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Other As expected, iPhone 17 Pro / Max telephoto 8X is crop zoom
- Thread starter EugW
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That thinking (higher resolution equals noisier output) is outdated, not only, but especially for modern smart phones with all their computational wizardry. We‘ll have to wait for tests, but I would bet that 24 MP fusion pictures from that larger sensor will handily beat the 12 MP shots from the 16 Pro tele.
So you have a 4x zoom at 48 megapixels and an 8x zoom at 12 megapixels. What about in between? Will it sensor crop for 5x, 6x, 7x, etc like the main camera does? This is an important item that they have NOT clarified! The main sensor crops between 1x and 2x!
I can’t get a straight answer to this. The only people who know at this point are ones who had hands on experience with the phone. Even the people you can chat with on Apple Store don’t know.
So, let me get this straight:
- The iPhone Pro 17 has exactly the same main (wide) camera as the iPhone 14 Pro (48Mp, 24mm equiv., f/1.28, 2.44 um quad-pixel size, ergo same sensor size). Isn't that crazy??
- The iPhone Pro 17 has exactly the same ultrawide camera as the iPhone 16 Pro (48Mp, 13mm equiv., f/2.55, 1.4 um quad-pixel size, ergo same sensor size). Oh, well.
- It does have a new telephoto camera (48Mp, 100mm equiv., f/2.8, 1.4 um quad-pixel size). At least that's something.
In summary; a main camera that's 3 years old, another that's the same as last year's model, and a partial upgrade in the remaining one. I'm sorry but that's really a downer in a market where most of the reasons for an iPhone upgrade are better cameras... As a 13 Pro user I was ready to upgrade, and now I'm really not so sure.
Also, Apple lies through their teeth all the time when they mention OPTICAL zoom here and there. No, Sir; your 2x or 8x zooms are achieved by cropping the 1x or 4x camera images, that's not optical zoom, that's been called digital zoom like, forever. It's an image obtained from 1/4 of the sensor and only part of the lens. Calling it "optical-quality" zoom (if at all) is simply misleading. Why not claiming 16x zoom then, while producing 3 Mp images? It makes me mad every time I read it. Apple, that's not you.
I agree that most people are only going to look at images in their iPhone's screen, or even Mac/PC screens with resolutions comparably much lower than 12Mp. And for that, even that kind of crop is going to be unnoticeable. But it's NOT optical zoom, and it's misleading marketing, I'm sorry.
- The iPhone Pro 17 has exactly the same main (wide) camera as the iPhone 14 Pro (48Mp, 24mm equiv., f/1.28, 2.44 um quad-pixel size, ergo same sensor size). Isn't that crazy??
- The iPhone Pro 17 has exactly the same ultrawide camera as the iPhone 16 Pro (48Mp, 13mm equiv., f/2.55, 1.4 um quad-pixel size, ergo same sensor size). Oh, well.
- It does have a new telephoto camera (48Mp, 100mm equiv., f/2.8, 1.4 um quad-pixel size). At least that's something.
In summary; a main camera that's 3 years old, another that's the same as last year's model, and a partial upgrade in the remaining one. I'm sorry but that's really a downer in a market where most of the reasons for an iPhone upgrade are better cameras... As a 13 Pro user I was ready to upgrade, and now I'm really not so sure.
Also, Apple lies through their teeth all the time when they mention OPTICAL zoom here and there. No, Sir; your 2x or 8x zooms are achieved by cropping the 1x or 4x camera images, that's not optical zoom, that's been called digital zoom like, forever. It's an image obtained from 1/4 of the sensor and only part of the lens. Calling it "optical-quality" zoom (if at all) is simply misleading. Why not claiming 16x zoom then, while producing 3 Mp images? It makes me mad every time I read it. Apple, that's not you.
I agree that most people are only going to look at images in their iPhone's screen, or even Mac/PC screens with resolutions comparably much lower than 12Mp. And for that, even that kind of crop is going to be unnoticeable. But it's NOT optical zoom, and it's misleading marketing, I'm sorry.
