Apple Log on iPhone: which models have it, and when it is worth using

Which iPhones actually support it

Apple Log requires an A17 Pro chip or newer, which in practice means the Pro line only:

• iPhone 15 Pro and 15 Pro Max — A17 Pro, listed as Apple Log.
• iPhone 16 Pro and 16 Pro Max — A18 Pro, listed as Apple Log.
• iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max — A19 Pro, where the Color Space dropdown calls it Apple Log 2.

No non-Pro iPhone has it. That includes recent ones: iPhone 15, 15 Plus, 16, 16 Plus and 17 record in Rec.709 (and Dolby Vision HDR on the models that support it), and no setting will add Log to them. If the option is missing from your Color Space list, your device is the reason — not a bug or a version problem.

What Log actually changes

A Log profile records a flatter, lower-contrast image on purpose. Instead of baking a pleasing contrast curve into the file, it spreads the sensor's range more evenly, keeping detail in bright windows and dark corners that a standard profile would clip to white or crush to black.

The cost is that the file looks wrong straight out of the phone: grey, washed out, undersaturated. That is not a fault. Log footage is an intermediate — it is meant to have a look applied to it, either a Log LUT in the app or a proper grade in editing software.

When Apple Log earns its place

Log pays off when the scene has range your phone would otherwise throw away, and when you intend to finish the footage rather than post it straight from Photos. Concretely:

• High-contrast scenes — someone indoors against a bright window, or a face in shade under midday sun.
• Sunsets and mixed lighting, where a standard profile clips the sky or smears the colour transition.
• Work you will grade, or footage that has to intercut with another camera and match it.

When Rec.709 is the better answer

For most shooting, most of the time, Rec.709 with a Rec.709 LUT gets you a better result with less work. The image is finished in the camera, the LUT supplies the cinematic colour, and the clip is ready to post the moment you stop recording.

That is the workflow the device guides recommend by default, and it is not a compromise: even-light scenes — overcast days, interiors with controlled lighting, most talking-head and product shots — have nothing in the highlights or shadows for Log to rescue. You get the flat file and the extra step without the benefit.

If you shoot Log, you must pair it with a Log LUT. A Rec.709 LUT on Log footage stays flat and lifeless, which is the single most common reason people conclude that Log looks bad.

Turning it on, and what to change alongside it

Apple Log lives in Settings — the gear icon at the bottom-right of the viewfinder — under Color Space. Select Apple Log (or Apple Log 2 on 17 Pro) and the viewfinder immediately goes flat.

Before you shoot, go into LUTs Manager and enable a Log LUT with the ON button so the viewfinder shows a graded image again. Judging exposure on a raw Log preview is genuinely hard; monitoring through a LUT puts back the contrast your eye needs to tell whether the shot is right.

Leave the recording icon off unless you specifically want the look baked in. The whole point of shooting Log is to keep your options open, and baking a LUT into the file throws that away.

Log is not ProRes, and neither one requires the other

These two settings get conflated constantly because both live in the Pro-model conversation. They are independent: Color Space controls the tonal profile, Codec controls how the file is compressed. You can shoot Apple Log in HEVC H.265 and get the extra latitude without the enormous files ProRes produces — which, on a phone you also use for everything else, is usually the sensible combination.