Dieter Bohn on the iPhone 13 Pro

Dieter Bohn, writing for The Verge:

Apple’s marketing for the camera system on the 13 Pro is that it’s the “biggest advancement ever.” I don’t know that I would go that far, but I also can’t remember the last time I’ve said “whoa, look at this photo” as many times as I have during this review. […]

Where the Pro 13 camera system shines is in low light. The main wide-angle sensor has seen a massive upgrade this year. Unlike Android phones that are chasing big megapixel counts and then “pixel binning” to achieve low light performance, Apple is sticking with 12 megapixels, the same resolution it’s used since 2015’s iPhone 6S. The sensor itself is much bigger now and features 1.9 µm pixels, which are about as big as anything we’ve seen on a smartphone. And on top of all that, the lens now has an ƒ/1.5 aperture.

All of that adds up to a camera that can very quickly take in a massive amount of light relative to other phones. Combined with some tuning and improvements to Apple’s computational photography, the low light performance on the 13 Pro is simply second to none.

I came away super impressed with the low light performance of the 13 Pro, too.

Bohn makes an important point in his corresponding review of the 13 and 13 Mini too: because the camera bumps are all new sizes, cases for the iPhone 13 won’t fit the 13 Pro, nor vice-versa.

★ Tuesday, 21 September 2021