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I really hope Apple sticks to the 120mm aka 5x zoom for the telephoto. I love the compression it gives (and it’s still just usable for portrait photos) and a higher res (48mp binned to 24mp) 5x would be amazing

Don’t like the rumors of a extreme telephoto of 300mm or more
 
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Having a telephoto lens with a 48MP sensor makes a lot of sense to me, because that gives you more zoom/crop room. It turns the 3x lens into an optical 6x, and the 5x tetraprism lens into a 10x optical (using the center 12MP just like the main lens' 2x zoom now), while still leaving the higher quality 3x/5x in place. Fantastic. Bring it on.

The one nugget I don’t get here is how this “will be optimized for the Vision Pro”? I don't get the connection.

The earlier rumor that the ultra wide lens will be bumped up to 48MP makes sense as being specifically for the Vision Pro. Spacial Video recording uses the main lens and the ultra wide, cropped in. So right now, half of the stereo video is a bit reduced quality (how noticeable is debatable, but more quality is always welcome). I'm guessing that's what is keeping Spacial Video from being recorded at 4K now. One of the 2 cameras just doesn't have the resolution when it's cropped in to match the focal length of the other. This should resolve that.
 
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I'm getting tired of all these "camera upgrades" Apple keeps doing. IMO my last two iPhones I've owned have gotten worse in the camera department, not better.

My iPhone 12 Pro Max always had unacceptable lens flare that made me never use the camera for pictures I actually wanted.

My iPhone 15 Pro Max makes me curse every time I use the camera. It hates to focus on stuff a foot in front of the camera. I use it often to record my odometer and it takes several seconds to focus, and even though its bright enough to read the white text against the black background, it often decides its going to take 3 seconds of images to stack them.

I just want to freaking point and click most of the time, get rid of all this bloated camera app garbage. Taking a quick picture of a phone number on a sign i want to call while driving past shouldn't require me to stop and stabilize my phone for 3 seconds.

I swore after the 12 Pro Max I was never going to buy another high-end iPhone for the camera. The only reason I have my 15 Pro Max was the trade-in value and promotions the carrier offered (and the hope of getting rid of all my lens flares)...
 
I really hope Apple sticks to the 120mm aka 5x zoom for the telephoto. I love the compression it gives (and it’s still just usable for portrait photos) and a higher res (48mp binned to 24mp) 5x would be amazing

Don’t like the rumors of a extreme telephoto of 300mm or more

120 is already too long and virtually useless. It doesn’t make good images. The best camera on the iPhone is the superwide.
 
can we get a thicc model that doesn't have camera bump and larger battery capacity?
Honestly, I really don’t notice the camera bump on the 15 Pro nearly as much as I thought I would. I don’t think you’d really get that much more battery with a case flush with the camera bump. You’d probably have to make the whole phone thicker.
 
17 is shaping up to be good upgrades if everything pans out.

48 megapixel telephoto lens
Wi-Fi 7 by Apple
2nm chip

I’m waiting for this one
yeah, sounds good. i'd just like to see that sensor in the regular pro as well... and: 4th sensor + lens is what i'm missing as well. 3x is a really good one to have, i think.
 
They’re talking about two different things. They’re linking megapixels to focal length to show that the telephoto isn’t cropped.
Meh, no excuse. Editors should have exercised options for better structure and usage, even if an article-bot did claw it off a foreign blog. Casts a pall of illiteracy and laziness. Like misusing the words "Abbreviation" and "Acronym", and "Premise" (foundation for a rhetorical point) and "Premises" (a dwelling, lodging or bounded location, such as for IT infrastructure). If I hear servers described one more gall dern time as "On-Premise", why, I'm gonna... Reply "Yes ma'am, Ms. CIO, right away, ma'am." And collect my pay. And then grouse about it off topic in an unsuspecting forum! That's what!
 
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Why is Apple chasing megapixels? It makes no sense in 2023. 48 megapixels is drastic overkill in a sensor that small. That much resolution barely makes sense in mirrorless and full frame sensors where ~25-35 is more than enough. Packing that many sensor sites into a tiny chip leads to reduced sharpness and increased issues like chromatic aberration. And more notably it creates ENORMOUS files that most casual photographers won’t have the storage space to deal with if they shoot a lot.

Same goes for the length of the telephoto. Why?? iPhone doesn’t need a long tele. 75mm+ lens makes no sense on a phone. Phones are too small to support reasonably good optics for telephoto lenses. They’re too small to pack all the required glass in.

