The iPhone 15 Pro Max is quite the pocket camera
The iPhone 15 Pro Max’s camera is again the standout feature of Apple’s flagship phone – and on paper, it has the chops to finally challenge the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra for the top spot in our guide to the best camera phones.
Why? Well, after a long wait the 15 Pro Max has finally delivered a long-awaited periscope zoom lens like the ones we’ve seen already from Samsung, Google and Huawei. Like its iPhone 15 Pro sibling, it also delivers new features including upgraded sensors across the board, new lens options, USB-3 connectivity for speedy file transfers and more.
But what exactly are all the iPhone 15 Pro Max’s new camera tricks and what do they do? We learned a bit about them during Apple’s Wonderlust event, and you can catch up on what you missed in our Apple Event 2023 recap. But now let’s dig into those specs and details and see how they might actually change your day-to-day snapping – and how they compare to Apple’s biggest rivals in the great camera phone battle.
Here are the seven big camera upgrades that could take the iPhone 15 Pro Max back to the top of the snapping charts…1. It has Apple’s first 5x telephoto zoom
Yes, it’s late to the periscope zoom party and Samsung’s flagship phone already offers 10x optical zoom, but Apple’s first 5x telephoto lens on the 15 Pro Max is still a big deal. After all, zoom has been the iPhone’s main weakness in the camera wars for years, so the ‘tetra prism’ design should be capable of some impressive results.
What might you use it for? The telephoto lens is equivalent to a 120mm focal length on a mirrorless camera, which is still really a ‘short telephoto’. So rather than shooting wildlife, it’ll still be most suited to portraits, product photography and taking snaps at events like weddings.
The good news is that the 15 Pro Max’s telephoto camera has a much larger sensor than the one in the iPhone 14 Pro Max (it’s 25% bigger), so that bodes well for image quality – as does the relatively bright f/2.8 aperture. Apple also claims this zoom is kept steady by its « most advanced stabilization yet » and sensor-shift module that can move in all three directions.
The downside? On the 15 Pro Max you lose the 3x optical zoom (equivalent to 72mm) that you get on the standard 15 Pro, which is particularly good for portrait shots. Still, the compensation is lots of other focal length options…2. You now get seven different focal lengths
Apple says the iPhone 15 Pro Max puts « seven camera lenses » in your pocket. How does that work when it only has three cameras (a 48MP 24mm main camera, 12MP 13mm ultra-wide and 12MP 120mm telephoto)?
It all comes down to using that 48MP resolution to effectively crop the image down to different ‘virtual’ focal lengths, without any major quality loss.
