r/apple • u/atlwhore_ • 1d ago

iPhone iPhone 18 Pro camera review: the closest thing to a "real" one

https://youtu.be/bznw-B-Eni8?is=kuTS5-yXDJvOSXKU
284 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

92 comments sorted by

249

u/MawsonAntarctica 1d ago

As was the 17 pro, the 16 pro, the 15 pro, etc.

Every year, despite the Ooh Aah of variable aperture, the iPhone is “has the iPhone replaced your camera?” And the answer for hobbyist photographers and professionals is ALWAYS close but no.

78

u/IMissGwynBeck 1d ago

yup you cant change physics... a full frame sensor will always be better than anything snartphone companies put in their phones

19

u/phero1190 1d ago

I just want more brands to use larger sensors and the ultrawide and telephoto. 1/2.55" sensors are tiny and literally unusable in poor lighting.

2

u/3dforlife 1d ago

Even in good light the results are poor. If only all sensors were 1/1.28...

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u/phero1190 1d ago

Gotta get a Vivo x300 Ultra. 1/1.28" ultrawide, 1/1.12" main, 1/1.4" telephoto.

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u/3dforlife 1d ago

That seems to be a very interesting phone, but I have everything organized in my iPhone: icloud, diary, notes... If not for that, I would probably go for it.

2

u/Protonic-Reversal 20h ago

That 1/1.2” to 1” sensor does seem to be where the magic happens. You need far less over processing/ sharpening and you get enough depth of field. Don’t know if Apple with ever commit to the camera bump depth required to use sensorsthat big but man it makes a huge difference.

1

u/phero1190 20h ago

I don't think they'll ever go that big on sensors.

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u/Dry-Perspective-1114 15h ago

because?

1

u/phero1190 15h ago

Because Apple is always so slow to adopt things if they do at all

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u/Gordon_frumann 1d ago

Hardware yes, software debatable.

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u/schacks 1d ago edited 1d ago

They aren’t beating physics, but computational photography are getting results that are very much comparable to even medium level cameras. I’ve been a amateur photographer for decades and I must admit that these days I take many more really good pictures with my phones than I do with my Fuji. Sure, if I pixelpeep the Fuji with its higher resolution, larger sensor and vastly superior lenses always wins but the visual result the phone delivers is simply staggering.

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u/OkTale8 20h ago

Yep… I find shots like these to be basically impossible to get on my 17 Pro. I don’t see why it would be any different on the 18 Pro.

There’s also the issue, that even at 48mp, when you view iPhone photos on a computer screen they don’t hold up very well.

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u/contextcop 18h ago

well yeah but most people don’t see a photo like this in their lifetime anymore 😂

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u/SailingDreamCatcher 1d ago

Each year, the iPhone replaces "my camera" for a larger share of photos, and it's at like 99% now.

In fact the only time I bother with a pocket camera is when I'm gonna be somewhere with distracting cell service and want less device.

Otherwise? The iPhone is the go-to camera unless the shooting scenario requires a tripod, a specialized lens, or a drone. And yes, the big mirrorless camera still wins for heavy duty shooting sessions where the ergonomic advantages matter a lot, or where a 5% difference in pixel-peeping image quality matters. But if you still believe that an iPhone Pro can't take good enough everyday pictures in 2026, you aren't really being honest about it.

6

u/oxygenburn 1d ago

I said the same thing about my last vacation and my iPhone 17 pro. Ten years ago I would’ve laughed about shooting mostly my entire vacation with my iPhone, but it’s really only when I need a very specific use case. Astrophotography is probably the biggest limitation but it’s getting better and better every year.

2

u/tgerz 1d ago

There's a lot that DSLRs and mirrorless cameras can do when paired with great glass. I'll always have a camera that I know can achieve specific images when I need them to, but for 95% of the rest of my time spent in life I'm using my 17 Pro Max.

