How Apple Created a Customized iPhone Digital camera for ‘F1’

You may’t mount a cinema digital camera on a Components One race automotive. These nimble autos are constructed to specific specs, and capturing racing footage from the motive force’s standpoint isn’t so simple as slapping a GoPro on and calling it a day. That’s the problem Apple confronted after Joseph Kosinski and Claudio Miranda, the director and cinematographer of the upcoming F1 Apple Authentic, wished to make use of actual POV racing footage within the movie.

For those who’ve watched a Components One race these days, you have most likely seen clips that present an angle from simply behind the cockpit, with the highest or aspect of the motive force’s helmet within the body. Captured by onboard cameras embedded within the automotive, the ensuing footage is designed for broadcast, utilizing particular coloration areas and codecs. Changing it to match the look of the remainder of the F1 movie could be too difficult to be possible. As an alternative, Apple’s engineering workforce changed the published module with a digital camera composed of iPhone elements.

Customized Digital camera

The module appears nothing like an iPhone. It deliberately resembles the published digital camera module, and Apple even needed to match the burden in order that its model would not alter a automotive’s specs. The within, nevertheless, is totally completely different. (Apple gave us a peek throughout WWDC final week alongside an F1 automotive.)

On the coronary heart is an iPhone digital camera sensor powered by an A-series chip. Apple did not specify the precise sensor or chipset, however these had been used for just a few automobiles in actual F1 races all through the 2023 and 2024 seasons, so there’s an opportunity it was the identical A17 Professional and 48-megapixel main digital camera within the iPhone 15 Professional. It additionally contained an iPhone battery and a impartial density filter over the digital camera to cut back the sunshine coming into the lens, giving movie editors extra management over publicity.

Nobody expects an iPhone digital camera to carry out flawlessly at unimaginable speeds or excessive situations, so the engineering workforce needed to think about this issue. They examined the digital camera module to make sure it may endure excessive shock, vibrations, and warmth—it supposedly surpassed the specs offered by Components One.

The module ran iOS however had a customized firmware for the digital camera. The movies had been captured in log format with Apple’s ProRes lossless video codec, delivering footage that appears flat however offers the editors rather more granular management to paint grade and match the visuals with the remainder of the movie. This practice firmware inevitably led to 2 new options within the iPhone 15 Professional: log encoding and help for the Academy Colour Encoding System (ACES) coloration workflow.

Since there aren’t any radios within the module, a customized iPad app was the one means the filmmakers may make on-the-fly adjustments to the digital camera. As soon as linked by way of USB-C, they may regulate issues like body fee, publicity achieve, shutter angle, and white stability. That is additionally the place they’d hit document to begin or cease recording. The footage captured with the module is sprinkled all through the F1 movie.