Smart HDR, what is it?
The iPhone has had Smart HDR since 2018. This allows you to take more beautiful photos than ever, especially if there is a great contrast between light and dark in the photo. Smart HDR works completely automatically, so you don’t have to think about it. What is it and on which devices? You can read it here!
- What is Smart HDR?
- Devices with Smart HDR
- Why Smart HDR?
- Use Smart HDR
Tip! Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to disable (Smart) HDR in current iOS versions. This sometimes gives photos an unnatural effect. To get around this, you can take a Live Photo or a RAW photo, for example in Apple’s own ProRAW format.
Smart HDR, on which devices?
Smart HDR works automatically on the following devices (and cannot be turned off):
- iPhone 13 and newer
- iPhone SE 2022 and newer
You can automatically turn Smart HDR on and off on the following models:
- iPhone 12 series
- iPhone 11 series
- iPhone SE 2020
- iPhone XR
- iPhone XS (Max)
HDR is available on the following devices, but not Smart HDR:
- iPhone 4 to iPhone 8 (Plus)
- iPhone
- iPhone SE 2016 (first generation)
You can easily check whether your device is suitable: go to Camera > Smart HDR in the Settings app. If you have a recent device and this switch is not present, Smart HDR will work automatically. If you have an older device, Smart HDR is not possible, but you may have regular HDR (see above).
With normal HDR, a camera takes several photos in a row with different lighting. These photos are combined with each other to create an optimal photo.
Smart HDR does not take three photos, but nine in total. The secret of Smart HDR is in the newer processors since the A12 Bionic. The sensor and lens are no longer decisive for beautiful photos, but also the chip and the software that runs on it.
The A-chip combines the data from the Image Signal Processor (ISP) with calculations from the Neural Engine. Based on this, it is recognized what a scene looks like and whether there is movement. In that case, Smart HDR works in two ways:
- The camera continuously shoots a four-frame buffer, so there is no delay when you press the shutter button.
- The camera shoots so-called ‘interframes’ between these frames. This is done with varying degrees of lighting, so that details are clearly visible. Parts of the photo that are in the shadows are also clearly visible.
Instead of simply combining all frames into one photo, the Neural Engine chooses the best parts of each photo. This involves quite a few calculations and it is done in an intelligent manner. Hence ‘Smart’ HDR. The A12 Bionic’s Neural Engine was already able to perform an impressive 1 trillion (or 1 trillion in English) calculations per second. With the A17 Pro chip this has now increased to 35 trillion calculations per second.
Why Smart HDR?
Photography is an important function of smartphones. There are few developments in pure smartphone functions such as managing your calendar and calling and they are often not interesting enough to get people to upgrade. But a better camera does appeal to people and there is still plenty of new to discover in this area.
Apple is of course not alone in this. Huawei, Samsung and other manufacturers have developed their own variant of the Neural Engine. Google also combines multiple underexposed shots into an HDR photo on the Pixel phones to ensure that light and dark are in balance.
Photographers use so-called ‘bracketing’ for a similar effect, where they take multiple photos of a given object and merge them later in post-production. With a smartphone you want everything to happen automatically, so that’s why Apple takes as much work off your hands as possible in this regard. All you have to do is press the shutter button.
This is how you use Smart HDR
Maybe you don’t want to know how Smart HDR works, but you especially want to know how to make your photos more beautiful. The good news is that you don’t have to think about it. Everything happens in the flash of a second because the iPhone does the work.
Enabling or disabling HDR depends on your iPhone model (see above). If you have an iPhone 13 or newer, you have no influence on it and (Smart) HDR is always enabled. If you do not want automatic optimizations to take place, you will have to rely on Apple ProRAW.
On models on which you can manually switch (Smart) HDR on and off, it works as follows:
- In iOS 12, you’ll find an HDR switch in the Camera app that allows you to turn HDR on and off while shooting.
- In iOS 13 and newer, go to Settings > Camera > (Smart) HDR.
There is a separate switch for viewing HDR photos:
- In the Settings app, go to Photos.
- Turn on the switch for Experience full HDR. This ensures that photos can be seen in optimized HDR display on your device.
Please note that this switch is only visible on devices with an HDR display. These are the iPhones with an OLED screen, starting from the iPhone X. The iPhone XR, iPhone 11 and iPhones with Touch ID do not have this switch.
If you view a photo in full HDR, it may be that a photo looks very colorful and contrasty on the iPhone screen, but becomes much duller when shared.
