscape photo with the wide-angle. I had to add additional noise reduction to make the photo smoother as well in post-processing on Lightroom. Not perfectly happy with the smoothness of the water, but as you can see, my style is heavily processed so the original photo is much sharper. See below the original photo without edit.
Note that this photo hasn’t been edited at all, but exported for web viewing on Lightroom.
Taken at sunset, with dramatic clouds, the iPhone 12 was able to take my editing habits used with pro cameras without sacrificing the quality of my image. The iPhone 12 doesn’t shoot RAW files, a raw image file is ideal for most photographers and those that want to keep perfecting their photos via post-processing like myself. The RAW file contains more information, making it lose less quality when going through the editing process. Good news is that the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max do offer Apple’s new raw photo format. They call it the ProRaw and provides the customization of a raw file infused with the iPhone’s computationally photo smarts.
Happy to say that I am probably Apple’s favourite iPhone wide-angle camera user! The possibility for consumers that are not photographers to be able to play with a wide-angle is quite fun. If you aren’t too sure how to use it, I really recommend you trying different things because the wide-angle can really exaggerate creative ideas you might have for a photo like the one we took above inside the Marina Bay Sands.
Of course I had to take a photo with my brand new iPhone 12 in front of the brand new Apple Store at Marina Bay In Singapore. It is Apple’s first ever store that “floats” on the water! The photos were shot wide angle at 0.5.
Why do we always shoot in wide-angle? In general, we quite like the composition possibility to show both the person and the location. It is not everyone’s cup of tea, but it is surely ours! Try it more often and we hope you might like it.
It is safe to say that at every new iPhone, the portrait mode is improved. The iPhone 12 does offer a seamless blur effect just like you were shooting with a 35mm lens at 1.8 aperture!
The iPhone 12 portrait mode has also gotten better for photos taken at night. Yes the quality has improved, but don’t forget that the key to good photography is the light!
Finally, leaving you with this wonderful panoramic view of Singapore taken from the Marina Bay Sands, at Lavo at the rooftop bar using the wide-angle with the iPhone 12. Full review of the iPhone 12 coming up!
What phone are you using at the moment and are you thinking about upgrading to any of the iPhone 12 phones?
