One of the cool visual effects of the iPhone 7 Plus’ new camera is called Depth Effect—it was released as part of the new iOS 10.1 beta yesterday, so I downloaded it and gave it a try.
Depth Effect is a process that blurs the background of a photo while focusing in on an object in the foreground. It’s a really dramatic effect and one that professional photographers have been using for many years.
The effect is part of a new Portrait mode, but it works on regular objects as well as people. In fact, the iPhone will help you place the object to get the perfect shot.
For instance, if you are too close, the iPhone screen will read “Move farther away.” If you are too far away, the iPhone screen will read “Place subject within 8 feet.” When you are in the right parameters, the “Depth Effect” indicator will light up and show you a live preview of what your picture will look like.
When you take the picture with Depth Effect, the camera actually saves two shots—one with depth effect enabled and one with no effect at all.
I am not a great photographer, but I enjoy taking pictures. The Depth Effect adds a level of, well… depth that I couldn’t otherwise achieve. Other people may be able to do that with higher end cameras, but my camera is my iPhone. Whatever I can’t do on that camera isn’t getting done.
As I said in my iPhone 7 Plus review—whatever Apple can do to help me take better pictures is a welcome feature. That’s exactly what the iPhone 7 has done.
Thanks Apple.
The most impressive aspect of this is how simple and intuitive the feature is, and the results you can achieve that are close to a professional photographers. Bringing this type of capability into the hands of millions of average users, without needing to learn a single bit of photography or camera optics, is “crazy” to say the least.
Once again, Apple brings a powerful tool to the masses in an intuitive way. Something that was once reserved for the experts with more expensive gear. This is Apple at its best.
I played with this today, too. In good light the results are astonishing, especially for a beta feature. Even in a letter/a4 sized print I can’t really tell there is an algorithm at work. Quite impressive indeed.
as anyone who’s ever had to go into photoshop and create a mash and then apply blur filters to it can tell you, this is a nice-to-have feature. will it be perfect? nope. but as always the rule is — for most people, most of the time. rock on.
Do either of those pictures have separated layers?
I have a 7 Plus on order and I’m pretty darned excited about it. I was sold by the camera and I’ve been reading that the A10 is a screamer.
Can’t wait.