The bottom line here is that “48 megapixel telephoto lens” is PURE marketing nonsense intended to give Apple specs to crow about and nothing more. These “features” offer no significant additional functionality to users and actually represent a potential detriment to many.
48 megapixels is pixel binned to 12 MP to provide comparable quality, but in ideal lighting situations where tighter pixel pitches perform adequately it can provide some in-between digital zooming options with a negligible loss of quality (again that's primarily under ideal lighting conditions).

I fully agree for many use cases it's a bit overkill to be shooting 48 MP ProRAW shots as you'll never get DSLR/MILC quality shots from a sensor that small, but it does open up more options for zooming and cropping which fit fine with a smartphone's intended role as a point-and-shoot camera replacement.
 
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I know Apple needs a reason for people to buy the iphone 17 Pro in the future, but I wish they’d just give the 16 Pro 48 megapixels across all their sensors/lenses. Why is the ultra wide lens always the last to get the love. 😂 I’d argue that the ultra wide needs the most mega pixel sensor. If anything, i wish the sensors themselves would get bigger!
 
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It'll be a 12MP sensor with a quad-bayer mask to bring it up to 48MP. It's better than just 12MP, but don't expect true 48MP quality out of it, especially at that size of a sensor. It's going to require a lot of software processing internally to turn that into a decent image - kinda like what the iPhone does now, but even more so.
 
Why is Apple chasing megapixels? It makes no sense in 2023. 48 megapixels is drastic overkill in a sensor that small. That much resolution barely makes sense in mirrorless and full frame sensors where ~25-35 is more than enough. Packing that many sensor sites into a tiny chip leads to reduced sharpness and increased issues like chromatic aberration. And more notably it creates ENORMOUS files that most casual photographers won’t have the storage space to deal with if they shoot a lot.

Same goes for the length of the telephoto. Why?? iPhone doesn’t need a long tele. 75mm+ lens makes no sense on a phone. Phones are too small to support reasonably good optics for telephoto lenses. They’re too small to pack all the required glass in.

The bottom line here is that “48 megapixel telephoto lens” is PURE marketing nonsense intended to give Apple specs to crow about and nothing more. These “features” offer no significant additional functionality to users and actually represent a potential detriment to many.

Agree with your first paragraph, second I disagree with in the strongest terms.

The 5x 120mm lens in the 15 pro max is so good, some of my favorite landscape photos were taken with a telephoto lens upwards of 300mm. A boring sunset scene can become magical at 600mm’s. I took some pictures at 25x of a sunset over the beach in October with some people and a lifeguard tower in the foreground, results were pretty good considering they are from a phone cropped way in. With more resolution, and at least 300mm’s the results should be pretty incredible. Throw in a larger sensor with better dynamic range and omg. With apples improved software I can see in a few years where we have all these hardware features along with software that can take 25-30 pictures and stitch them all together instantly for better image quality. There’s also a lot of room for improvement on the sensors, no matter how small they are.

There’s also a lot you can do with the depth of field on the 5x lens, action mode videos look insane, 5x portraits are ridiculous. I can’t even imagine how good these things will be in 3-5 years with bigger and better sensors, more mp’s, and more advanced processing.
 
I do not care about the 17 pro max camera upgrades. i would like iphone 16 pro max with a larger and brighter display, and a design overhaul.
 
Agree with your first paragraph, second I disagree with in the strongest terms.

The 5x 120mm lens in the 15 pro max is so good, some of my favorite landscape photos were taken with a telephoto lens upwards of 300mm. A boring sunset scene can become magical at 600mm’s. I took some pictures at 25x of a sunset over the beach in October with some people and a lifeguard tower in the foreground, results were pretty good considering they are from a phone cropped way in. With more resolution, and at least 300mm’s the results should be pretty incredible. Throw in a larger sensor with better dynamic range and omg. With apples improved software I can see in a few years where we have all these hardware features along with software that can take 25-30 pictures and stitch them all together instantly for better image quality. There’s also a lot of room for improvement on the sensors, no matter how small they are.

There’s also a lot you can do with the depth of field on the 5x lens, action mode videos look insane, 5x portraits are ridiculous. I can’t even imagine how good these things will be in 3-5 years with bigger and better sensors, more mp’s, and more advanced processing.

I disagree. The current Pro Max long telephoto produces grainy, detail lacking images that are barely useable in my opinion.
 
Looks like there will be significant camera improvements every year. 48 megapixel telephoto lens may allow for more zoom
 
so based on his reports we will get 48mp for all 3 lenses by 2025.

other reports have said we will get upgraded telephoto for the pro max next year. will see
 
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