Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Camera Comparison: 2020 iPhone SE vs. iPhone 8 and iPhone 11 Pro

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
67,957
38,668


Apple last week launched its new 2020 iPhone SE, a low-cost $399 smartphone that features iPhone 8 components upgraded with the same A13 chip available in Apple's flagship iPhones. We did a full hands-on video back on Friday, but we took the weekend to see how the iPhone SE's camera measures up to the iPhone 8 and iPhone 11 Pro.



Based on an iFixit teardown that looked at the base camera hardware, the iPhone SE is using the same camera sensor as the iPhone 8, a 12-megapixel lens that features an f/1.8 aperture and a 28mm focal length, narrower than the 26mm focal length of the 12-megapixel wide-angle in Apple's flagships.

iphoneseback.jpg

Though equipped with iPhone 8 hardware, the iPhone SE has more advanced photographic capabilities that are enabled by the powerful A13 Bionic chip inside, such as Portrait Mode and Smart HDR, so for the most part, the iPhone SE's camera quality is superior to the iPhone 8 but inferior to the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro.

iphonesestandard1.jpg

When it comes to photos with good lighting (aka, bright lighting indoors or out), all three iPhones put out similar, decent images because there's not a lot of work needed behind the scenes for improvement. The iPhone 8 and the iPhone SE photos are a little bit warmer than the cooler iPhone 11 Pro images, and you can see that what's coming out of the iPhone 11 Pro is a bit crisper, which is no surprise.

iphonesestandard2.jpg

The iPhone 8 struggles with highlights being blown out or overexposed in some situations, and that's where you can see the Smart HDR in the iPhone SE shine. While the iPhone SE was fine in bright lighting, it definitely struggled in low lighting conditions compared to the iPhone 11 Pro.

iphonesestandard3.jpg

Both the SE and the iPhone 8 had a hard time with low lighting situations, but the iPhone SE's images came out a bit better because of the A13 chip. The iPhone 11 Pro has Night Mode, a feature not available on the iPhone 8 or the iPhone SE, so it of course vastly outperformed the iPhone SE in photos with poor lighting.

iphoneselowlight.jpg

The iPhone SE features Portrait Mode much like Apple's higher-end iPhones, but it's the first of Apple's iPhones to entirely rely on software to generate Portrait Mode images and Portrait Lighting features. Since the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro have two and three cameras, respectively, their hardware-based Portrait Mode images come out better, but the iPhone SE does a respectable job.

iphoneseportrait.jpg

Portrait Mode in the iPhone SE is limited to people because the neural network that powers the feature needs to detect a person to blur out the rest of the image. It's not going to work with pets, food, or other objects like it does on the iPhone 11 Pro.

Because the iPhone SE's Portrait Mode is using 2D images to create a depth map, there's a unique iPhone SE feature - you can take a Portrait Mode photo of a photograph that already exists. It doesn't work great all the time, but it's an interesting way to jazz up some older photographs and add background blurring.

Like the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, the iPhone SE supports 4K video at 60fps, which is an impressive feature for a $399 smartphone. A video comparison between the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone SE showed little difference in quality. Both looked great and the optical image stabilization worked well. In comparing 4K video between the iPhone SE and the iPhone 8, the image quality was similar, but stabilization on the iPhone SE seemed to be better and the audio quality is superior.

The iPhone SE has a plain 7-megapixel front-facing camera that also supports a software-based Portrait Mode, which is not available on the iPhone 8. The front-facing camera is fine, nothing spectacular, but it works well enough for FaceTime and selfies and was comparable to the front-facing cameras of the iPhone 8. The iPhone SE doesn't support the wider angles available with the front-facing camera on the 11 Pro, and the 11 Pro selfies looked a bit better.

iphoneseselfie.jpg

For videos with the front-facing camera, both the iPhone 8 and the iPhone SE had a hard time with bright lights, overexposing the video the entire time. The iPhone 11 Pro did a much better job.

It's worth noting that the iPhone SE also supports QuickTake for both the front and rear-facing cameras. QuickTake lets you hold down the camera button when in picture taking mode to quickly capture a video without the need to swap over to video mode.

All in all, the iPhone SE's camera does produce pictures fairly similar to the pictures produced by the iPhone 8, but the A13 chip is doing a lot in the background to make those photographs look better. The iPhone SE also isn't too far off from the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro when it comes to images taken in bright lighting, but that's where the similarities end.

iphonesestandard5.jpg

It's a single-lens camera rather than a dual or triple-lens camera so it doesn't have the versatility enabled by additional lenses, there's no optical zoom, software-based Portrait Mode is not as good as hardware-based portrait mode, and there is no Night Mode to use for low light images.

iphonesestandard4.jpg

The iPhone SE is a passable camera of course that's going to take great every day shots, but those seriously interested in better iPhone photography should take a look at the iPhone 11 over the iPhone SE.

iphonesemacrumorsforums.jpg
Image from MacRumors reader oVerboost​

If you want to see more great photos taken with the iPhone SE to see just what it's capable of, make sure to check out the MacRumors forums where new iPhone SE owners are sharing their pictures.

Article Link: Camera Comparison: 2020 iPhone SE vs. iPhone 8 and iPhone 11 Pro
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/28/iphone-se-camera-comparison/
Last edited:
Had no idea the SE could also do QuickTake for selfies. Interesting that the 11 and 11 Pro can’t do that.

EDIT: Turns out that was a mistake in the article. The 11 models do have QuickTake for the front camera as well.
 
