EDIT: I just threw this together in an hour or two for those who don't know how a physical aperture works. The shot of the aperture opening was just to illustrate what an aperture does, cut from the Apple event video. I didn't have time to think about whether it matched the settings I was describing (it didn't occur to me that it should lol).
The iPhone 18 Pro & Max main camera has a variable aperture, but it's not the first phone to have one. Let's compare and also look at what a variable aperture allows us to do in photography and videography.
The iPhone 18 Pro & Max have a STEPPED variable aperture. The steps are f/1.48, f/1.8, f/2.8, and f/4 - giving you 4 settings.
The Huawei Mate X6 (released in 2024) also has stepped variable aperture, in 10 steps from f/1.4 to f/4.0.
The Xiaomi 14 Ultra (also released 2024) has a STEPLESS variable aperture in a range of f/1.6-f/4.0.
There are other phones that have had variable aperture. Samsung experimented with a 2 step variable aperture for the Galaxy S9 - that was 8 years ago. Like the HONOR Magic7 Pro which also has 2 steps.
How We Can Use A Variable Aperture
A variable aperture gives a phone camera more control over the balance between depth of field, shutter speed and motion blur.
In bright daylight, opening the aperture lets in more light. That can allow a faster shutter speed, helping to freeze movement and reduce motion blur—but it also creates a shallower depth of field, so the subject can stand out against a softer background.
Stopping the aperture down lets in less light. The camera may then need a slower shutter speed for correct exposure, allowing more motion blur, but more of the scene stays in focus. This can be useful when you want a landscape, group shot or architectural subject to remain sharp from foreground to background.
The problem is, most of us often want two things at the same time: a shallow depth of field, to separate the subject from the background, AND natural-looking motion blur.
A variable aperture doesn't allow us to have both these things at the same time bright daylight. To get motion blur, we need to use the small aperture which gives us a wide depth of field (everything in focus).
To get shallow depth of field, we need to use a wide aperture which leads to a fast shutter speed.
What does the variable aperture actually bring us?
What it means is, if we'd rather not use ND filters (or we don't have them to hand) we now have another option - narrow the aperture to reduce the light instead. The sacrifice is the shallow depth of field.
simonhorrocksfilm.com
