But your own sentence makes the exact comparison the article wants: if the end result is all the same, then the iPhone is providing a good enough experience to do this kind of work.
Yes other rigs might make more sense, but that’s not the point. The point is that they’re putting their money where their mouth is, and proving that it’s capable enough.
No. The point is that it is deceptive advertising, and it is against Apple's self interest to do so. If customers are sold the idea that Apple marketing producers did all of this on an iPhone and not a big Hollywood studio camera lens setup, they expect to be able to do that at home. Same when they sell the iPad M4 as some kind of revolution like the first iPhone or the MacBook Air. They are squandering their hard earned reputation.
> Factually, it is shot on an iPhone. This is no more a lie than when a film says it’s shot on an Arri or if a Sony commercial says it’s shot on an FX3.
That's so disingenuous. The iPhone has a lens, and no one expects to put another lens on it. In fact, I'd wager a large amount that >99.9% of consumers have never even considered that it's possible. Whereas 100% of FX3 customers expect to use a lens.
I could probably make a pretty sweet setup to record a Netflix movie in awesome quality on my iPhone camera and there would be the perfect depth-of-field that comes with the professional gear that Netflix uses. And it would be factually shot on an iPhone.
Really? You don’t get it? No amount of “well you need a better lens, so it’s a lie” would get you the same results anyway.
It’s a professional shoot. End of story. It’s factual that it’s shot on an iPhone. If you replaced it with a full frame body, you’d still not achieve this.
If your entire point is that a customer might buy the device and think they can achieve the same results, then why does that not extend to anything else?
I don't have a problem with this Shot on iPhone ad, because it clearly shows what kind of rig is needed behind the scenes to achieve the results, assuming it wasn't doctored and the footage is real: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jELeFXNJUOE
But you also grab a lens off your shelf. Do you grab a 0.1$ lens that goes into a cell phone, or do you grab a lens that rivals the cost of the camera body?
I see apple's point being that an iPhone can compete with standalone camera bodies of today if you put a good lens on them. Something that was not true 10 years ago for phones, and only slightly older than that for any camera.
I won't downplay the heavy lifting the lens is doing, coming from almost 20 years with photography as my main hobby, but there's a lot more here that's worth mentioning that the lens isn't responsible for. Among others:
- Dynamic range
- Colour science
- Video output (as in, what codec is actually worked on in the editing room)
The idea that even a higher-end phone can put out ~12 stops of dynamic range while outputting ProRes with a log colour profile is notable, no matter how much work a Panavision lens is doing. It makes editing with industry-standard tools and getting a product comparable to what you'd get with dedicated photo/video equipment easier.
Yes other rigs might make more sense, but that’s not the point. The point is that they’re putting their money where their mouth is, and proving that it’s capable enough.