Last edited:
  • Disagree
Reactions: EmotionalSnow and tridley68
The Smart HDR with the A13 on the SE and the portrait mode make its cameras perform better than on the 8. Not a slam-dunk for being worth an upgrade, unless you care about those features. The SE of course has other advantages, though - it's more future proof for software and will probably have 2 years more iOS support than the 8, with the extra GB of RAM and newer processor, plus it has extra LTE bands and better overall LTE performance, newer Wi-Fi, etc. For most people, the SE is much more than adequate to take hi-res photos and movies. If you're really serious about photos, you probably take pictures on a CAMERA.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TMax, oldwatery and JSRinUK
The hair separation on the portrait shot is pretty impressive for the SE.

I would like to see some lower light (e.g. dusk) shots too for comparison. Indoors shots like the watermelon can already be challenging, but a lot of the above are broad daylight shots that even a 6S can handle quite well.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TMax, raybo and X5-452
Very impressive. I've always wondered how Apple's most recent ISP would fare with an older lens

I think this is impressive how the same lens can take better pictures thanks to the ISP

Just goes to show this is the way of the future with smart phones cameras. Only so much you can do with the physical lenses - only so many combinations of size, aperture and focal lengths that can fit in a smart phone camera

Apple and Google have the right idea by focusing on the ISP and less on the hardware side - the hardware is "pretty damn good" already

I'm impressed because in this price range, nothing but the Pixel 3a (and soon to be 4a) comes close.

I have looked and I have not found anything else.


Its not for me, but if I am recommending a phone, it makes the SE (and even the 8 depending on budget!) an attractive recommendation.

The iPhone 8 can be had for 250$ CAD all in used (but mint!) or less than 500 brand new (I have seen 450 for factory sealed models), and for some people that is much more attractive than the 670$ CAD all in of the SE up here, so depending on the budget and user needs, I feel confident in recommending both devices.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Glideslope and sideshowuniqueuser
All three iPhone cameras are excellent for what they are used for. I’ve been scanning family photos from the 1950’s and 1960’s and those Kodak Instamatics and Disc film cameras were AWFUL in comparison. Be very grateful and happy for what Apple gave you!
 
  • Like
Reactions: TMax, .Kevin., Spectrum and 11 others
I did my own research & don't agree with the iFixIt conclusion that the Back image sensor came from the iPhone 8.

More likely an upgraded version of what the iPhone X used for its Back Wide.

The real novelty appears to be with the 7 Mpx Front Camera, NOT with the 12 Mpx Back Camera ... it appears the Internet Blogs & Articles of a day OR two ago may have gone off on a tangent !
 
Edsel said:
All three iPhone cameras are excellent for what they are used for. I’ve been scanning family photos from the 1950’s and 1960’s and those Kodak Instamatics and Disc film cameras were AWFUL in comparison. Be very grateful and happy for what Apple gave you!
Click to expand...

The irony is that those 1950s and 1960s photos will still be around in a hundred years. Most of the digital photos people take will be lost to history.
 
  • Like
Reactions: RogerWilco, TMax, bheathain and 6 others
Boy- side by side all three pictures, it would be virtually impossible to tell which camera took which picture without labels - they all look extremely similar and "better" is highly subjective.

Load a bunch of pics into the camera roll and start perusing through them on a 4.7" iPhone and I bet nobody would be able to consistently guess what camera shot what... unless spending a lot of time zooming in at pixel resolution and carefully taking note of noise patterns.

Shoot a ton of pictures with the SE and peruse through them in the camera roll on the SE and nobody is going to notice anything detracting.

The only thing where the SE camera will clearly fail is darkly lit scenes. No way to compete with Night Mode available on the other cameras
 
  • Like
Reactions: Geyb D B Fernandez, TMax, motulist and 3 others
"The ‌iPhone‌ SE is a passable camera of course that's going to take great every day shots, but those seriously interested in better ‌iPhone‌ photography..." That's quite a sentence! Those seriously interested in photography aren't going to be seriously into iPhone photography. For a phone, all 3 take great pics, but compared to DLSR's or mirrorless ILC cameras, there's no comparison, especially when the light, motion, and/or distance, gets challenging. I'm not saying anything new or non-obvious of course, just commenting on the absurdity of "..seriously interested in ‌iPhone‌ photography..."
 
  • Like
  • Disagree
  • Haha
Reactions: motulist, SBlue1, 0920872 and 6 others
Edsel said:
All three iPhone cameras are excellent for what they are used for. I’ve been scanning family photos from the 1950’s and 1960’s and those Kodak Instamatics and Disc film cameras were AWFUL in comparison. Be very grateful and happy for what Apple gave you!
Click to expand...
Maybe you need a better scanner?
[automerge]1588117533[/automerge]
Is it really so, that you can put portrait-filter to old photos with SE, bu not with other current iphones?
 
It’s a shame there aren’t any 100% crops to show the differences in detail.

I’m on a well calibrated screen at the moment, and those SE photos definitely have the best looking color. I’m glad Apple didn’t go with the cooler blueish cast of the iPhone 11 Pro.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TMax, NO1EYENO, SantaFeNM and 2 others
I think it just goes to show that smartphone cameras are all very good and certainly good enough for the 99% who only ever see the photo on their phone or on some social media platform in a compressed format (and likely only once)

I would hazard a guess that if the photos were unlabelled no one would be the wiser to (or particularly bothered) which phone they came from. It is only at the extremes, e.g. night shots etc. where there is any discernible difference and then I have never understood the desire to make them look like day time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: TMax, Spectrum, motulist and 2 others
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back