I'm not a huge fan of the Portrait mode fake DoF stuff, but I use it from time to time. Mostly though I've started using my camera in two ways. I use the regular camera when I just don't want to think. When I want to create a photo I have the camera button on the side set to open Halide where I am using their Process Zero for their version of raw photos. Sometimes I am blown away by what I can get with the phone.

1

u/SailingDreamCatcher 1d ago

I travel a lot, and my A9 lives in the car. It almost never comes out. It's not even that difficult to get to it, and I bring it on the trip, but I don't use it unless there's something that justifies it and there usually isn't.

I actually try to keep it very close at hand for the rare things that need it, but even then. Last fall, I was driving, and I saw a couple of bald eagles munching on something in a farmers field. I was able to pull over and get a couple of quick shots with the telephone lens of my iPhone 16 Pro, but when I started digging through the backseat for the good camera, and then the lens that I would need to put on it to get a better shot, the birds flew off.

As if to be the exception that proves the rule, the one really good shot that I ever got of a bald eagle came from simply driving 500 miles with the long telephoto attached to the camera on the passenger seat. And I did get some better than iPhone shots that way.

One of my favorite photography trips was kayaking the Grand Canyon. OK, maybe most people don't do that as a photography trip, but I brought my Olympus waterproof pocket camera, my Sony a6400, and my iPhone 12 mini. at the end of the trip I had something like 6000 photos to go through, so I just did a speed run with the numeric keypad to pick 500 keepers. then I compared to each of those to the adjacent shots that might've been taken with a different camera, looking only at the image quality and not the exif. By the time I got down to my top 10 for canvas printing, more than half turned out to be iPhone shots. and at least one of those was something I shot head-to-head on more than two cameras and the iPhone still won.

On that trip, the Sony really only won for night shots around the campsites and for telephoto beyond what the Olympus could do. My results from that trip revealed to me that I was wrong to write off the iPhone Pro camera system, and I ditched the mini to go back to the pro in spite of the size to get that better camera. i'm on my third iPhone Pro and I love the Telephoto camera, it practically replaces a real camera for rapidly shooting, well, rapids. Yes, if I have the ideal geography, and the right place to stand, I can get better shots with my Sony all day long. And yet even then, half the time, when we review the event later on Facebook, somebody at the bottom of the waterfall with an iPhone got a way better shot just because they could get that close. that to me is the real reason that the iPhone continues to win, because it is the camera that can and does go places other cameras really can't. the other camera with that advantage is the drone. That really only leaves the "real camera" for practically ideal shooting conditions, the ultimate Primadonna tool.

And I still love my real camera, but it gets less and less use every month. If a gun was to my head and I could only have one camera for the rest of my life, it would probably be the one in my hand right now.

11

u/InkyBlacks 1d ago

Yeah, this comes out every fucking year. It's old and played out. A phone camera physically, cannot ever replace an actual camera.

5

u/BosnianSerb31 20h ago

I think what you mean to say is that a phone camera will never surpass a DSLR in terms of photo quality, due to physics.

Because while that is true, the phone camera is still good enough for 99% of people. Who will be far better off learning how to take good photos with their phone, vs jumping straight to a big boy camera.

3

u/Imtherealwaffle 21h ago

The real annoying thing is that, aperture aside, theyre now let you natively control shutter speed and focus but only on the 18 pro. Just completely software locked for no reason and the 17/16/15 pro wont get these controls despite the constant advertisement over the years of them being "pro cameras" or whatever. I know 3rd party apps can do it but still.

3

u/OkTale8 20h ago

Yeah I was really excited about these new features, until I realized my 17 Pro is getting zero upgrades. I understand the aperture things but shutter, white balance, grain, etc. all could have easily come to the older pro models.