Yes it will crop the 4x sensor. The 8x mode is itself a 2x crop from the 4x sensor.
It should be a consistent crop from the 4x. I don’t know if there’s some scenarios in very low light where the phone might try and use the 1x sensor instead of the 4x, but given the big difference in focal length I’d say that’s unlikely
Not necessarily related but I’m not creating a thread, a question:
Thoughts on the 48MP Ultra Wide? Do you think it’ll be as good as my 16 Plus’ main camera on the base model?
The 12MP Ultra Wide is quite bad on my 16 Plus, a LOT of detail loss vs the standard 24MP main sensor’s pictures. Do you think the 48MP Ultra Wide will be perfect? Or will it still lose a lot of detail vs my 16 Plus’ main camera?
Probably one of the reasons they went down to 4x on the zoom is that tests between the iPhone 15pro (3x optical) from 1x to 5x were substantially better then iPhone 16pro (5x optical)
Once 16pro hit 5x then it beat the 15pro.
The cropping factor to go from 1x to 5x was just too much quality loss for a 16pro using the main lens.
I still have the 15pro and I much prefer 3x. It’s a much more usable zoom level. Even 5x I would rarely ever use.
Once 16pro hit 5x then it beat the 15pro.
The cropping factor to go from 1x to 5x was just too much quality loss for a 16pro using the main lens.
I still have the 15pro and I much prefer 3x. It’s a much more usable zoom level. Even 5x I would rarely ever use.
The Galaxy S25 series offers varying levels of optical zoom depending on the model. The standard Galaxy S25 and S25+ feature a 3x optical zoom with a dedicated telephoto lens. The flagship Galaxy S25 Ultra includes both a 3x optical zoom telephoto lens and a separate 5x optical zoom periscope telephoto lens for greater magnification.
The ultra has 2 opticals. 3x and 5x
okay, cause i remember reading that the S23/S24 ultra had 10x optical zoom. I'm 99% sure this means they are claiming the same fake zoom apple was. so I guess today will not be the day I consider switching to android. (i was close)
No, likely neither the 48 MP ultrawide nor the 48 MP telephoto on the 17 Pro will be anywhere near as good as the 16 Plus’ 48 MP main camera.
Thanks! Do you think it’ll be a serviceable Ultra Wide? Like I said, this might be a personal opinion, but I think that the detail loss on the 16 Plus’ Ultra Wide is too much.
There is no cellphone camera that has a true 200mm lens. What marketers mean when they say “200mm” is that it captures an image comparable to what a full-frame 35mm SLR would capture with a 200mm lens.
Yes, of course. Short lens, tiny sensor. The "200mm" is just equivalent FOV of a true 200mm lens on a full frame sensor.
All I was saying is the fact they listed 12MP for the "200mm" lens vs 48MP for the "100mm" lens on the slide during the keynote immediately let us know it was not an optical change but a digital change to go from 100mm FOV to 200mm FOV.
Well, then, you should be mad all the time, because nearly all cameras work that way.
Take any full-frame SLR or DSLR. Look at the lens. You’ll see that it has a circular cross-section. So, it produces a circular image. But the sensor or film-frame is rectangular. So, the part of the image that falls outside the boundaries of the rectangle is cropped.
And many of the lower- to mid-range DSLRs use smaller sensors that crop even more.
So, I guess no lens is “optical-quality” by your definition. Canon, Nikon, Sony, even the Hubble Space Telescope — they’re all “lying.” Worse, every professional photographer is a party to that lie!
Sounds like it:
iPhone 17 Pro: 48MP, IMX803, 1/1.28" (?)
iPhone 16 Pro: 48MP, IMX803, 1/1.28"
iPhone 15 Pro: 48MP, IMX803, 1/1.28"
iPhone 14 Pro: 48MP, IMX803, 1/1.28"
iPhone 13 Pro: 12MP, IMX703, 1/1.63"
iPhone 12 Pro: 12MP, IMX603, 1/1.78"
iPhone 11 Pro: 12MP, IMX503, 1/2.55"
The good news is the iPhone Pro 14-16 main camera is pretty decent IMHO. It will be a nice improvement over my 12 Pro Max's main camera.
