Apple

iPhone X Product Photography

iPhone X Photographs 

This is a series of photos I created of the iPhone X. Apple products are exceptionally designed and manufactured and I was really inspired by the design of the iPhone X. The concept of these images is dramatic lighting that showcases the products form. I used a black background and lighting that came from a rear or side angle. I spent about a day and a half on the photography and another day on post-production. The wallpaper images are also my photos.

The first image, which show a crop of the front at an angle, was the first image I shot. This image was completed using a focus stacking technique. The image is comprised of 14 different images taken at incremental focus points that are later processed in post-production into one composite image. This time-consuming technique allows me to shoot at a very close distance yet maintain focus throughout. It also allows me to shoot an exposure just for the front speaker grill and not have that light affect any other part of the photo.    

If you would like to reproduce these images, please contact Michael.

Apple iPhone X product photos angle.jpg

The straight-on front image of the face of the iPhone X was also a composite image. There is an exposure for each side, top, bottom, volume buttons, speaker and lens. Additionally, there is a overall image for the screen and notch. Shooting each element individually allowed me to light the product without compromising how each light affected another area. In post-production it is all put together into one image. A concern when using a composite technique is to make all the lighting even and appear natural when it all comes together.  

Apple iPhone X product image front view.jpg

The rear view is a composite image also using the focus stacking technique to maintain focus. This image uses 11 separate captures.

Apple iPhone X product photo rear view.jpg

As you can see, achieving quality product photography is tremendously time consuming. Studio lighting always takes time and then adding the focus stacking technique makes for a long shoot. The end product is hopefully a great image. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Apple iPhone X side view photograph.jpg

Lightroom 3 vs Lightroom 4 Benchmarking Previews and Export

I previously ran benchmark tests comparing Adobe Lightroom 4 performance between a mid 2009 MacBook Pro and a mid 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro. It’s worth going back and seeing the difference in performance between Adobe Lightroom 3 and 4.1. Again, I will benchmark time to render 100 1:1 previews and export 100 jpegs from a Canon 5D. The tests were run on a mid 2012 non-retina unibody MacBook Pro 2.3 core i7 and again on a mid 2009 unibody MacBook Pro 2.66 Core 2 Duo. Benchmark chart lightroom macbook pro

Lightroom Export jpegs Benchmarks chart

In my test, Lightroom 4.1 is slower than Lightroom 3 but less so with the newer processor. On the 2009 MacBook Pro, Lightroom 4 is 15-18% slower than Lightroom 3, but on the new 2012 model Lightroom 4 is only 10% slower in these benchmarks. I’m not sure why this is the case especially considering the new 2012 model has only 4GB of RAM.

These test measure the performance of preview rendering and exports, but what about the general performance of Lightroom 3 vs Lightroom 4? I know that with my 2009 Macbook Pro, the Develop module was rather useless once any brushes or retouching tools were used. The machine would hang to a halt. On the 2012 non-retina MacBook Pro, these tools keep up with my speed of work.

So if you have upgraded to Lightroom 4 and it feels slow, you are correct. Upgrading to a newer hardware will surely help. Going back to Lightroom 3 wasn't an option for me because Canon 5D Mark III files do not process in Lightroom 3.

If your curious to see how your machine compares, please read my previous post on how I set up my benchmarking test.

MacBook Pro Mid 2012 vs 2009 Lightroom 4 Benchmarks

My mid 2009 15" MacBook Pro Core 2 Duo was chugging along just fine and I was not thinking about an upgrade. That quickly changed when I upgraded to Adobe Lightroom 4 to process my Canon 5D Mark III raw files. Suddenly I was getting tons of hangups and rendering previews and exporting files were taking forever. The worst was the develop module of Lightroom 4 which was nearly unusable. Any brush or clone edits would grind my MacBook Pro to a halt. So it was time for a new machine. I was tempted by the Apple's new Retina Macbook Pro but the I couldn’t justify the higher price. At first glance, they are priced $400 over the non-retina counterparts but after outfitting it to my needs with more RAM and a larger flash drive or portable external drive, the price quickly soars. So the next generation MacBook Pro will have to wait until next time when flash drives are larger and more affordable. I wrote about the Retina MacBook Pro previously.

I opted for the base model 15" 2.3ghz because I didn’t think there is a big performance gap between 2.3ghz and 2.6ghz. MacWorld has some good speed comparisons.

I ran some benchmark test between the two machines, namely 1:1 preview rendering and exporting jpegs. Here’s how I set it up if you want to compare. Reboot the Mac. Make a new clean Lightroom catalog. Import 100 raw files. No develop setting are applied. Select all, then go to Library>;Previews>;Discard 1:1 previews, just in case Lightroom has built any previews. Then, select all, Library>;Render 1:1 Previews. Start timing. At the top you can see the progress bar. Stop timer when text underneath progress bar says Task Completed.

For the exports, select 100 images. Export to internal hard drive. No file renaming. File setting are jpegs at 100 quality, sRGB color space, no image resizing, 300 dpi, no output sharpening. Click export and begin timing. Stop timer when complete. (You’ll hear a pop sound if you have not changed general preferences.) Repeat to check your results. Here are the results for Canon 5D Mark III as well as the original Canon 5D. Version Lightroom 4.1. The older machine is a mid 2009 15" MacBook Pro 2.66ghz Core 2 Duo, 8GB RAM, 5400rpm Hard drive. The newer Mac is a 15" quad-core 2.3ghz i7, 4GB RAM, 5400rpm hard drive.

Benchmark chart Adobe Lightroom 4 MacBook Pro mid 2009 vs mid 2012

A three years difference in models gains about 2.5 times increase in performance. Note that the new machine has only 4GB RAM while the older Mac has 8GB. When I upgrade the RAM in the new Mac, I’ll add those comparisons to see any differences.

One thing this chart does not indicate is how the develop module performs. I said earlier my main gripe of my old machine was dealing with Lightroom 4’s sluggish develop module. I couldn’t figure out a way to benchmark the develop module. I can tell you that I haven’t seen any spinning beach balls and everything is moving along quickly.

One surprise of the data was that previews and exporting times for the larger Mark III files compared to the original 5D files are only 20% slower. I was expecting a bigger difference since the Mark III files are twice the size.

In the near future I will test the speed difference between Lightroom 3 and 4.