Is the Apple iPhone 15 Pro Any Good for Astrophotography?
The iPhone 15 Pro camera is unquestionably the best piece of silicon Apple have put in a phone, by no small margin mind you, but how does it hold up at night? Using phones for astrophotography is an emergent hobby, owing to the huge revolution currently underway in mobile phone camera sensors and computational photography. So, is the iPhone 15 any good for the purpose?
In a word… sorta.
You see, our story starts a few years ago when Apple started putting ProRAW as an option into their “Pro”-designated phones. Unlike a true RAW file, where the file is the bare metal representation of data (such as those put out by a DSLR/mirrorless, or indeed, many other phones), ProRAW is an Apple-proprietary format that is neither JPEG/HEIF, nor is it truly “raw”. It sits somewhere in between, in this weird uncanny no-mans-land between utility and annoyance, and that is a true inhibitor to making these devices legitimate imaging tools.
“Aurora over SW Tasmania” –
Winner, ‘Smartphone Astrophotography’,
David Malin Awards 2023
Apple iPhone 14 Pro, ProRAW, 30s, main camera
A few months ago, I swept the Smartphone Astrophotography category at this year’s David Malin Awards and have two of those shots hanging at the Murriyang/Parkes Observatory, all with ProRAW shots taken on my since-retired iPhone 14 Pro. But, and I say this utterly pleading, I would’ve killed for true RAW, and indeed, true long exposure support on the iPhone to produce those winning images.
I recently started a Facebook group, coincidentally also called Smartphone Astrophotography, where I get to see the results from all sorts of phones – from ancient iPhones, the cheapest Androids in the market, right through to the latest Samsung and Pixel offerings, used with a variety of techniques on diverse subjects. The unifying thread between most of those is that, by and large, Android is winning.
One area where I feel the iPhone stable holds its own is auroral imaging, and indeed, 2 of my 3 awarded shots were of that subject. But as general night imaging tools? They’ll do the job, as you’ll see in the below unedited samples from my (very) well illuminated front yard, but if you’re looking at this specifically for its imaging capabilities, you can do better. If you are considering this as a professional imaging tool, your shots will look good. But who wants ‘good’ when ‘great’ is just down the street?
The following are shots taken in a combination of manners – either handheld 10s shots leaned up against my doorframe, or mounted on my Sirui R-3213X tripod legs and Leofoto PC-90 II phone adapter, either with my Sky-Watcher Star Adventurer Mini running or not (30s exposures). The only processing applied to some is exposure, and WB to try to marginally neutralise significant colour oddity.
As you can tell by the sky colour, these were taken under about a Bortle 6 sky, illuminated by an adjacent streetlight. Under better visibility, I imagine the results would be more dramatic.
The files are reasonably colourful and have astonishingly good noise control (one of the upshots of the ProRAW format, and also Apple’s long exposure hac… er, implementation), but the details are predictably muddy in the nebulous regions. You can undoubtedly use the files, and you can easily make out prominent details as you’d hope to.
These areas are definitely an improvement over the previous generations I’ve used (even the 14 Pro, shown below as a stack of 20 frames passed through Photoshop), presenting much more depth to the luma values and huge improvements in rendering smaller emission areas like the Lagoon Nebula (which I was reliably able to eyeball on the phone’s live view feed). There’s marginally more red sensitivity, however this itself introduces a new list of issues to do with colour balance.
In sum total, and as you can easily see between the unprocessed RAWs above from the 15 Pro and the final piece out of the 14 Pro shot with the same technique, the details captured in the core are markedly better than previously. Hell, even on socials without any work they’d pass and fool most folks. But once the ol’ hairy eyeball glances long enough, the deficiencies (blocking areas, incongruence with light/dark transitions, ‘panda eyes’ around stars) start to become obvious.
“Good Little Diver (iPhone)” – Honourable Mention, ‘Smartphone Astrophotography’,
David Malin Awards 2023
Apple iPhone 14 Pro, ProRAW, 30s, main camera, 20 frames
Let me be clear: this is still astonishing out of a mobile phone, let alone one that I can just point at the sky in my hand and get usable results a not insignificant portion of the time. But, astonishing can be that much more so, so very easily. I’d go so far as to say, for north of $2k with all of the fruit, it should be.
Apple have famously incredible camera tech in their phones, often amongst the best in the class (as tested by organisations like DxO), but short of rooting the devices, they’ll always have an achilles heel. I’m not even saying ditch ProRAW either, because I generally like the standard for normal kinda everyday stuff, which it was literally designed for.
Please, Apple, for your own sake and the sake of those who give you (inarguably) absurd chunks of money, please listen to your creators who really need something like this to justify these devices as serious imaging tools. You owe it to all of us to see what these things can really do when they’re unfettered.