[defaultname]

Having that functionality in your pocket, instantly usable, beats having an SLR in the closet at home with a macro lens that you can switch to for a passing need.

And FWIW, the curse of SLR macro lenses is minuscule depth of field, so much so that many take many photos (presuming a perfectly stationary subject), bracket the focus, and stack by sharpness. It's a hugely involved process. A macro lens with a tiny focal length instantly has a big advantage, though depth of field is still going to be a problem given the fixed aperture.

It most real world scenarios I think the average person will have a much better chance of successful results.

[sudosysgen]

This is a fixed issue in cameras. Stop down to F16, and use a ring flash, there you go, fixed.

[defaultname]

Few who have ever taken macro photographs would claim this is a "fixed issue". Macro photography is a giant pain. Further the difference between a 4mm focal length and a 50mm focal length, as a function of DoF, is massively larger than that 50mm going between f2.8 to f16. You'd have to go to a hypothetical F/512 to get the same advantage in that particular realm (though in reality small apertures suffer from their own problems).

This is basic math. It's interesting that someone else claimed it's "physics" as a retort, when yes indeed it IS physics. It's why you can make a tiny lens fixed focus camera that seems to have everything in focus, from near to far, because the DoF becomes enormous.

[sudosysgen]

I have a macro lens in my hands and a stabilized sensor camera. I can take a picture of the crown of my watch with a fair amount of detail.

You have a 4mm lens at f/2. To get the same depth of field you'd need a 50mm lens at f/25, not f/512.

You don't need to use a 50mm lens though. Macro lenses are typically 24mm or so. So you need to shoot at F12 to have the same depth of field in reality, certainly not f/512...

And my camera actually moves the sensor AND the lens instead of just the lens. Because of that it can stabilize in the near field MUCH more efficiently than an iPhone ever could.

[defaultname]

"You have a 4mm lens at f/2. To get the same depth of field you'd need a 50mm lens at f/25, not f/512."

Humorously years back I had authored a giant depth of field essay with online calculators specifically because so many people just couldn't understand why their iPhone couldn't get bokeh. Yes, f/512 would be the impossible equivalent. This is easily calculated.

Regardless, the lens Apple uses for macro mode has a 1.54mm focal length. The 4mm example was just demonstrating how fundamentally small cameras win on depth of field, at least if you want maximal depth of field. Conversely they lose when you want to limit depth of field, which is why we have computational bokeh.

"Macro lenses are typically 24mm or so."

The smallest from most makers is 35mm, but the majority are 50mm+.

This conversation has turned weird. As someone who has had many SLRs, and many lenses, and has taken thousands of macro photos, I know that in the real world macro photography is a massive pain. That DoF is by far the number one obstacle (which is why focus stacking is simply necessary, often with ten or more varied focuses). Physics benefits small camera systems for that specific scenario.

[sudosysgen]

That's just not how lenses work, fundamentally. Bokeh is determined by two things, and two things only - the diameter of the aperture and the distance to the object. That's it.

Also yes, the wide angle of the iPhone 13 is much smaller. Just stop down even further then.

Cheap macro lenses in 2021 are typically around 24mm. I'm talking about the Mitakons and the Laowas of the world.

Focus stacking is needed when you're trying to take very high detail pictures with 60, 70, 90mm lenses on high resolution sensors. You don't need anywhere near as much to take an image with the same magnification as a 13mm equiv. 2cm away.

[defaultname]

"That's just not how lenses work, fundamentally."

Go to the wikipedia page on depth of field and see how it is calculated.

"Cheap macro lenses in 2021 are typically around 24mm"

You claimed they were the norm. Now it's that they simply exist.

"Focus stacking is needed"

Focus stacking is needed when the depth of field is so small that the resulting photo would be unpleasant. This is the case for almost all macro photographs shot on SLRs. It's interesting that someone else claimed this is a fixed issue and posted a photo that looks like it was taken with one of those terrible lens adapter kits. If that is one's standard for "fixed", then sure, but most of us have higher standards.

[sib]

If you are going to try to get persnickety, that's not "bokeh" at all. It's depth of field.

Bokeh is the quality of rendering of out-of-focus highlights.

