“When companies claim something in a promo, they have to be able to back that claim up,” Oliver Haslam writes for Redmond Pie. “So when Apple started promoting the iPhone X as being capable of taking “studio quality portraits,” it turns out that some people were not at all convinced.”
“By some, we mean two, because they saw fit to complain to the ASA [Advertising Standards Authority],” Haslam writes. “They claimed that Apple promos were misleading because they did not believe that an iPhone was good enough to take shots that could be compared to anything studio quality.”
“However, it turns out that it can,” Haslam writes. “[The ASA] has given Apple the OK to continue saying that the iPhone X is capable of taking images that are studio quality after Apple argued that the iPhone X takes portrait images at a 50mm focal length, the same as is used by most professional photographers.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: “Studio quality” is a nebulous term that can obviously vary widely depending on the quality of the studio (and photographer) involved.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Portraiture is all about lighting, no matter what camera. As for the lens, I believe most photographers using 35mm film or a full frame sensor will have 70mm or longer on their camera for better background separation, at least outdoors.
Portraits are almost always shot on 100-105mm lenses. Don’t know where apple got 50mm unless 50mm in their sensor is equivalent to 100mm in a full-frame sensor.
It could well be. I wish they wouldn’t use “35mm lens equivalent” as a unit of measurement, as it is SO unclear and misleading. There are many photographers today who will never use film or even a “35mm sized” sensor. (“35mm sized” is also very ambiguous, with a 4:1 ratio of sizes.)
It would make much more sense to simply describe the angle from the left and right sides of the frame to the camera. So a medium lens might be 90° while a telephoto might be 10° or less.
… who started with film, have a tendency to think in terms of 35mm equivalent. I have to convert in my head from a crop sensor or smaller to 35mm with interchangeable lenses. Having an angle of view spec like with binoculars would be more logical and easy to comprehend, especially with a fixed lens.
Who is ASA?
Its NASA without N
Notice that the approval was only for the focal length of the lens on the phone. Not a word about quality of the image.
No it can’t AND very few photographers use a 50mm for portraits. Nearly all of my outdoor portraits are done with a 70-200. Indoors it may be a 85 or 105. Dumb article and I’ll informed just to pump up a myth.