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The photographer Austin Mann has today published his in-depth annual review of the latest iPhone's camera capabilities, this time focusing on the iPhone 13 Pro. Mann's tests were performed in Ruaha National Park, Tanzania, looking at each of the iPhone 13 Pro's camera upgrades, including Macro mode, increased telephoto zoom and Cinematic mode.


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ProRAW image shot with the iPhone 13 Pro's Telephoto camera and edited in Lightroom CC.


Mann said that macro mode, which uses the Ultra Wide lens and allows users to take photos around 2cm away from a subject, is "perhaps the strongest advancement in this year's camera system" and fulfills a clear need for many photographers. Images in Macro mode are still able to be fairly sharp in low-light and amid camera shake. Macro effectively functions "as a fourth lens" and is "not just an iterative increase."


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ProRAW image shot with the iPhone 13 Pro's Ultra Wide camera in macro and edited in Lightroom CC.


The new 13mm Ultra Wide lens with f/1.8 aperture is said to offer sharper low-light images with faster shutter speeds. While the Ultra Wide still has some lens distortion, according to Mann, the overall sharpness is "drastically improved."


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ProRAW image shot with the iPhone 13 Pro's Ultra Wide camera and edited in Lightroom CC.


The new 77mm Telephoto camera offers a 33 percent increase in size over the same lens on the iPhone 12 Pro, but it is also boosted with a substantially larger sensor. Mann praised the results of these improvements, saying "everything I shoot with the Telephoto feels naturally cinematic and has a different feel than imagery captured by previous models" and "my eye isn't accustomed to seeing this kind of depth compression from my iPhone."


iphone-13-pro-austin-mann-telephoto.jpg


ProRAW image shot with the iPhone 13 Pro's Telephoto camera and edited in Lightroom CC.


Mann also experimented with the new Photographic Styles feature, which allows photographers to finely tune a distinctive look for all of their photos without sacrificing the sense of depth. He commented that Photographic Styles are intentionally "very subtle" and feature "a lot more depth instead of the flat nature of a preset." While Mann noted that photographers are likely to shoot in ProRAW for clients, Photographic Styles "will be perfect" for times "when I just want great looking images right now versus maximum processing control later."


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Image shot with Photographic Styles on the iPhone 13 Pro.


He added that features like Photographic Styles and Smart HDR 4 are among the more nuanced upgrades this year, saying that they "will impact every single photo you take, but not at the same transformative level."

Mann shot a range of video clips in Cinematic mode and was impressed by the iPhone's new computational videography capabilities. He noted that it was particularly impressive that you can change focus at the perfect frame later on in the editing process.

See Mann's full report for many more images and additional information about the technical capabilities of the ‌iPhone 13 Pro‌'s improved camera setup.

Article Link: Photographer Austin Mann's iPhone 13 Pro Test Looks at Camera Improvements With Macro, Photographic Styles, New Lenses, and More
Thanks for your detailed review of what’s new and valuable in the new Pro camera hardware and computational photography software. Gives me things to think about when I replace my iPhone 11 Pro.
 
Eh. Good enough for the small screen and influencers and consumers. Still not enough magic in them and too much HDR in my opinion.
 
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I’m quite excited about the 13 Pro, I have to say. I’m coming from a XS so it should be a proper improvement. I was quite impressed with my wife’s 11 Pro when she got that back in the day
 
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Nowadays, except for when shooting under some low light conditions, the biggest roadblock that prevents me from getting great photos from the iPhone is my bad photography skills.
 
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These photos are shockingly good. Even though they no doubt represent the 99th percentile of what is possible with the 13 Pros, and even though we have become accustomed to very good smartphone photography, they are still very exciting to see.
 
A good photographer can make compelling and interesting images with just about any camera, but it’s clear they’ve made improvements, and the ProRAW format looks promising. The color and detail on the macro shot is particularly impressive.
 
It’s very impressive how far mobile cameras have come in the last few years. I bet he missed his proper telephoto lens a few times during his stay though😅
 
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Camera quality is one of the most competitive parts of flagship phones so I am grateful to Apple responding to the solid completion from Samsung and Google. Still waiting for the periscope.
 
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Why? Every single photo I've made for viewing or printing has been edited in Lightroom.
Exactly! For all the years I've had iPhones and taken photos with them I've immediately edited them in one or another photographic software editing program.....it does make a difference! Did the images "need" it? Could I have simply sent them off to friends and family SOOC without editing? Sure, but running them through an image editing program can make just that much of a subtle difference that turns an image from a "oh, how nice...." shot to a "wow!!" shot......
 
Same old, same old…. “This is the best camera ever on an iPhone” Right Tim?

Huge hat-tip to Tim Cook for advancing iPhone camera technology and image quality!

It's been my favorite camera for years now.
 
Exactly! For all the years I've had iPhones and taken photos with them I've immediately edited them in one or another photographic software editing program.....it does make a difference! Did the images "need" it? Could I have simply sent them off to friends and family SOOC without editing? Sure, but running them through an image editing program can make just that much of a subtle difference that turns an image from a "oh, how nice...." shot to a "wow!!" shot......

Absolutely. All photographers who take photography seriously edit their photos. Either digitally or in the darkroom.

Here's a typical set of dodge and burn instructions Richard Avedon (one of my most admired portrait photographers, and passed away in 2004) gave the person printing his photos.

uiN84GtlxOHKj3eWHKbr1538820003.jpg
 
Doing a bit of dodging and burning in a modern software editing program sure feels different than it did when back in the day we were doing it in the darkroom, doesn't it?

It's so easy in LR it's like I'm on autopilot and barely think about it.
 
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These demonstrations are useless. Every year the iPhone demo shots are great, they get greater and greater.

Can it take a decent (better please) indoor lowlight picture of a kid who can't hold still? Like the Pixel can?
 
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