\n
The iPhone 15 Pro Max\u2019s 5x zoom lens at 100 percent crop (left) versus a tidier image from the Pixel 7 Pro\u2019s 5x zoom (right).<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Side by side with the other<\/em> Pro phone with a 5x zoom lens, Google\u2019s Pixel 7 Pro, the 15 Pro Max\u2019s telephoto keeps up well. The Pixel 7 Pro holds onto more color detail in dim light, though I see a bit more fine detail in greenery from the iPhone\u2019s image. But you don\u2019t have to go pixel-peeping to see that the iPhone produces a darker image overall. The Pixel 7 Pro image is just a little brighter and tidier, even if the level of detail looks about the same. The Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra doesn\u2019t look as good at its digital 5x zoom setting as either the iPhone or Pixel, but predictably it outperforms both at higher telephoto settings thanks to its 10x optical lens.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
There are a couple of other \u201clenses\u201d available to the Pro models this year, but they live in software rather than on the back of the phone. In addition to the main camera\u2019s 24mm focal length, there are 28mm and 35mm options, too. You can cycle through them by tapping the 1x icon in the camera app, and you can set either of them as the default main camera focal length. Something else you\u2019ll notice when you start using the main camera: 24 megapixels is the new default output resolution, up from 12 megapixels since\u2026 basically forever.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
The 24-megapixel output plays an important role in the new crop lens options. They\u2019re not the product of simple digital zoom and up-rezzing, and there\u2019s a bit more that goes into them than just cropping the middle of the sensor. According to Apple, photos from the native 24mm focal length and the 28mm settings follow the same process (or \u201cpipeline,\u201d as Apple likes to call it), going through the typical Deep Fusion process on a series of 12-megapixel frames and borrowing detail information from a full 48-megapixel frame captured immediately afterward. A custom neural network is used to piece it all together and produce a final 24-megapixel image. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
\n
\n\n
1\/31<\/p>\n
iPhone 15 Pro main camera.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n\n
1\/31<\/p>\n
iPhone 15 Pro main camera.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
The 35mm setting has a slightly different process, owing to the fact that a 35mm crop happens to occupy the center 24 megapixels of the sensor. So rather than referring to a full 48-megapixel frame for detail, it\u2019s able to put together a final 24-megapixel image with 1:1 detail from those center pixels.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
I used to suffer a specific kind of FOMO when using anything but a native focal length on a phone camera. Death before digital zoom, etc. And I still think nothing is quite as good as old-fashioned optical zoom, but I\u2019m coming around to the idea of lossless crop zoom and these new 24mm and 35mm \u201clens\u201d options. If there\u2019s any detail loss or noise penalty when using the 35mm in a dark bar rather than the standard 24mm, I can\u2019t see it. After a week with this camera system, I\u2019m really enjoying having them around. I know a lot of wide-angle-averse types who will switch right to 35mm when they get ahold of this phone, and I think they\u2019ll be happy with the results. Digital lens FOMO no more.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
You can also take a full 48-megapixel compressed image, either JPEG or HEIF, in addition to the 48-megapixel ProRAW enabled in last year\u2019s models. The compressed high-res files are much smaller than the 48-megapixel ProRAW images: a HEIF file is around 4MB, and JPEGs hover around 9MB, while the ProRAW files can be upward of 70MB. There\u2019s plenty of detail to play with if you\u2019d rather do your own cropping than let Apple\u2019s crop modes do the work, and it\u2019s nice to have access to all of those pixels outside of ProRaw.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
When I take pictures, I spend a lot of time jumping between portrait mode and the standard camera mode. This gets tiresome and, if I\u2019m photographing my kid, can cause me to miss the shot I was going for while I was fumbling with settings. The iPhone 15 series \u2014 regular and Pro alike \u2014 finds a clever way around this struggle by letting you apply the portrait mode effect after the fact.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Anytime the camera detects a face, cat, or dog in the frame, it automatically saves the depth information with your image file. It\u2019ll do this whenever you tap on the frame to focus in a specific area, too, no human or pet needed. When you open up the image in the Photos app, you\u2019ll see an option to turn portrait mode on. You can adjust the depth effect as before, but now, you can also put the focus on a different subject if you want. And it seems to work just as well as if you were in portrait mode from the start. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
You can add a portrait effect after capture or put the focus somewhere else in the frame.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
It doesn\u2019t work automatically with night mode \u2014 you need to be in portrait mode from the jump to take a night portrait \u2014 but it does<\/em> work with the telephoto lens and the selfie camera, which is handy. You can leave Live Photos enabled, too, and the depth info will be recorded right along with your moving image, so it\u2019s truly something you don\u2019t have to think about in order to use it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Apple put some more work into its HDR processing for the 15 Pro, and a lot of the emphasis seems to be on capturing more highlight detail and saving that in the HEIF file\u2019s embedded gain map. I can see it at work very clearly when I\u2019m scrolling through thumbnail images in the Photos app and open one up, especially a photo with bright white highlights. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
This isn\u2019t exactly new \u2014 Apple\u2019s on its third generation gain map on the iPhone 15 \u2014 but the effect really seems to pop more than it did on the iPhone 14 Pro, at least to my eye. As in the past, this is only something you\u2019ll see on a compatible HDR display (likely an iPhone but also some Macs and iPads) and only in certain applications (the Mac and iOS Photos app included, naturally) but Apple offers this API to third-party developers, so you might see it pop up more in the near future.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\n
Per usual, the Samsung S23 Ultra (right) loves pushing those blue tones reflected in the building on the right. The iPhone 15 Pro Max (left) makes more of an effort to hold onto the highlight detail in the boats on the horizon.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
Overall, Apple seems to be staying the course relative to Samsung and Google. The Pixel 7 Pro does a little better in night mode where the 15 Pro and Galaxy S23 Ultra are a little more prone to the watercolor effect. The iPhone\u2019s jump to a 24-megapixel image means there\u2019s more detail there for the taking straight from the default JPEG, but normalized to the same viewing size, I see about the same level of detail across the three cameras. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Among the three, the iPhone doesn\u2019t win every category \u2014 special shoutout to the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra\u2019s excellent portrait mode \u2014 but in a week of shooting with it in a lot of different conditions, the 15 Pro is the one most likely to deliver the color I was looking for consistently. It\u2019s the familiar iPhone camera experience, now with a bit more flexibility in your composition options.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n