iPhone 12 Pro Max - Portrait Review By Samuel Elkins

This video is sponsored by skill share, hey, what's going on, everyone welcome back to a YouTube video hope you guys are all doing well. Today we are going to be talking about the iPhone 12 Pro max, which is probably one of the most anticipated phones of 2020, and for me this is definitely going to be my daily driver from here on out. This is gonna, be the phone that I'm using. I love the large form factor, and the camera system is obviously intriguing and interesting, to say the least, but I wanted to take a moment to make a video and just dive into this phone for portraits specifically how the portrait mode compares to the iPhone 11 Pro, which is what I used for the last while and I will say, first and foremost, I don't really see a massive difference so far between these two. I think it's very similar. Furthermore, I think obviously there's some interesting features that come along with this phone, that you don't get on the 11 pro max, but I think in terms of image quality, it's extremely similar, like I don't think to you, know the naked eye.

It's really going to be a massive difference. You know really for most people. I mainly got this just because I want to see, obviously if things have improved, but I think we as a society have a problem with comparing things to last year's model, and you know all these incremental upgrades are really not that massive, but I think when you think about this iPhone as a whole and the product's legacy, it's pretty impressive, the technology inside this phone. This is kind of what I hit on with the iPhone 12 Pro review as well. You know the technology inside these things is pretty incredible, and I think we kind of become numb to the fact that these are devices that fit in our pockets, and we're expecting them to do things that, frankly, they aren't really made to do just yet speaking on a professional level or really a professional work scenario.

At the end of the day, these are phones right, and I think we should treat them as such with all that being said, though, this is definitely a fascinating phone that I've been really excited to test out. So when I finally came in the mail, obviously I had to sit down and make a video for you guys. So when I think about the portraits that I was able to take on this phone, we went up to angels crest, national forest, which is one of my favorite places to go in Los Angeles. It's just like the mountain region. Above la, we were able to take some fascinating, portraits.

Honestly, we found some really nice sunlight, and I was able to kind of use that to our advantage and I think, for the most part, the portraits turned out really nice. I was impressed to say the least. The quality is there. The sharpness is really nice, it's not over sharpened. Sometimes I think it looks a little too digital the way that these images are sharpened, but I think apple always does a really great job with skin tones and that's something that I've always kind of really liked about.

Shooting on phones specifically iPhones is you know the skin tones are really nice, they're, really pleasing they're, really natural, and obviously the dynamic range on this phone is incredible. As well, but I think what separates this apart from something like the iPhone 12 Pro- is going to be a few different things. The first thing you're going to notice. This is more on the video side of things is going to be the stabilized sensor. Now I'm not really going to get into this much with this review, because I don't really think it has a lot to do with this.

It's only on the wide lens, it's not on the ultrawide or the telephoto, and mainly for this review. I wanted to focus on portrait mode and how that's improved since last year's model. When I look at these photos, I think the sharpness is pretty comparable to the portraits that I took on this phone I'll, throw some images up on the screen right now that I shot with the iPhone 11 Pro max, as well as the 12 pro max, and you'll see the difference isn't crazy. To be honest, I think the 2.5 x, telephoto zoom versus the 2x on the 11 pro max, is fascinating, and it's you know, I think, a welcomed addition for someone like myself who likes to try to shoot more artistic photos, but I think for most people, it's gonna, be too zoomed in, like it's gonna, be a very long focal length to work with, and you're going to have to take multiple steps back. I think the 2x was better, for you know the everyday individual.

You know if you're someone who just likes to take random portraits of their friends and family, I think 2.5x is a little too much. In my opinion, I kind of wish they stuck with the 2x, but I do have a couple portraits that I took with the 2.5x zoom that I really do enjoy, and the colors look nice. The focal length is impressive and overall, I think it's a really nice focal length to work with because of the background compression, as well as the subject isolation. When I look at the depth and what's in focus on these portraits, I think in some images it still has that problem where it doesn't get everything in focus that you're wanting it to. Obviously you can adjust that with aperture after the fact, but I think it still looks like it was taken on a phone for the most part for a lot of these.

Some of these look really, really great. Some of these look really digital and look like they were taken on a phone to be honest, but I think overall it looks nice. You know it looks really comparable honestly to the iPhone 11 Pro max. Portrait mode is obviously getting better and better by the day, but I think it's not there yet in terms of mimicking a DSLR quality. It's you know it's a phone at the end of the day like I said, but I am impressed to say the least, obviously, that you're able to take photos with such depth on a phone, especially the 2.5x. It really does isolate the subject nicely and especially when you can get as much of the subject as you want in the frame.

That's in focus. It really looks nice. You know, honestly, when the 2.5x hits it looks great. So again, I really want to harp on the fact that I don't think this is a massive upgrade from something like the 11 pro max. To be honest, I think you're getting pretty marginal upgrades and I don't particularly think it's worth it to spend the crazy amount of money to upgrade to this phone.

However, again, if you're coming from something like a 10 or an iPhone 8 or even earlier than that, this is gonna, be a really welcomed. Upgrade you're going to get a lot of fascinating features, especially when it comes to taking portraits you're going to get the LIDAR sensor, which I have really yet to play around with excited to mess around with that and also apple pro raw, which I think either just came out or is coming out in the coming weeks. I'm definitely going to be making a video on that as well, but I think overall again it's a pretty marginal upgrade. So far again, this is like a first impression, video for the most part, I've only really taken a handful of portraits with this phone. You know, but I think I've experienced enough in order to tell you guys that this phone is pretty similar.

You know it's not a massive upgrade from this, like some other phones have been in the past. But again, I think we got to stop looking at these phones. As a society of you know, massive upgrades every single year, because most people aren't upgrading to a new phone every single year, so check out that with a grain of salt overall, I'm pretty impressed so far, and I'm excited to continue testing this phone in the future. But let me know down in the comments, if you guys have any questions or really any anything that you guys are wondering about this phone, and I'll try to include that in an upcoming video but overall yeah, to say the least: it's a sweet phone. I'm excited to keep messing around with it, and that's that so see you guys next week, peace before this video does wrap up.

I did want to thank today's sponsor, which is skill share for sponsoring today's episode. Skill share is an online learning community for creators, with thousands of courses available in illustration, filmmaking, photography and more as a creative, individual myself. I rely heavily on learning new ideas and techniques. The skill share is the perfect place to learn a wide variety of topics and methods. Most classes are under 60 minutes with short lessons to fit really anybody's schedule.

Skill share classes are really designed for people who are looking to learn at their own pace, while making strides towards understanding new ideas. Personally, I've really been enjoying Ryan booth's course on filmmaking, as I want to improve my technique and understanding of the craft. The first 1 000 people who sign up with the link below will receive a free trial of skill share premium. Thank you so much as always for watching guys, and we'll see you next week, peace.

Source : Samuel Elkins