Hey guys it’s Greg with Apple Explainedand today we’re going to explore the history of the iPhone camera
This topic won lastweek’s voting poll and if you didn’t get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed, thatway the voting polls will show up right in your activity feed and you can let me knowwhat video you’d like to see next
When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, noone imagined that in just 10 years it would become the most popular camera in the world
But it may not be surprising to photographers like Chase Jarvis who famously said, “thebest camera is the one you have with you
” And owning an iPhone means a camera is withyou at all times
A camera that lets you focus on pointing and shooting rather than adjustingdozens of complicated settings
This level of convenience is a big reason why it dominatesthe digital camera market today
But the iPhone’s camera hasn’t always been thought of sofavorably
Let’s go back to 2007 and take a closer look at the camera included withthe original iPhone
One of the first things you might notice aboutthis camera is that it doesn’t have a bump, it sat flush with the iPhone chassis and thiswas the case with every model until the iPhone 6
This camera also might look kind’ve small
And that’s because it had a 2 megapixel sensor so the opening only had to be 4
5mmwide
It took photos at a resolution of 1600 x 1200, which wasn’t too shabby back then
But the photo quality you got from this camera left a lot to be desired
In fact, the twofeatures that were criticized most about the original iPhone was it’s speed over theEDGE network and the camera quality
So let me show you some examples: As you can see,the iPhones camera has definitely come a long way since 2007
The photos were hazy thingsgot even worse in low light conditions
Also, there was no autofocus or flash or video capabilities
All you had in the camera app was a button to take a picture and that was it
And not much changed with the next generationcamera on the iPhone 3G
It was still 2 megapixels, and still had no extra features like digitalzoom or autofocus
Although Apple did add geotagging to photos so you see the locationwhere each photo was shot
Also, the diameter of the camera area grew by
5mm and no onewas really sure why
I believe the change was cosmetic since the 3G was equip with thesame exact camera system as the original iPhone
So the iPhone camera didn’t experience itsfirst true upgrade until the third generation iPhone 3Gs
In fact, the camera was one ofthe 3Gs’ biggest features
Apple bumped up the previous 2 megapixel system to 3 megapixels,and added essential features like auto-focus, auto white balance, and auto macro
Therewas also a tap-to-focus feature which allowed users to select an area for the camera tofocus on
All of these new capabilities added up to photos looking a lot sharper with bettercolor accuracy
The camera was also capable of capturing 640x480 VGA video, marking thefirst time video recording was natively supported on the iPhone
Now eventually iOS 4 came alongand added 5x digital zoom to this camera and iOS 5 brought an auto focus lock and autoexposure lock when users long-pressed on a certain area
There were also gridlines addedfor composing shots in iOS 5
Now if you thought that upgrade was big, waituntil you hear about the iPhone 4 camera
I should actually say cameraS since it wasthe first iPhone to include two, the usual rear-facing camera plus a front-facing camera
Let’s talk about the rear camera first
The iPhone jumped from 3 megapixel sensoron the 3Gs to a 5 megapixel backside illuminated sensor on the 4
And what is a backside illuminatedsensor? Well because this was the first iPhone camera to use multiple lens elements, Applecould arrange those elements a special way to capture more light and improve low-lightperformance
There were a couple more features that helped with low-light performance though,and those were the 2
8 aperture lens which allowed more light to hit the image sensor,and the inclusion of an LED flash
Video recording achieved HD quality at 720p and 30 framesper second
Now, the rear-facing camera had matured into a very capable shooter
But thefront facing camera was brand new and the quality showed
It was only
3 megapixelsand recorded VGA video which looked underwhelming compared to the rear-camera
But it workedjust fine for the occasional selfie and FaceTime call which was Apple’s purpose for includingit
Even though the next generation iPhone wasan "S" model, the 4S increased the rear camera's resolution yet again from 5 megapixels to8 megapixels, finally making it worthy of replacing most point-and-shoots
And thisis when Apple started referring to the iPhone’s rear camera as an iSight camera, which servedas a way to distinguish it from the iPhone’s front-facing, lower quality camera