[angst_ridden]

The most popular macro lenses for dSLRs are 60mm, 90mm, and 105mm. Of course, there are other focal lengths. I don't think I've ever seen a 24mm macro lens, unless we're talking micro 4/3 or some other non-35mm sensor size.

[sudosysgen]

If you want to replicate the effect in the article, you'd be using a 24mm macro lens, yes. Mitakon makes multiple, and laowa makes multiple for all mounts.

[angst_ridden]

I didn't argue that 24mm macros don't/can't exist, I'm arguing that they're vanishingly rare in the grand scheme of 355mm photography.

[throwanem]

I usually work around f/22, at 1/250 and of course with flash. I shot this handheld, about a year ago: https://aaron-m.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/DSC1250-1.jpg

It's a fixed issue.

[defaultname]

Do you think that photo demonstrates that it's a fixed issue? You seem to have around 3mm of depth actually in focus, and even with a very, very shallow subject, parts are unpleasantly out of focus.

I don't think that is the demonstration you think it is. Most macro photographers would not rack that up as a successful photo.

And again, focus stacking is what everyone does to compensate for the DoF weakness.

[throwanem]

If you know a way to focus-stack a live and highly active subject, I'm all ears. But where's your work? To judge by your response here, you must certainly be much better at this than I am, and I'd like the opportunity to derive some small benefit from the extensive experience that gives you so confidently to take such a superior tone.

[defaultname]

"If you know a way to focus-stack a live and highly active subject, I'm all ears."

You don't, which is why higher depth of field is the golden standard. See: The entirety of this discussion.

"so confidently to take such a superior tone"

To be clear, you dismissed my post by claiming that it's a "fixed" issue, then posting proof that doesn't show it to fixed. I don't believe I'm the one who attempted a superior tone.

Depth of field is *THE* issue in macro photography. Small focal length cameras are at an advantage in that regard. It's pretty simple.

[sudosysgen]

I don't see anymore than 3mm in focus in the images of the post.

[sbierwagen]

Not on a full frame 35mm sensor it won't.

[ValentineC]

Wouldn't this also involve needing to use a tripod?

[sudosysgen]

Not necessarily, no. If you want a pin-sharp image at 48MP yes, but if you want something comparable to the iPhone jacking up the shutter speed to 1/400 makes it manageable handheld with good stabilization.

[bosie]

i assume fixed at 24mm because at 90mm, stopping it down to f16 won't do you much good?

[sudosysgen]

Yes, somewhere around 24mm. You'd need to step down a bit more at 90mm.

However, at 90mm the object would also be farther away, so you wouldn't need to stop down a lot more than you'd expect.

[bosie]

at 90mm (at 1:1 or higher magnification) stepping down will not solve the issue, you still need to heavily focus stack.

[sudosysgen]

If you want to take the images in the article of a ~6mm object even at 90mm stopping down would be possible. You'd be putting the object at around 18cm instead of 2cm though.

[dylan604]

But that's how physics work. If iPhone Macro doesn't suffer the same issues, then it's a software trick

[defaultname]

Depth of field is a direct function of real-world focal length. An iPhone has camera systems with a focal length in the 1.4mm - 5mm range (the equivalent framing is not relevant to the impact on DoF). Most SLRs have lenses with focal lengths from 35mm - 100mm.

https://www.photopills.com/calculators/dof

(That site has different camera selections purely because the circle of confusion differs based upon the sensor size / resolution, so it's the relative values that you should pay attention to)

Take a gander at the DoF variations for a 4mm versus a 35mm FL system.

This is the reason why iPhones have to implement fake bokeh -- because the depth of field on tiny cameras is so much larger, even with a wide open aperture. But the inverse is that where you want a wide depth of field it is a feature of the size. It's also why people seem to be much more successful taking photos on smartphones, because the focus is much more forgiving.

A wide DoF is a function of those physics.

[sudosysgen]

You should read up on how crop factor works. It just doesn't work out like that. Try a DOF calculator that allows you to choose the crop factor and set a crop factor of 8.4.

[packetslave]

I wouldn't call it a "trick" but I suspect Apple is doing some focus stacking under the hood.

