Hands on With the iPhone 7 Plus Portrait Mode

Matthew Panzarino, after spending a few days with the still-in-beta Portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus:

If you’ve skipped here to see how the heck it works, I don’t blame you. The short answer: incredibly, miraculously well in many instances. And pretty rough in others. Apple says this is still in beta and it is. It has trouble with leaves, with chain link fences and patterns and with motion. But it also handles things so well that I never thought possible like fine children’s hair and dog fur, shooting pictures with people facing away and objects that are not people at all.

What does it have major trouble with? Fine lines, wires, chain link, glass, leaves. Anything that merges with the edges of your subject a bunch of times could confuse it. The closer to the subject the harder it is for it to distinguish. Motion, too, is a no. If the subject moves a bit, ok. If it moves too much you get ghosting, as you do in HDR mode — because there is compositing involved.

Some of the examples look very good, some not so much. There’s no doubt we’re going to see a lot of these shots on Instagram and Facebook. That said, the examples aren’t good enough to make me regret ordering a 4.7-inch 7 (jet black, natch) for my personal use.

Update: Upgraded my 7 Plus review unit to the 10.1 developer beta released today, and shot a bunch of Portrait mode photos on the walk home from school with my son. Some of them are great — good enough to make the decision to go with a regular 7 weigh a little heavier on my heart. And even when it doesn’t work well, you always get the regular photo without the depth effect side-by-side in your camera roll. You can’t lose a shot by trying it with Portrait mode.

★ Wednesday, 21 September 2016