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HEIF Max is now an option!

TL24

TL24

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Oct 20, 2011
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It looks like us 14 Pro owners get to enjoy 48mp HEIF Max as an option to ProRAW!

Initial tests shows excellent photo quality and has way less artificial sharpening compared to regular 12mp photos.

Also, you can still use Photographic Styles in this mode!
IMG_3271.png
 
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Hello! This is exciting, but I'm curious... why does it say "Up to 48mp". Is this dependent on the lens you're using? Or will the main 48mp camera reduce in mp depending on lighting situation?
 
Does it differ at all to how I will have been taking 48MP HEIF using Halide?

I wonder what “smart” features it skips?
 
n4s2007 said:
Hello! This is exciting, but I'm curious... why does it say "Up to 48mp". Is this dependent on the lens you're using? Or will the main 48mp camera reduce in mp depending on lighting situation?
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It doesn't work in night mode, portrait etc - they all save 12mpix images - probably that's why it's "Up to 48MP". Just to make things clear - I've been taking test pictures all day today and they were either 12 or 48 mpix - nothing in between.
 
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68000/030 said:
It doesn't work in night mode, portrait etc - they all save 12mpix images - probably that's why it's "Up to 48MP". Just to make things clear - I've been taking test pictures all day today and they were either 12 or 48 mpix - nothing in between.
Click to expand...
I just found out this evening that HEIF Max is an option so I’ve been unable to really test it aside from a couple inside shots. Have you noticed a significant difference at all in picture quality between 12mp and 48mp?
 
Oh yeah, the difference is huge, not only in the oversharpening department (and because it's less of it - the colors are also noticeably better, as there is less blown out white sharpen edges), I also noticed different look of the highlights (eg reflections on car panels) where on 48 it was more contrasty and closer to how it looked to my eyes, when on standard 12 it was surprisingly much flatter and way less punchy. Unfortunately I didn't think those pictures would be of any use as they weren't interesting (other than from technical point of view) so I deleted them and have nothing to show at the moment. File sizes were between 5-15 megabytes
 
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68000/030 said:
It doesn't work in night mode, portrait etc - they all save 12mpix images - probably that's why it's "Up to 48MP". Just to make things clear - I've been taking test pictures all day today and they were either 12 or 48 mpix - nothing in between.
Click to expand...
Ahh makes sense. So it sounds like if it's just the regular camera in it's standard mode you get the 48mp. Thank you for your response!
 
I’ve done some comparisons and yeah, HEIF Max 48mp is hands down so much better. There’s way less sharpening, highlight roll off are much smoother and it almost seems like images are gathering a lot more light now.
 
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I find them visually basically the same (not considering "editability" here, which is for sure higher on raw).
 
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I can’t spot a difference between HEIF Max and regular pics on my 14 Pro. At least not when viewing the pictures on my 14 Pro Display.
 
thatJohann said:
I can’t spot a difference between HEIF Max and regular pics on my 14 Pro. At least not when viewing the pictures on my 14 Pro Display.
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Very noticeable on my 14 Pro Display.

HEIF Max 48mp is so much better than regular HEIF 12mp.
 
Basically anything with foliage in the frame is very apparent, even on the phone screen. And in general photos look more natural
 
68000/030 said:
I've been taking test pictures all day today and they were either 12 or 48 mpix - nothing in between.
Click to expand...

I kind of lied here - using zoom between 1x and 2x (didn't try earlier) jsut crops the image to various resolutions/mpixels.
 
No, 1x was 48 and 2x was 12 and everything in between is some form of crop from 48 to 12MP.

BTW the whole 24mpix thing is explained pretty well on MKBHD's WVFRM podcast - but it's not just a simple crop for sure

PS: to close this up - I was able to take 1.3x (but I'm sure it works like that in the whole 1x-2x range) photos that were 26 and 28 mpix - difference was if I was closer to 1.2 or 1.4 on the selector.
Basically I'd just use full 48MP 1x frame and eventually both crop and resize later.

There's a slight chance apple will enable some missing features on 14Pro which should be on par with regular 15, but I wouldn't have too high hopes on that.

So far I didn't jump on the 15/Pro preorder bandwagon - most of the new features (24mp mode especially) is computational and Apple's recent processing algorithms weren't too great + I really don't like how they're treat their pro customers with very mediocre feature updates. I'll wait and see some proper reviews first.
 
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68000/030 said:
It doesn't work in night mode, portrait etc - they all save 12mpix images - probably that's why it's "Up to 48MP". Just to make things clear - I've been taking test pictures all day today and they were either 12 or 48 mpix - nothing in between.
Click to expand...
I have taken some photos with Raw in the evening and some of them got saved at around 32mp resolution or so. So I think it adjusts depending on how dark it is or how much light you have.

Also people keep mentioning HEIF MAX but it can also save as JPEG MAX, it all depends what professinal standard format you select in settings under camera.

EDIT: I just tested again today and now I can't reproduce it, it either takes with 48mp or 12mp, nothing in between. Not sure how I managed to do it the other day.
 
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Just use anything between 1.1 and 1.9x and you'll see some cropped images just as you saw them earlier
 
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Is heif better than jpeg? I have always used the standard jpeg option instead of heif. Are there any benefits to switching to it? I guess I’m just worried that if I need to email a picture to myself, the heif format isn’t support everywhere.
 
68000/030 said:
It doesn't work in night mode, portrait etc - they all save 12mpix images - probably that's why it's "Up to 48MP". Just to make things clear - I've been taking test pictures all day today and they were either 12 or 48 mpix - nothing in between.
Click to expand...
ive posted samples in the thread: iOS 17 & 16 from my 14 pro max iPhones. One was updated, the other was not

Post in thread 'iOS 17 improved iPhone post camera processing?'
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...-post-camera-processing.2394324/post-32504501
 
ant the ninja said:
Is heif better than jpeg? I have always used the standard jpeg option instead of heif. Are there any benefits to switching to it? I guess I’m just worried that if I need to email a picture to myself, the heif format isn’t support everywhere.
Click to expand...
Gator5000e said:
Same question of HEIF vs. JEPG.
Click to expand...
HEIF is newer/more advanced file format, so it should be better (files are also a bit smaller). It's kinda like h264 vs h265 codecs.
 
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