If you hold up the iPhone 12 Pro to capture an image of a person or an animal, it usually manages to spot them in the frame, puts a yellow box around them and brings them into sharp focus quite quickly. It may not put a box around other objects, but it does a good job of getting the nearest object sharp.

Even in low light, it’s impressive how quickly the iPhone 12 Pro focuses on a subject – there are dedicated cameras out there that can’t match the speed.

If the iPhone 12 Pro deems the light levels are low enough, it automatically activates Night mode. You can see this is in action as the icon at the top of the screen turns yellow and there’s an indication of the exposure time. If you tap on the exposure time, a scale appears at the bottom of the screen to allow you to adjust it or turn Night mode off.

I’m amazed at how sharp some of the 2-second exposure images that I captured in Night mode are. With the flash off, I even moved the phone a little to test the stabilisation and the results are tack-sharp.

The camera controls sensitivity (ISO) automatically to deliver what it feels is the best exposure. Checking the EXIF data of an image I shot of my dog in our ‘atmospherically-lit’ living room at night as he relaxed in front of the fire reveals that it was captured at ISO 1000 with a shutter speed of 1/17. It shows the benefit of the f/1.6 lens as there’s little in the way of noise and plenty of detail. The iPhone 12 Pro has also balanced the exposure across the scene very well as there’s detail in the dark recess of the fireplace, either side of the red flames visible in the log burner.

It’s not all good though. For example, some shots I took of trees after sunset, when there was still lots of colour and light in the sky don’t look great. Some of the bare tree branches look oversharpened and the grass in the foreground of an image captured with the ultra-wide camera looks rather smudged even though the ISO was 320.

Some images also look a bit ‘HDR’ for my taste and I usually darken the shadows in Snapseed.

Portrait Mode

Portrait mode is designed to simulate the shallow depth of field results created by using a wide aperture with a camera that has a large sensor. It’s typically used for blurring the background behind a portrait subject, but it can also be used with other subjects – you may need to tap on the subject on the screen to set the focus point.

When you switch to Portrait mode, the iPhone 12 Pro automatically selects the telephoto lens. That’s a good choice as a longer lens is generally more flattering on the subject.

As I mentioned earlier, the iPhone 12 Pro enables the aperture effect to be varied between f/1.4 and f/16. You can adjust the effect at the shooting stage or post-capture.

Also, what’s not immediately apparent with wide images shot in Portrait mode, is that you can shift the focus point of the image with a tap on the screen.

Generally, the iPhone 12 Pro does a very good job of identifying the subject and blurring the background around it. And it doesn’t just cut out the subject and blur everything around it, there’s some gradation. In a portrait of a man with his hand on a fence, for example, the fence near his hand is sharp but it becomes blurred closer towards the camera, giving the image a realistic appearance.

However, some subjects are trickier than others. My dog’s whiskered chin, for example, is quite a challenge and at the widest aperture, the edges between his chin and the background doesn’t look 100% natural. With this in mind, it’s best to not routinely push to the widest aperture, zoom in and have a good look around the subject first.

iPhone 12 Pro Video Performance

At maximum resolution, 4K, the iPhone 12 Pro produces good-looking video. In some cases, it pays to tap on the screen and drag to adjust the exposure, but the level of detail is good and the footage has an overall natural appearance.

Video is only stabilised when it’s shot using the wide/26mm lens and the system does a good job of taking out the shake and wobble of hand-holding the phone. Even footage that I recorded as I was walking is watchable.

In Slo-Mo mode, the iPhone 12 Pro records in Full HD rather than 4K and again the results are good. Fast movement is slowed and smoothed and there’s a good level of detail visible.

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