Apple has just announced its iPhone 13 lineup, and one of the stand out features is the new ‘Cinematic Mode’. On the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max models, Cinematic Mode allows you to adjust the aperture, or f-stop, to change the depth-of-field after you’ve shot your video. It also allows you change what’s in focus, or rack focus from one subject to another, after-the-fact.
Remember the Lytro Cinema camera the size of a small car that promised the same thing? Think that… but in your pocket.
With the iPhone 13/mini and iPhone 13 Pro/Pro Max, you can adjust the focus and f-stop in video after the fact. The interface appears to be similar to the one for Portrait Mode for stills.
The iPhone 13 and 13 Pro models use the stereo disparity between the wide and ultra-wide cameras to generate a depth map, which software can later use to selectively blur the foreground and background and simulate any chosen f-stop. While the larger sensors in these phones will lend the footage shallower native depth-of-field than previous phones, the depth map allows for additional computational blur much like the Portrait Mode that is so popular on smartphone devices these days.
Users can also change focus to any portion of the scene (that was acceptably in focus to begin with when shot), or create focus racks after-the-fact.
Since a depth map is saved with the video, users can change the focus or adjust the depth-of-field after-the-fact. You can even introduce focus racks, presumably indicated by the dots in the timeline above.
But that’s not all. Apple says it studied the art of cinematography and the creative choices Directors of Photography make to enhance its autofocus algorithms in video so that you have intelligently focused videos to begin with.
Johnnie Manzari, Human Interface Designer at Apple, explains that the iPhone 13 cameras intelligently anticipate and focus on your subject as it enters the frame. One might imagine it can do so with the additional information from the ultra-wide camera. If your subject looks away toward another subject, the camera automatically focuses on whatever they’re looking at. When the subject turns their gaze back, the camera will refocus, as you can see below.
Apple also makes it easy to take creative control over the process. For example, say the camera chooses to focus on the nearest subject taking up the majority of the frame. If you wish to rack focus to the gentleman in the background, simply tap him once:
Then, if you to wish lock focus on him and track him, tap him again and the camera with continually focus on him (note the change in the AF reticle shape):
After tapping your subject once to rack focus to it, tap it again to lock focus on it and start tracking it.
Will this revolutionize cinematography?
We’ve seen hints of this type of technology before, but what’s impressive is Apple’s implementation and focus on the overall experience. By studying the creative choices of DPs in order to train the autofocus algorithms, you start with footage that, in all likelihood, will already look good – far better than video that relies on simpler algorithms like center-priority or nearest-priority autofocus (with face detection sprinkled in). Including intuitive ways to take control – tapping and double tapping – ensure you can work around automatic choices you disagree with.
Finally, the ability to make creative decisions around focus and depth of field after-the-fact could revolutionize not just mobile cinematography, but cinematography in general, allowing cinematographers and directors to focus on other creative choices, or the action and the moment during filming.
For now, Cinematic Mode is limited to 1080p at 30 fps. It’s available in Dolby Vision HDR mode, which intelligently grades each frame of footage and uses dynamic metadata to expand output dynamic range, ensuring that HDR footage doesn’t look flat when viewed on a compatible device. You can see Cinematic Mode in action in the video below, and as always, let us know what you think in the comments.