The release of the iPhone 11 series marks the end of an era for me. Six years ago we’ve released the Mark II Artist’s Viewfinder, a new incarnation of our successful Viewfinder Pro app. The Mark II brought first class wide angle conversion lens support, complete with real-time distortion correction. A world’s first tech at that time, and still unmatched.
This opened up a whole new world for landscape and architecture photographers, allowing them to simulate ultra wide shots and stitched panoramas.
But the converter lenses were bulky, expensive, and sourcing them early was a huge problem. We have a big box of lenses for every imaginable phone that are nothing but worthless junk now. So I don’t feel sorry that this is history and that some converter lens manufacturers will go out of business. With the exception of ALPA, they were all a pain to deal with.
We’ve received our 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max two days ago (more than a month after placing the order – sadly Apple doesn’t provide an equal playing field for developers in some European countries). And now I’m happy to report that ultra wide angle camera support is almost complete. Yes, I wrote most of the code in advance.
A screen shot showing the ultra wide camera in action
During the last month we had been asked frequently whether the new ultra wide camera will be able to simulate a Rodenstock HR Digaron-S 23mm f/5.6 on a 40×56 mm sensor, such as the Phase One IQ4 150. Although precise bench measurements still have to be done, based on iOS provided angle of view information the answer is a resounding yes. Just take a look at the screen shot above. For 35mm cameras, this is roughly 15mm equivalent. Sides of a 14mm are slightly clipped, so the 13mm in Apple’s materials seems to be marketing exaggeration. But we’ll see after the measurements.
The ultra wide camera is treated as a permanently present wide converter. That is, activating Wide Mode will switch to the ultra wide camera. There’s nothing else to configure. And there are no workflow changes. The updated app will also provide a separate Frame Size Adjustment slider for the ultra wide camera.
We still have about a week’s worth of work ahead, and thus I expect the updated version to be available by the end of October. The update will be free for existing Mark II users.
Once it’s turned on in the menu, double or triple tapping a frame will not just set the mask or highlight, but will also zoom to the active frame so that it fits the screen (that is, the whole active frame becomes visible, at the largest possible size where the whole frame is on the screen). Clearing the mask or highlight will change the zoom level back to where it was before activating the frame (the original zoom level). There are a few things to keep in mind, though.
