The iPhone 11 Pro Tryout — Daily Dose of Chemo

AT the LRT platform overlooking the city skyline

So, Sunday came. I got a text from Kenny Loh the day before. He was keen to meet up during lunch and go out snapping. And I had with me the new iPhone 11 Pro. It was an offer I could not resist. Time to try out the camera system, especially the much anticipated ultra-wide, and compare it to the likes of Samsung, Huawei and OnePlus.

Kenny was in the middle of an assignment and was scouting some venues. I was just happy to snap what I see. After meeting up at Masjid Jamek, we decided to have lunch first and chat. Off to Selangor Mansion we went. Despite being only just past noon, some of the vendors were already ready to clear out. The business started early for them. We settled for some nasi kandar - the kind which our friend Jahabar might not approve.

As we were done with lunch, the weather turned. It started drizzling, and we decided to change tack. Back to the LRT station, one-stop down at Pasar Seni despite actually being delayed as we took the wrong train. We were too occupied with our conversation, I guessed.

A vendor just opening his business for the day

From Pasar Seni, we made our way into Chinatown, emerging on the opposite side at REXKL. Kenny’s next project will start off from there. The rain started to pick up as soon as we reached REXKL. We were practically trapped there.

But despite the setback. I managed more than 120 snaps, trying out most things except maybe the videos and its super-slomo settings and portrait mode. I was too enamoured by the ultra-wide. I tried that on everything, including portrait ... I then uploaded all the snaps onto my mobile Lightroom, letting it sync onto the cloud, emerging on my iMac when I reached home.

An old kopitiam tucked inside the back lanes

My first impressions are, the best results came from the primary 26 mm camera with its wide aperture and image superb stabilisation system. It was able to handle high ISO better, with clean snaps, and minimal on-camera sharpening which was most evident on my Huawei P30 Pro. The ultra-wide had some digital manipulation, as I am sure a certain amount of distortion correction had been made under the hood. But with the right tweak, the image still appeared natural. In fact, at least 70% of the time, I was shooting in ultra-wide.

Another peculiar thing I found was the images were captured using Apple’s HEIF file format. I could not load it directly into Snapseed, needing to use the iPhone Photo app to export the photos first. I am sure that would be corrected in the next Snapseed update. The skin looks natural, although the sky does look overly saturated at times. The monochrome snaps were nothing special, and I did not have time to experiment with the panorama settings.

Topping the outing off with a nice cup of mocha

In essence, the camera was an upgrade both in the quality and quantity of the camera. I would like to have a few more outings with the camera to familiarise myself with its quirks. But it would be still no replacement to my Ricoh GR III which I faithfully carry in my camera bag.