Videorecording on the 4s was upgraded, taking it to full 1080p HD resolution
There was alsoa more complex element array in the 4s’ camera system which, along with Apple’sA5 chip, allowed the camera to provide face detection for still photos and about 30 percentbetter photo clarity and color accuracy compared to the iPhone 4
The built-in gyroscope allowedfor some image stabilization for the camera while recording video, although it still hadroom for improvement, since state-of-the-art image stabilization algorithms don’t reallyneed a gyroscope, but image processing instead
Other features of the camera was improvedmacro capabilities for close up shots, and faster image capture since it was able totake its first picture in 1
1 seconds and a following picture half a second later
Now on to the iPhone 5
It’s iSight camerawas still 8 megapixels like the iPhone 4S, but the actual camera sensor improved to takebetter photos in low-light and to take photos even quicker
And after two generations of low-quality selfies and VGA FaceTime calls, the iPhone 5 boostedthe front-facing camera quality to 1
2 megapixels, allowing users actually see some detail intheir faces for once
This also allowed the front-facing camera to record video in 720pHD resolution
And thanks to iOS 6, the iPhone 5 could take beautiful panoramic photos bysimply holding up the device and panning it across the landscape
Now this 8 megapixel iSight camera stayedaround for the iPhone 5s, although the aperture was improved from 2
4 to 2
2 to let in evenmore light
The flash was also upgraded from a single LED to a dual LED "True Tone" module
One LED was the tradition white, while the other was amber
But they didn’t just flashsimultaneously
When you took a picture with flash enabled, the iSight camera used softwarealgorithms to assess the color temperature of the scene
That allowed iPhone 5s to determinejust the right percentage and intensity of white light vs
amber light you needed — usingover 1,000 unique combinations
This gave photos more accurate colors and skin tonesas opposed to the washed out photos from a single LED
Two more new features of thiscamera was slow-motion video capture at 120 fps, and fast continuous photo shooting capableof capturing 10 photos a second
Now the iPhone 5c was release alongside the5s but its camera system was exactly the same as the iPhone 5 so there isn’t anythingto add, so let’s move on to the iPhone 6
This is when the camera bump became an unfortunatereality for the iPhone line
In fact, you can find videos of users demonstrating theinconveniences of this bump when it came to things like laying the iPhone 6 on a flatsurface
But this protrusion was necessary in order to house its camera system whichhad a number of advantages despite having the same 8 megapixels and five-element lensas its predecessor
It included 240 frames per second slow motion and time-lapse videoin addition to something called focus pixels
This feature was enabled by the 6’s newimage signal processor and provided the sensor with more information about your image, enablingbetter and faster autofocusing
Face detection technology was improved to recognize facesfaster and more accurately
And users could finally control the exposure manually by tappingand dragging up or down on the display
Auto image stabilization tried compensating formotion blur and hand shaking by taking four photos with a short exposure time and thenstitching the best parts of those photos together into one optimized image
Now the iPhone 6 Plus had all of those featuresin addition to optical image stabilization that worked with the A8 chip, gyroscope, andM8 motion coprocessor to measure motion data and provide precise lens movement to compensatefor hand shake
And the front facing camera for both models were upgraded with a new sensorand a 2
2 aperture lens, along with support for burst and HDR modes
After years of sticking with an 8-megapixelsensor, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus cameras finally moved up to 12 megapixels, allowingfor even larger, higher-quality images
And this brought with it some exciting featureslike 4K video recording, increased panorama resolutions from 43-megapixels to 63 megapixels,and Live Photos
But you had to be careful recording in 4k, since 40 minutes of footagewould completely fill up a 16GB iPhone 6s
The front-facing camera received a major upgrade,jumping from 1
2 megapixels to 5 megapixels
And Retina flash, where the screen flashes3x brighter just before selfies are taken, made skin tones look more natural
Now the iPhone SE was released between the6s and the 7, and it’s camera system was also caught between two iPhones
