Followup: Toss Out Part of That Thesis

A late discovery after receiving my iPhone 15 Pro

(Image: Apple)

Yesterday afternoon, while I was waiting for my new iPhone 15 Pro to arrive, I finished writing an article about how impressed I was that Apple is using the 24 megapixel (MP) rendering as the default size for photos taken with the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro Main camera.

The Progression of ‘Default’

In particular, I wrote (emphasis added):

Saving 24 MP images is certainly interesting, but I’m more intrigued by the fact that it’s the default resolution. From what I can tell—I don’t yet have an iPhone 15 to check—there’s no option to shoot at the 12 MP size using the Main camera. You can switch to HEIF Max or RAW Max (48 MP), or HEIF 24 or RAW 24 (24 MP).

Imagine my surprise last night, after I’d transferred all the data from my iPhone 14 Pro, had dinner, spent time with family, and then started poking around the settings, to find this:

Yep, in Settings > Camera > Formats > Photo Capture, you can choose a Photo Mode of 24 MP or 12 MP. It notes that 12 MP images will be about 2 MB in size, while 24 MP images will be about 3 MB in size for HEIF format.

So toss out part of my main point yesterday!

This is what happens when folks like me need to speculate and extrapolate based on what Apple has chosen to share before getting hands-on time with the technology. But that’s OK.

I suspect that what I discuss in the other piece is still happening, only shifted back a generation. I mentioned that the iPhone 7 had a setting to turn Smart HDR on or off, and then the iPhone 8 removed that option and started using Smart HDR as the default. With the iPhone 15 series, we now have that 24 MP/12 MP option, and I would guess that the iPhone 16 next year will just save 24 MP shots. We’ll see!

I’m looking forward to doing some hands-on photography with this little beast soon. In the meantime, I highly recommend reading Matthew Panzarino’s “Apple’s iPhone 15 Pro Max goes to Disneyland” at TechCrunch. Each year he takes the new phones to Disneyland because:

Disneyland offers the ability to test the capabilities of the battery, screen, radio and other features in a relatively high-stakes situation. If you’re spending a ton of hard-earned cash to squeeze the most amount of family joy out of a few days of vacation, you need your phone to work flawlessly, deliver high-quality images and video to preserve the memories, and last as long as possible on its battery charge.

The video they made is also quite good:

And now, to you: Did you get one of the iPhone 15 models? I’d love to hear your impressions and see any photos you’ve made with it.

Let’s Connect

Thanks again for reading and recommending The Smarter Image to others who would be interested. Send any questions, tips, or suggestions for what you’d like to see covered at jeff@jeffcarlson.com. Are these emails too long? Too short? Let me know.