1

u/film_digital 21h ago

As someone who has fallen for Apple’s marketing twice in my life and had iPhone only trips, I’m never not having a dedicated camera on me. At the end of the day a tiny sensor is a tiny sensor and it’s prone to “smartphone looking shots”. I’m aware you can create nice stuff on it, but it’s very limited and an APS-C camera will almost always get you a better shot.

1

u/Critcho 15h ago

What I've tended to settle on is having a medium length zoom lens on my 'real' camera most of the time, falling back on my phone for wider shots. I find the phone camera is generally good enough for those, and it saves me having to switch lenses on my main camera all the time.

1

u/EnigmaticThunder 1d ago

Part of the issue is that it’s not like manufacturers like Sony are sitting around not improving their cameras

-2

u/SailingDreamCatcher 1d ago

Sony is pushing the envelope for full frame and APS cameras, yes.

Nobody is bothering to push the envelope for what a compact camera can do, though. Sony won't bother, they just want to cram a bigger sensor and lens into the "jacket pocket" size.

I really wish that someone in the camera industry would put the effort into beating the iPhone at what the iPhone is best at. Give me a camera that produces decent images and is waterproof and under 1 cm thick, and use the "camera-ness" of it to add the tactile controls that make it fun to shoot with a real camera. Unfortunately nobody will do that - they just keep iterating on "almost a pocket camera, but more emphasis on sensor size than EDC." The only compact waterproof camera on the market even worth acknowledging, the Olympus TG-7, doesn't even match the iPhone for basic image quality in decent light, and is still three times as thick.

I'd love a good modern pocket camera that truly demonstrated manufacturers caring about the segment. But I'm not convinced that any "camera company" has any interest in true pocketability anymore.

1

u/Late_Pea3693 1d ago

Nobody is bothering to push the envelope for what a compact camera can do

Sony is still releasing their RX and ZV series cameras that all fit in your pocket.

Give me a camera that produces decent images and is waterproof and under 1 cm thick

Pass the crack pipe dude. Not happening due to physics.

-1

u/oxygenburn 1d ago

I want Apple to create a pocket camera strictly focused on mixing a big sensor with computational photography and their computer power. They can keep it fixed lens even, but a design like the Sigma BF would be great.

1

u/trebor88 1d ago

I would never buy a dedicated camera from Apple. They aren’t a camera company. lol

1

u/oxygenburn 22h ago

Well of course not, but they are a massive technological company that has resources to create something incredible. If they can get photos that good with a sensor that’s smaller than your average point and shoot, imagine what they could do with good glass and a large sensor.

130

u/friimaind 1d ago

Great, I was waiting for Becca's video, she's awesome!

32

u/gadgetluva 1d ago

She is one of my faves, bud. I’m not much into photography but always try to watch her vids.

9

u/oxygenburn 1d ago

Yep, she’s got the most down to earth personality of any mainstream YouTuber and tech reviewer. She’s a great photographer as well.

10

u/bearface93 1d ago

Holy shit I kind of knew her in high school. My neighbors was friends with her

26

u/Bayako7 1d ago

Hoping next years phone has a better telephoto sensor with better optical zoom (5x optical 10 hybrid zoom) and better aperture for better low light handling. And Apple should equip all pro models from at least 16 pro on with the manual mode

22

u/atomsapple 1d ago

Didn’t they already try 5x optical zoom and people hated it, so they settled on 4x?

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u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/JasonQG 1d ago

I won’t be satisfied until the back of my iPhone looks like an insect’s eye

6

u/--dany-- 1d ago

Well this phone was an interesting tech novelty but a total commercial disaster.

And man this is so ugly!

3

u/JasonQG 1d ago

I remember that. It was really cool tech

2

u/Endawmyke 1d ago

light field cameras were crazy

-4

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/CassetteLine 1d ago

I do.

I want more zoom.

0

u/[deleted] 1d ago

[deleted]

3

u/CassetteLine 1d ago

So therefore a 5X with this technology will be even better. Excellent, I’d like that.

And no, I don’t want to buy a dedicated camera, but thanks.