The iSightcamera was identical to the 6s, while the front-facing camera was borrowed from the5s
And the SE was the last iPhone to feature a flush camera without a bump
But the next big camera upgrade arrived withthe iPhone 7
It had the same 12-megapixel iSight camera, but its was upgraded to a wider1
8 aperture which, paired with the new six element lens, meant the iPhone 7 took evenbetter low-light photos
And the new quad-LED "True Tone" flash was 50% brighter than the6s
I should also point out that the camera bump no longer had a metal ring, instead,Apple tried blending the bump so it appeared to melt into the iPhone’s chassis for amuch sleeker look
And optical image stabilization came to the iPhone 7 which meant the featurewas no longer exclusive to the Plus model
Instead, something called portrait mode wasfeatured on the 7 Plus which created a depth-of-field effect that kept faces sharp while creatinga beautifully blurred background
This was made possible by a telephoto lens that alsobrought 2x optical zoom to the 7 Plus
The front FaceTime HD camera on both models wasupgraded to 7 megapixels and included something called wide color capture which improved coloraccuracy
Now on the iPhone 8, the camera bump was nolonger seamlessly integrated into the chassis due to its glass back
Instead, Apple returnedto a metal bump like on the 6S
The camera was still 12-megapixels with a 1
8 aperture,but there was a new "Slow Sync" flash feature that would evenly light flash photographyto make photos look more realistic
Instead of a bright subject and a dark background,Slow Sync exposed both so that the lighting in your photos appeared more natural
As forvideo, iPhone 8 added the option to record footage at 24 and 60 fps
And upgrading tothe 8 Plus got you a new camera feature called portrait lighting, which used facial detectionand depth maps to capture and edit portraits with various shadow and spotlight effects
Now, let’s talk about the iPhone X
It’srear-facing camera system was virtually the same as the iPhone 8, except the telephotolens was upgraded from a 2
8 to a 2
4 aperture and the lens received optical image stabilization
The front-facing camera experienced a bigger upgrade, though, thanks to the TrueDepth sensorwhich enabled portrait lighting and features like Animoji and memoji
So that is the history of the iPhone camera,and if you want to vote for the next video topic, don’t forget to subscribe
Thanksfor watching, and I’ll see you next time
This topic won lastweek’s voting poll and if you didn’t get to vote, make sure you’re subscribed, thatway the voting polls will show up right in your activity feed and you can let me knowwhat video you’d like to see next
When Apple launched the iPhone in 2007, noone imagined that in just 10 years it would become the most popular camera in the world
But it may not be surprising to photographers like Chase Jarvis who famously said, “thebest camera is the one you have with you
” And owning an iPhone means a camera is withyou at all times
A camera that lets you focus on pointing and shooting rather than adjustingdozens of complicated settings
This level of convenience is a big reason why it dominatesthe digital camera market today
But the iPhone’s camera hasn’t always been thought of sofavorably
Let’s go back to 2007 and take a closer look at the camera included withthe original iPhone
One of the first things you might notice aboutthis camera is that it doesn’t have a bump, it sat flush with the iPhone chassis and thiswas the case with every model until the iPhone 6
This camera also might look kind’ve small
And that’s because it had a 2 megapixel sensor so the opening only had to be 4
5mmwide
It took photos at a resolution of 1600 x 1200, which wasn’t too shabby back then
But the photo quality you got from this camera left a lot to be desired
In fact, the twofeatures that were criticized most about the original iPhone was it’s speed over theEDGE network and the camera quality
So let me show you some examples: As you can see,the iPhones camera has definitely come a long way since 2007
The photos were hazy thingsgot even worse in low light conditions
Also, there was no autofocus or flash or video capabilities
All you had in the camera app was a button to take a picture and that was it
And not much changed with the next generationcamera on the iPhone 3G
It was still 2 megapixels, and still had no extra features like digitalzoom or autofocus
Although Apple did add geotagging to photos so you see the locationwhere each photo was shot
Also, the diameter of the camera area grew by
5mm and no onewas really sure why
I believe the change was cosmetic since the 3G was equip with thesame exact camera system as the original iPhone
So the iPhone camera didn’t experience itsfirst true upgrade until the third generation iPhone 3Gs
