Apple released the first beta of iOS 10.1 to developers earlier today, and the beta activates the promised “Portrait” mode in the native Camera app, for use with the dual-lens camera on the iPhone 7 Plus. Photos showing off the new effect were published by TechCrunch on Wednesday.
The update adds a new “Portrait” mode to the Camera app’s usual selection of photo and video options. when shooting photos in “portrait” mode, the photographer locks onto the subject of their photo, separating the subject from the background, in order to create what is known as a “bokeh” photography effect, which offers a pleasing effect making the subject stand out from the background, which has a blurring effect applied to it.
The Camera app screen intelligently informs the user if there is or is not sufficient light in the shot, as well as if they are too close or too far from the subject for the effect to be applied properly. Any photos captured in this mode are labeled with “Depth Effect.”
TechCrunch explains more about the effect:
If you’ve ever had a portrait taken in a park or seen a wedding picture and wondered why they looked so much better than the images from your phone, the answer is really a three-parter:
- A relatively wide aperture is being used, which causes (among other effects) the “field of focus,” or the bit of the picture that is sharp, to be very narrow. This means face in focus, background not in focus.
- It was likely, but not always, shot with a telephoto lens. This enhances that ‘separation’ between subject and background because tele elements in a lens cause telephoto compression, thinning out the apparent field of focus and putting faces into proper proportion. This is why a nose looks the right size in a proper portrait and looks too big with a wide angle lens.
- But mostly, the photographer took the time to learn how to use her equipment, positioned the subject appropriately and used her artistic judgment to provide a proper composition.
The iPhone 7 Plus dual-lens shooter, along with proprietary range finding technology, allows the Camera app to create the selectively out of focus portraits it produces.
Apple demonstrated the effect during their iPhone 7 media event earlier this month, but the feature was not included with the iPhone 7 Plus out of the box, and was instead promised to arrive in a later software update, which is apparently iOS 10.1, if everything works properly.