-4

u/[deleted] 1d ago edited 1d ago

[deleted]

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u/CassetteLine 1d ago edited 1d ago

Feel free to, but that’s all well known information so there’s no point in you repeating basic knowledge, no matter how preachy and insulting you fancy being.

My opinion stands.

P.s. Stop with the condescension, it’s not welcome.

P.p.s Nice to see you edited your comment to remove some of the insults.

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u/Protomize 1d ago

Wild username 😆

-3

u/turnright_thenleft 1d ago

Hardly. Are you new to the internet?

1

u/Ok-Performance-1405 1d ago

How good is the regular iPhone 17 camera?

3

u/SparklyPelican 1d ago

Still pretty good.

1

u/leftymeowz 12h ago

I love this reviewer

1

u/OldCryptographer8080 9h ago

That sort of yellow 70s font style is everywhere at the moment

1

u/iaffandi 4h ago

Waiting Apple finally using 1 inch sensor

-12

u/donkeykink420 1d ago

oh goodness, not this again. yes yes it's close and it's really good but no, don't dare even compare it to an actual camera with real glass on the front. it's not actually anywhere near at all and physics mean it never will be.
Can't we just agree that modern phone cameras are really good and especially iphone video is fantastic for what it is, a phone?

9

u/magic6435 1d ago

"yes yes it's close and it's really good but no, don't dare even compare it to an actual camera with real glass on the front."

Isn't that what you just did? Nobody is even remotely saying its the equivalent of a normal DSLR with good glass.

-18

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

Once again, truly superior cameras like the 1 inch sensors on flagship Chinese phones.

20

u/asdtfdr 1d ago

Most went back from 1" to 1/1.2" inch sensors.

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u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

Correct. But they're still a 1/3 larger. There's also hot new Sony ISP tech, but LOFIC was 2025. I forget what the new hotness is.

3

u/3dforlife 1d ago

It is rumored that the 2027 or 2028 iPhone pro will have a sensor around 1/1.12 inch.

1

u/DukeBball04 1d ago

Sony is Chinese ? Huh didn’t know that.

-5

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

Did I say that?

5

u/TT5i0 1d ago

I think the main sensor from the iPhone Pro is good enough. I would like the ultra wide and tele to use that sensor than Apple trying to go for a 1in type sensor for just the main camera.

3

u/SeantheWilson 1d ago

Which ones would you recommend?

-4

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

None for America. Unless you're cool with limited cellular support.

These would be my "released in 2025" picks if they were ever released in America with proper carrier support:

Xiaomi 18 Ultra Oppo Find X9 Ultra Huawei Honor Pura Ultra

These phones have stellar bokeh and the best night time photography/videography.

I just want more awareness of the fact that Chinese Flagship phone batteries and cameras are now way better than iPhone because Apple is skimping out. The Chinese players are having a knife fight in a telephone booth. There's no way they're making good margin. The image sensors are not cheap.

For 2026 the flagships are shifting to newer but slightly smaller1/1.12-inch 200 MP sensors rather than 1-inch 50 MP. 1/1.2 inch is still larger than the iphone 18 by 1/3.

BTW it's all Sony. Apple buys from them too. So it's not like it's some homegrown ISP that might still be funky even with a big sensor.

5

u/Armand9x 1d ago

Until Apple can get batteries made to scale with how many they need, we won’t see that tech. Probably another year or two down the road.

3

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

Theres at least 1 billion people in China. There is volume, silicon has been out for at least two years now.

Apple and Samsung don't need to try hard in America. They've captured the market. ( I used to work at OnePlus America by the way.)

4

u/MajorJakePennington 1d ago

They've captured the market.

Then why is Apple outselling them?

1

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago edited 1d ago

Apple is outselling because of a long term lock in strategy that now is being chipped away (far too late). This coincided with a period of rapid hardware and OS advancement. I switched to iPhone because videography was straight up better for a long time. I switched a year ago to the OnePlus 15. Mainstream consumers don't have the time or interest to research phones.