In fact, the camera was one ofthe 3Gs’ biggest features
Apple bumped up the previous 2 megapixel system to 3 megapixels,and added essential features like auto-focus, auto white balance, and auto macro
Therewas also a tap-to-focus feature which allowed users to select an area for the camera tofocus on
All of these new capabilities added up to photos looking a lot sharper with bettercolor accuracy
The camera was also capable of capturing 640x480 VGA video, marking thefirst time video recording was natively supported on the iPhone
Now eventually iOS 4 came alongand added 5x digital zoom to this camera and iOS 5 brought an auto focus lock and autoexposure lock when users long-pressed on a certain area
There were also gridlines addedfor composing shots in iOS 5
Now if you thought that upgrade was big, waituntil you hear about the iPhone 4 camera
I should actually say cameraS since it wasthe first iPhone to include two, the usual rear-facing camera plus a front-facing camera
Let’s talk about the rear camera first
The iPhone jumped from 3 megapixel sensoron the 3Gs to a 5 megapixel backside illuminated sensor on the 4
And what is a backside illuminatedsensor? Well because this was the first iPhone camera to use multiple lens elements, Applecould arrange those elements a special way to capture more light and improve low-lightperformance
There were a couple more features that helped with low-light performance though,and those were the 2
8 aperture lens which allowed more light to hit the image sensor,and the inclusion of an LED flash
Video recording achieved HD quality at 720p and 30 framesper second
Now, the rear-facing camera had matured into a very capable shooter
But thefront facing camera was brand new and the quality showed
It was only
3 megapixelsand recorded VGA video which looked underwhelming compared to the rear-camera
But it workedjust fine for the occasional selfie and FaceTime call which was Apple’s purpose for includingit
Even though the next generation iPhone wasan "S" model, the 4S increased the rear camera's resolution yet again from 5 megapixels to8 megapixels, finally making it worthy of replacing most point-and-shoots
And thisis when Apple started referring to the iPhone’s rear camera as an iSight camera, which servedas a way to distinguish it from the iPhone’s front-facing, lower quality camera
Videorecording on the 4s was upgraded, taking it to full 1080p HD resolution
There was alsoa more complex element array in the 4s’ camera system which, along with Apple’sA5 chip, allowed the camera to provide face detection for still photos and about 30 percentbetter photo clarity and color accuracy compared to the iPhone 4
The built-in gyroscope allowedfor some image stabilization for the camera while recording video, although it still hadroom for improvement, since state-of-the-art image stabilization algorithms don’t reallyneed a gyroscope, but image processing instead
Other features of the camera was improvedmacro capabilities for close up shots, and faster image capture since it was able totake its first picture in 1
1 seconds and a following picture half a second later
Now on to the iPhone 5
It’s iSight camerawas still 8 megapixels like the iPhone 4S, but the actual camera sensor improved to takebetter photos in low-light and to take photos even quicker
And after two generations of low-quality selfies and VGA FaceTime calls, the iPhone 5 boostedthe front-facing camera quality to 1
2 megapixels, allowing users actually see some detail intheir faces for once
This also allowed the front-facing camera to record video in 720pHD resolution
And thanks to iOS 6, the iPhone 5 could take beautiful panoramic photos bysimply holding up the device and panning it across the landscape
Now this 8 megapixel iSight camera stayedaround for the iPhone 5s, although the aperture was improved from 2
4 to 2
2 to let in evenmore light
The flash was also upgraded from a single LED to a dual LED "True Tone" module
One LED was the tradition white, while the other was amber
But they didn’t just flashsimultaneously
When you took a picture with flash enabled, the iSight camera used softwarealgorithms to assess the color temperature of the scene
That allowed iPhone 5s to determinejust the right percentage and intensity of white light vs
amber light you needed — usingover 1,000 unique combinations
This gave photos more accurate colors and skin tonesas opposed to the washed out photos from a single LED
Two more new features of thiscamera was slow-motion video capture at 120 fps, and fast continuous photo shooting capableof capturing 10 photos a second
Now the iPhone 5c was release alongside the5s but its camera system was exactly the same as the iPhone 5 so there isn’t anythingto add, so let’s move on to the iPhone 6