The image pipeline in the iPhone gets more and more advanced with every IOS release. The state of the art for computational photography is pretty amazing.

[dylan604]

If you're doing something under the hood without disclosing it but calling it something else, it's a trick. It doesn't have to be nefarious, but you are tricking the user into thinking they are doing something which they are not actually doing.

[packetslave]

I see where you're coming from, but here's the thing: every single photo taken on a modern phone goes through a pipeline of 10+ stages of image processing, including multiple exposure merging. The iPhone isn't even taking a single photo... it's picking the best frame(s) out of a running buffer of video.

(unless you shoot in raw, and I haven't read enough yet to know what processing, if any, Apple does to ProRes/RAW photos).

Call it "tricks" if you want. I call it using technology to give the non-professional camera user the best photo possible at the time. If that bothers you, pull out the DSLR, shoot in RAW, and spend time afterwards in Photoshop/Lightroom.

edit this is also why apps like Halide (or ProCamera or Filmic Pro) exist... if you want to control more of the options instead of letting Apple choose, the capability is out there. Most users probably don't care. They just want a good photo of their kids to post on Instagram.

[marcellus23]

How are they not disclosing it? They talk at length, every single keynote, about all the software they build to process iPhone photos.

[dylan604]

Do they really? I only ever hear about how its the best iPhone camera they have ever made. Yes, they talk about how their AI is able to adjusts exposure, color tone, etc. Do they actually talk about how a macro is taken in such detail as focus stacking etc? I tend to nod off during these videos, so I might have missed something.

[marcellus23]

> Yes, they talk about how their AI is able to adjusts exposure, color tone, etc. Do they actually talk about how a macro is taken in such detail as focus stacking etc?

Is that moving the goal posts a bit? Your point was that Apple is somehow pretending they're not using software to create this effect -- if they say they're using AI/etc. to do it, it seems to me like they're not misleading their customers. I don't think the requirement is that they explain exactly how it works in technical detail.

I don't think they did any sort of deep dive on their macro tech, but in the past yes, they have gone into some detail about how their image processing works behind the scenes.

[packetslave]

They tend to have sessions at WWDC about the underlying camera pipeline, for developers who care. Product launch keynotes are the wrong forum for deep technical talks.

[renewiltord]

DSLRs use extensive such tricks to process the image. Enthusiast groups will show the pathological cases for the image processing that happens. Ultimately, ceci n'est pas une pipe applies to the picture. It's a representation and it is meant to evoke the scene.

[dylan604]

What DSLRs use AI or other software based tricks to perform macro photography?

[renewiltord]

Name a DSLR and it uses software based tricks to perform all photography.

[passivate]

Specifically, what is 'state of the art' in the iphones image pipeline? Many of these computational techniques (focus stacking, image averaging, subject recognition, face recognition, etc) have been in use for decades - but just not in a handheld device.

By the same token, I wouldn't call Google docs as 'state of the art' since its duplicating existing desktop software, but in a browser (not to minimize their effort, I'm sure its hard).

[packetslave]

You said it yourself: "just not in a handheld device" and not in what is effectively realtime.

[jychang]

It's not a software trick. Just one of the unintended benefits of having a smaller sensor.

Full frame sensors have thin depth of field. Small sensors like an iPhone don't have that, so they fake it with portrait mode.

But when you do macro photography, having thin DoF becomes a drawback, so with big DSLRs you have to do focus stacking (which is unnecessary on an iphone).

[dylan604]

>Full frame sensors have thin depth of field.

...when they have a large aperture. Stoping down the lens will widen the DoF on that full frame sensor

>so with big DSLRs you have to do focus stacking

you don't have to. only if that is the style you are wanting to achieve. you can also stop down the aperture. it's not as obvious as non-macro, but still something doable.

[jychang]

Have you ever stopped to think about HOW MUCH wider the DOF is when you stop down on a DSLR? Because when it comes to macro, the answer is "usually not enough", even at f/22. And at such small apertures, diffraction becomes a big issue.

This is why focus stacking exists for macro on DSLRs, as when using a true macro 100mm lens you basically have only a thin sliver of usable DOF at reasonable apertures.