Shot on iPhone X

After weeks of buildup to Apple's official release of the iPhone X, I braved the cold, rainy November morning to wait in line outside of Apple's new Michigan Avenue riverfront store to claim Apple's newest innovation. While the new software features such as FaceID and its updated download speeds make the X a remarkable upgrade for the iPhone, I bought this phone almost exclusively for the camera. The list Apple provides to detail the technical specification of the camera appears as long as an article in itself, but the highlights include: 12 MP wide-angle and telephoto cameras, wide-angle f/1.8 aperture, telephoto f/2.4 aperture, optical zoom and 10x digital zoom, and (the long awaited) portrait mode and portrait lighting mode (beta). 

I went out to Promontory Point and the surrounding lakefront path here in Hyde Park to put the camera to the test. 

Photo and Panorama Mode

Portrait Mode

Portrait mode really brings out the camera's aperture adjustment capabilities to provide crisp in focus foregrounds with smooth, even backgrounds. Portrait mode can be used for more than people, and provides aperture effects often associated with more powerful DSLR cameras. The panorama mode works beautifully, and by capturing a file size of up to 63 MP every aspect of the shot fits seamlessly together. As a first experience playing with the capabilities of the new iPhone, so far my expectations have been blown away.