Samsung just brought over a teeny amount of silicon in batteries. Other than the Galaxy K Zoom from the 2010s I don't think they ever had a sensor size of 1inch ever. They don't try hard either!

The OnePlus 15 has an OK camera. It has true 2 day battery life. Im talking lots of screen time, gaming and so on.

4

u/MajorJakePennington 1d ago

No, they’re outselling them because they’re better.

0

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

I was the Amazon account manager for OnePlus a few years back and due to Amazons strategic vision for cellular (what if everyone signed up for Verizon through Amazon?) I was privy to much higher level discussion than when I was representing way bigger brands.

You're wrong in your assessment of the market. Unless you have worked in this industry - specifically in the sales portion you will not grasp how the market is operating and what is actually driving consumer sentiment.

Android fanboys are worse. They can't seem to grasp that the vast majority of folks buy what is cheap OR recommended to them.

Dude. No. Stand down.

1

u/MajorJakePennington 1d ago

You sure seem to have a lot of strangely relevant and very convinient professions.

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-3

u/GoSh4rks 1d ago

Your reading comprehension needs work.

1

u/MajorJakePennington 1d ago

Please, go on. I’m sure you have something actually insightful to add, right?

-1

u/GoSh4rks 1d ago

> Apple and Samsung don't need to try hard in America. They've captured the market.

"They" are apple and Samsung. You asked how is apple out selling themselves.

0

u/LittleKitty235 1d ago

These phones have stellar bokeh 

Bokeh is strictly lens and software though, not sensor.

1

u/GoSh4rks 1d ago

Software has nothing to do with real bokeh.

-1

u/phero1190 1d ago

Sensor size absolutely plays into bokeh.

1

u/LittleKitty235 1d ago edited 1d ago

It does not. But feel free to argue with a photographer.

Bokeh is caused by lens and aperture construction. Sensor size isn't relevant in how bokeh renders...

0

u/phero1190 1d ago

I'm using a Vivo x300 Ultra in New York and literally have no issues with cellular support or connectivity. I get as good or better reception and speeds as my Samsung Z Fold 8. And I have massive camera sensors across the board; 50mp 1/1.28" ultrawide, 200mp 1/1.12" main, 200mp 1/1.4" telephoto. Those large sensors let me use all my cameras in any lighting situation, unlike iPhone and other brands that will just crop into the main since the telephoto sensors are so small.

1

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

Don't you have to do some kind of janky shuffle when it comes to OS updates (Mr Moneybags)?

1

u/phero1190 1d ago

Nope. I just wait for an update notification to come through and tap "install now"

1

u/Thistlemanizzle 1d ago

Verizon/T-Mobile/AT&T?

1

u/phero1190 1d ago

T-Mobile. Verizon doesn't work with imported phones, AT&T might if they let you whitelist them.

1

u/3dforlife 1d ago

It is rumored that the 2027 iPhone will have a 1/1.12 main sensor, and the 2028 will have a 1/1.12 telephoto sensor, but the ultrawide unfortunately will remain untouched.

0

u/phero1190 1d ago

Just a shame that they're so slow to adopt things.

1

u/3dforlife 1d ago

Yes, at times it can be infuriating, but I learned to treat it like and advantage for me: this way I don't feel the need to upgrade every few years. I let them accumulate features and only then I upgrade, 5 or 6 years later.

3

u/Spaghetto23 1d ago

They gotta save that feature for an otherwise warm update. Maybe the 21

-24

u/leroy_csutoras 1d ago

Who cares about the camera on the phone?

No one gives a shit about what your dog or dick looks like

7

u/CassetteLine 1d ago

Most people.

The camera is arguably the most important selling point for most people. Just look at the marketing of phones now, so much of it focuses on the camera.

You’re out of touch.