Unauthoritative Pronouncements

Stu Maschwitz is a filmmaker (and VFX guy) who did his own testing with the iPhone 7 Plus and really loves it. It’s worth reading just for his technical breakdown of the defocus effect, something I mentioned in my previous post, but which is not as fully fleshed out as his examples. I am still not in love with many of the Portrait Mode photos I’ve seen, but Stu explains why he doesn’t think that’s such a bad thing.

I didn’t think the results would be this good. Apple, uncharacteristically, undersold them. And this created room for a delightful surprise when Portrait Mode turned out to be something I will most certainly use.

I don’t entirely agree as I feel like there’s still some low-hanging fruit for improvement in the area of the defocus effect itself, and noise-matching. It is still better than not having it, since this effect is not baked in to the only image that is produced when you take a photo.