GoKawiilThe variable aperture lens of the shiny new iPhone 18 Pro goes almost one stop wider than the fixed aperture lens in its predecessor: up from f/1.78 in the iPhone 17 Pro to f/1.48 (a smaller number is wider).
In principle, this will allow for slightly shallower depth of field, enabling greater separation between your subject and the background – although it’s a relatively small difference. But there are four ways to achieve shallow depth of field (DOF) with much older iPhones …
Portrait mode
The most obvious method is, of course, to use Portrait mode, which is specifically designed to allow people to be very clearly separated from the background.
This is a completely artificial effect using computational photography (assisted by LiDAR, on models that support it) to identify the subject and to apply an artificial blur to everything else. Early versions were extremely crude, but it’s become remarkably good in the last few years.
Macro shots
The second approach is Macro mode, which will be automatically enabled when you get extremely close to something. With this engaged, the iPhone selects the wide-angle camera, which can focus at extremely close distances.
In this mode, only a few centimetres will be in focus, with everything beyond it increasingly blurred. As you might notice from the example below, you should be prepared to spend a lot of time dusting and cleaning before attempting to photograph anything using this mode! You’ll know the mode is active when you see the yellow flower symbol in the bottom right of the display.
Getting close to the subject
You can also achieve a similar result with the standard camera by getting very close to the subject. For example:
... continue reading