You may’t mount a cinema digital camera on a Formulation One race automobile. These nimble autos are constructed to express specs, and capturing racing footage from the motive force’s viewpoint is not so simple as slapping a GoPro on and calling it a day. That is 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 watch a Formulation One race in the present day, you’ve got most likely seen clips that present an angle from simply behind the cockpit, with the highest or facet of the motive force’s helmet within the body. Captured by onboard cameras embedded within the automobile, the ensuing footage is designed for broadcast, utilizing particular colour areas and codecs. Changing it to match the look of the remainder of the F1 movie can be too difficult to be possible. As a substitute, Apple’s engineering crew changed the printed module with a digital camera comprised of iPhone elements.
Customized Digicam
{Photograph}: Julian Chokkattu
{Photograph}: Julian Chokkattu
The module seems nothing like an iPhone. It deliberately resembles the printed digital camera module, and Apple even needed to match the burden in order that its model would not alter a automobile’s specs. The within, nevertheless, is totally completely different. (Apple gave us a peek at WWDC last week alongside an F1 automobile.)
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 a number of vehicles 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 major digital camera within the iPhone 15 Pro. It additionally contained an iPhone battery and a impartial density filter over the digital camera to scale back the sunshine getting into the lens, giving movie editors extra management over publicity.
Nobody expects an iPhone digital camera to carry out flawlessly at unbelievable speeds or excessive situations, so the engineering crew needed to take into account this issue. They examined the digital camera module to make sure it might endure excessive shock, vibrations, and warmth—it supposedly surpassed the specs offered by Formulation One.
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Julian Chokkattu
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 provides 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 Pro: log encoding and help for the Academy Coloration Encoding System (ACES) colour workflow.
Since there are not any radios within the module, a customized iPad app was the one approach the filmmakers might make on-the-fly adjustments to the digital camera. As soon as linked through USB-C, they may alter issues like body charge, publicity acquire, shutter angle, and white steadiness. That is additionally the place they’d hit file to start out or cease recording. The footage captured with the module is sprinkled throughout the F1 film.