My wife should get a nice upgrade in 2 years when she upgrades from her 14 Pro Max though. New Samsung sensor?
Yeah, I believe the old 16 Pro Max sensor was 1/3.06" with 1.12 um pixels.
The 17 Pro Max's new telephoto was specifically what I was waiting for, along with the bump in RAM to 12 GB. Too bad I lose the nano-SIM tray, but I'll get over that.
Both the ultra wide and the telephoto are now 1/2.55". The good news is that in good lighting conditions and with Apple's updated computational photography algorithms, this size of sensor will produce pretty decent images. I bought my kid the iPhone 16e with 1/2.55" sensor, and it's actually quite reasonable, with no major complaints for daytime shots. Even the 2X cropped zoom shots are not bad, as long as the lighting is good. To put it another way, the old iPhone XR also had a 1/2.55" sensor, but the images coming out of the iPhone 16e are noticeably better than the XR's.
iPhone 16e camera review: The Essentials
Our deep dive into the latest single-camera star in the iPhone lineup.
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It will probably put out 24 mpx jpeg from native focal length, as 0.5x, 1x & 4x. But it will be a good surprise if they manage it by computation with all 8 so-called different lenses, which are Macro, 13mm UWA, 24mm wide, 28mm wide, 35mm medium-wide, 48mm normal, 100mm portrait telephoto & 200mm ultra-tele...
We don't know yet, if any Halide-like, 48 mpx proRaw processing opportunity is available with new 17 Pro.
We don't know yet, if any Halide-like, 48 mpx proRaw processing opportunity is available with new 17 Pro.
iPhone 17 Pro won't compete with the ultimate reach of some recent Android flagships, like of 200mpx 4.3x Xiaomi 15 Ultra, 200mpx 3.7x Vivo X200, 50mpx 6x Oppo X8 Ultra, 50mpx 5x Samsung S25 Ultra, 12.5 mpx 9.4x Huawei Pura 80 Ultra or else...
While still coming close in this regard now, main point of Apple is image quality & consistency. I'd prefer some trade off in magnification for precise colour gamut and true texture, which Androids usually fail.
Even with best Android phones, jpeg colour science is never on par with an iPhone. They can't give nice lifelike sky hues, but ugly magenta included blue, hard to correct later. Texture is another issue, most Androids have fake & over-sharpened details, ok with display but ugly to watch on large prints. And ProRaw is easier to manage on Photoshop ACR or Lightroom. As a result, iPhone usually has better overall IQ, somewhat close to dSLR feel.
While still coming close in this regard now, main point of Apple is image quality & consistency. I'd prefer some trade off in magnification for precise colour gamut and true texture, which Androids usually fail.
Even with best Android phones, jpeg colour science is never on par with an iPhone. They can't give nice lifelike sky hues, but ugly magenta included blue, hard to correct later. Texture is another issue, most Androids have fake & over-sharpened details, ok with display but ugly to watch on large prints. And ProRaw is easier to manage on Photoshop ACR or Lightroom. As a result, iPhone usually has better overall IQ, somewhat close to dSLR feel.
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I think the point is, let’s say you buy a Sony APS-C body and use a 50mm full frame prime lens. Sure you’re effectively taking a crop out of the middle of the lens optics when taking a photo, and end up with a 70mm full frame equivalent field of view.
I would still refer to this as “optical quality” as you’re filling the entire sensor with your image. Optical zooming has traditionally meant zoom lenses where the lens elements move, changing the path of light/field of view while still filling the image sensor with light. Digital zooming has traditionally meant taking a crop out of the image hitting your sensor.
Sony isn’t marketing that prime lens as a 70mm AND 140mm prime (or 50/100mm on full frame). It’s a prime lens where the lens elements don’t move, and it produces one field of view (which will change depending on sensor size).
This is exactly what the cameras in the iPhone are - prime lenses with optics that don’t move. By traditional definitions of optical and digital zooms, anything other than 0.5x, 1x and 4x are digital zooms. The rest is all marketing