This is when the camera bump became an unfortunatereality for the iPhone line
In fact, you can find videos of users demonstrating theinconveniences of this bump when it came to things like laying the iPhone 6 on a flatsurface
But this protrusion was necessary in order to house its camera system whichhad a number of advantages despite having the same 8 megapixels and five-element lensas its predecessor
It included 240 frames per second slow motion and time-lapse videoin addition to something called focus pixels
This feature was enabled by the 6’s newimage signal processor and provided the sensor with more information about your image, enablingbetter and faster autofocusing
Face detection technology was improved to recognize facesfaster and more accurately
And users could finally control the exposure manually by tappingand dragging up or down on the display
Auto image stabilization tried compensating formotion blur and hand shaking by taking four photos with a short exposure time and thenstitching the best parts of those photos together into one optimized image
Now the iPhone 6 Plus had all of those featuresin addition to optical image stabilization that worked with the A8 chip, gyroscope, andM8 motion coprocessor to measure motion data and provide precise lens movement to compensatefor hand shake
And the front facing camera for both models were upgraded with a new sensorand a 2
2 aperture lens, along with support for burst and HDR modes
After years of sticking with an 8-megapixelsensor, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus cameras finally moved up to 12 megapixels, allowingfor even larger, higher-quality images
And this brought with it some exciting featureslike 4K video recording, increased panorama resolutions from 43-megapixels to 63 megapixels,and Live Photos
But you had to be careful recording in 4k, since 40 minutes of footagewould completely fill up a 16GB iPhone 6s
The front-facing camera received a major upgrade,jumping from 1
2 megapixels to 5 megapixels
And Retina flash, where the screen flashes3x brighter just before selfies are taken, made skin tones look more natural
Now the iPhone SE was released between the6s and the 7, and it’s camera system was also caught between two iPhones
The iSightcamera was identical to the 6s, while the front-facing camera was borrowed from the5s
And the SE was the last iPhone to feature a flush camera without a bump
But the next big camera upgrade arrived withthe iPhone 7
It had the same 12-megapixel iSight camera, but its was upgraded to a wider1
8 aperture which, paired with the new six element lens, meant the iPhone 7 took evenbetter low-light photos
And the new quad-LED "True Tone" flash was 50% brighter than the6s
I should also point out that the camera bump no longer had a metal ring, instead,Apple tried blending the bump so it appeared to melt into the iPhone’s chassis for amuch sleeker look
And optical image stabilization came to the iPhone 7 which meant the featurewas no longer exclusive to the Plus model
Instead, something called portrait mode wasfeatured on the 7 Plus which created a depth-of-field effect that kept faces sharp while creatinga beautifully blurred background
This was made possible by a telephoto lens that alsobrought 2x optical zoom to the 7 Plus
The front FaceTime HD camera on both models wasupgraded to 7 megapixels and included something called wide color capture which improved coloraccuracy
Now on the iPhone 8, the camera bump was nolonger seamlessly integrated into the chassis due to its glass back
Instead, Apple returnedto a metal bump like on the 6S
The camera was still 12-megapixels with a 1
8 aperture,but there was a new "Slow Sync" flash feature that would evenly light flash photographyto make photos look more realistic
Instead of a bright subject and a dark background,Slow Sync exposed both so that the lighting in your photos appeared more natural
As forvideo, iPhone 8 added the option to record footage at 24 and 60 fps
And upgrading tothe 8 Plus got you a new camera feature called portrait lighting, which used facial detectionand depth maps to capture and edit portraits with various shadow and spotlight effects
Now, let’s talk about the iPhone X
It’srear-facing camera system was virtually the same as the iPhone 8, except the telephotolens was upgraded from a 2
8 to a 2
4 aperture and the lens received optical image stabilization
The front-facing camera experienced a bigger upgrade, though, thanks to the TrueDepth sensorwhich enabled portrait lighting and features like Animoji and memoji
So that is the history of the iPhone camera,and if you want to vote for the next video topic, don’t forget to subscribe
Thanksfor watching, and I’ll see you next time
0 Comments