Apple publishes 'How to Shoot on iPhone 7' video series to website
Apple on Thursday added a new page to its website dedicated to taking better photos with iPhone 7. The mini-site is filled with short tutorial videos that explain -- and advertise -- the handset's various capture modes to new users, while offering lessons on basic photography techniques.
Dubbed "How to Shoot on iPhone 7," the explainer series consists of 16 short videos that run about 40 seconds in length and cover a range of iPhone photography methods. The series was obviously created for viewing on iPhone, as each video -- save for an explainer on panoramas -- is produced using a vertical portrait aspect ratio.
Each set to a chill beat, the short spots provide users with easy to understand steps that can be applied to capturing better images with the handset.
For example, instructions offered in the Portrait Mode short below include "switch to Portrait Mode, look for depth effect and shoot." A brief summary appears at the end of each clip, which for Portrait Mode is, "Portrait Mode. Depth effect. Shoot."
Apple slyly incorporates nods to unique hardware functionality in a few lessons on close-ups, vertical panoramas, photos without flash, action shots with burst mode and selfies using iPhone's timer function. One video teaches users how to edit a selfie using crop tools provided with the built-in Photos app, while another focuses on taking a still picture during while filming a video, both features debuted in recent versions of iOS.
At the time of this writing, Apple has published five of the 16 video tutorials to its YouTube channel as a standalone playlist. The YouTube versions have been edited to accommodate a more traditional aspect ratio.
As for basic photography tips, Apple provides information on livening up pictures with unique angles, shooting during golden hour, creating a "bold and simple" image, techniques for capturing backlit subjects and sunset silhouettes, and shooting in low-light conditions. These latter tutorials delve into more advanced iPhone photo functions like HDR, focus lock and exposure compensation.
Together, the videos serve not only as an opportunity to teach existing owners about their hardware, but act as an advertising tool touting iPhone 7's capabilities. Apple produced a similar series of videos when it released a set of Apple Watch guided tours in 2015.
Dubbed "How to Shoot on iPhone 7," the explainer series consists of 16 short videos that run about 40 seconds in length and cover a range of iPhone photography methods. The series was obviously created for viewing on iPhone, as each video -- save for an explainer on panoramas -- is produced using a vertical portrait aspect ratio.
Each set to a chill beat, the short spots provide users with easy to understand steps that can be applied to capturing better images with the handset.
For example, instructions offered in the Portrait Mode short below include "switch to Portrait Mode, look for depth effect and shoot." A brief summary appears at the end of each clip, which for Portrait Mode is, "Portrait Mode. Depth effect. Shoot."
Apple slyly incorporates nods to unique hardware functionality in a few lessons on close-ups, vertical panoramas, photos without flash, action shots with burst mode and selfies using iPhone's timer function. One video teaches users how to edit a selfie using crop tools provided with the built-in Photos app, while another focuses on taking a still picture during while filming a video, both features debuted in recent versions of iOS.
At the time of this writing, Apple has published five of the 16 video tutorials to its YouTube channel as a standalone playlist. The YouTube versions have been edited to accommodate a more traditional aspect ratio.
As for basic photography tips, Apple provides information on livening up pictures with unique angles, shooting during golden hour, creating a "bold and simple" image, techniques for capturing backlit subjects and sunset silhouettes, and shooting in low-light conditions. These latter tutorials delve into more advanced iPhone photo functions like HDR, focus lock and exposure compensation.
Together, the videos serve not only as an opportunity to teach existing owners about their hardware, but act as an advertising tool touting iPhone 7's capabilities. Apple produced a similar series of videos when it released a set of Apple Watch guided tours in 2015.
Comments
It should "just work" - that is what Apple is all about and one if its unique selling points.
You start explaining, it doesn't "just work" anymore, it is too complicated.
There is Android for that with millions of options. How about adding instead some AI that helps taking better pics without any user interactions?
Moreover, I agree - Apple should remove the option of taking videos in portrait mode altogether. It's a horrible punch in the eye...
An L-shape sensor wouldn't give the best coverage, it would have to be like the Red Cross shape if you wanted widescreen in both orientations. A square sensor would be best and it can store footage square then crop appropriately in post-production or in real-time playback. When people record themselves like selfie-videos, they are best done in portrait front-camera. If these are being viewed on another phone like Periscope, they might be viewed in portrait. They might also be viewed on a landscape display, which can display the square version of the footage.
Having more video than the frame shown on the recording display also allows for further stabilization in post-production and reframing shots.
Instagram has square aspect videos:
https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/video/?hl=en
When filming on a phone in landscape, the display would show a landscape crop of the middle of the sensor but record square. This allows it to be viewed in portrait easily while the subject is central or it can be easily cropped to a widescreen aspect. It can get multiple crops for different publishing platforms e.g square crop for Instagram/Facebook and wide crop for Youtube. Tablets can view in 4:3.
It's up to Sony to make the sensor, they usually make them 4:3 for consumer cameras:
https://www.dpreview.com/news/3533076696/teardown-reveals-sony-image-sensors-in-iphone-7
They are just arrays of photodiodes and have color filters (RGB) in front of each:
It would cost more to add more of them and they probably don't because when the video will be cropped, it's essentially unused anyway but the more that media is being captured on mobile devices, the aspect ratio of standard camera sensors isn't optimal when most mobiles are held in portrait by default and cameras are held in landscape by default.
You will be probably astonished that some people don't have TVs for decades.
And yes, I watch my videos of dancing couples (from dance lessons, festivals, parties) on my iPhone or iPad. And guess what. I can hold them horizontally. Yeah!
For heaven's sake, just mind your own business. It's not rocket since to keep your nose away from other people's interests.