How Portrait Mode and “Depth Mapping” will enhance your photography

QUESTION: Was this photo taken with a DSLR/Mirrorless camera, or an iPhone?

The answer may surprise you, as I took it yesterday with my iPhone 7 Plus using its Portrait mode (and no editing . . . this shot is straight from the iPhone camera). Now, before you stop reading because your mobile device doesn’t have Portrait mode background blur, please continue as I’m going to explain a technology that I guarantee will be in all of your cameras and devices eventually.

But before the explanation, check out this same shot WITHOUT the Portrait mode background blur:

Most people who have an iPhone 7 Plus or newer have a Portrait mode that produces a nice depth-of-field blur behind the subject’s head. Portrait photographers love to have background blur behind their models so as to reduce visual clutter that could distract from the person’s face and features.

So Apple introduced something called Depth Mapping to their phone cameras to replicate the ‘portrait photography’ look. Depth Mapping may not be available to you right now on your own device, but it’ll eventually be a normal part of photography which is why I encourage you to keep reading . . .

To create depth mapping background blur to replicate pleasingly blurry portrait backgrounds, the camera will use its autofocus to judge the distance of the main subject to the camera, and also the distance between the background to the camera. With these distances known, it will select the main subject, and in a sense ‘cut it out’ from the background. It will then create an artificial photography lens blur to the background items, and then merge the sharp main subject with the nice blurry background. This is a bit of an oversimplification, and there are different ways to perform depth mapping, but this description works well for our purposes.

The depth mapping process works very quickly, and the end result is a pretty good simulation of background blur that you would see from a DSLR or Mirrorless camera using a portrait style lens. For those who have access to this feature right now, try it out on some non-human subjects as well . . . it does a pretty good job with nature photography.

I hope this email helped with advancing your photography. Also, I just opened up a new photo workshop in Greece! I want to invite you to one of the world’s most beautiful countries to enjoy great food, wonderful people, and of course excellent photo opportunities and teaching. Check out www.markhemmings.com for details.

All the best!
Mark Hemmings