Other Question on rumored 17 Pro zoom (vs 16 Pro)

[jntdroid]

I realize this is speculative as we don't know for sure. But let's assume the 3.5x optical zoom (alongside 48mp) is true. To a camera layman, would that be better or worse than the straight 5x on the 16 Pro at 12mp? I'm not one to try to frame photos artistically, I just like the pragamtic nature of being able to zoom in 5x, mainly for numerous kids' activites where they're anywhere from 20 to 50 yards away.

Obviously if the 8x rumor ends up being true, this question goes out the window. But I was just curious. TIA.

 

[Moreplease]

I realize this is speculative as we don't know for sure. But let's assume the 3.5x optical zoom (alongside 48mp) is true. To a camera layman, would that be better or worse than the straight 5x on the 16 Pro at 12mp?

Short answer: similar, assuming the new phone gets a moderately bigger sensor (which seems likely to me).

Longer answer:

It’s not trivial to compare, because sensor size matters more than pixel count, and we don’t yet know what’s going on with the sensor size. The new camera bar may by a response to using a larger tele sensor (requiring a larger tetraprism lens that would no longer fit in the old camera bump).

A larger sensor produces a cleaner (less noisy, more detailed, more croppable) image.

But just taking the 3.5× zoom with 48 megapixels: if you crop the image to 5× equivalent like the 16 Pro, you throw away approximately half the pixels to put you at around 24 megapixels. Clearly that’s still higher than the 16 Pro’s 12 megapixels, but the 48 million pixels are in a different layout (quad-Bayer) than the old phone, which compromises their detail rendition. A 24-megapixel Quad-bayer sensor should still produce slightly more detailed images than a 12-megapixel sensor – if similarly sized. But of course when you crop from 3.5× to 5× you not only throw away half the pixels but half the sensor area (light captured).

So if the new sensor is about twice the area of the old one, and the lens f-numbers are similar, the new tele camera will do better in every way at a digitally cropped 5× than the 16 Pro with its optical 5×. Cleaner, more detailed, more background blur.

If the sensor is only about 50% bigger, image detail would be a wash: sometimes the 16 Pro would win, sometimes the 17 Pro.

If the sensor doesn’t get much larger at all, the old 16 Pro will show more detail in most cases despite a pixel-count advantage to the 17 Pro – the only exception being high-contrast detail in very bright light, e.g. a printed page in sunlight.

My own guess is that Apple will have targeted at least equal 5× (and beyond) performance, to satisfy customers who use the tele for max ‘reach’, e.g. to capture a plane at an airshow, their dog in the garden, or your kids at 20–50 yards. So I see regression as very unlikely.

 

[jntdroid]

Thank you so much, that's exactly the kind of information I was looking for.

I'm actually not as concerned about a regression. I was debating picking up a 16 Pro as I'm not sure I'll be a fan of the form factor on the 17 Pro (again, assuming rumors are true or close). I don't need that level of zoom very often - I just like having the option for it when I do need it, which is why the form factor is also a factor for me. So I was mainly concerned about missing out on significant improvements by grabbing a 16 Pro now instead of the 17 Pro in a couple of months. And it sounds like that will primarily depend on the sensor size for the 17 Pro's zoom lens, which we simply can't know yet.

Thank you!

 

[xxr]

Worse..

As @Moreplease mentions, it’s about the sensor. Even on full frame sensor cameras, 50mp is around the limit before you see a decrease in image quality due to the pixels simply being too small to gather enough light

Apple get around it with copious AI enhancements - otherwise 48mp on such a tiny sensor is nonsense

The fact they have these pseudo optical modes where it’s using even less of the sensor is more of the same problem

To take the best possible iphone photo you want as much light as possible hitting the lens with the largest sensor, using the mode that uses the full sensor

I don’t even bother with the other lenses for anything serious, but if you are using them, plenty of light and use the native focal length, no pseudo-optical-zoom-special-modes

 

[jntdroid]

Some great information in here - any additional thoughts now that we know what we're getting with the 17 Pro/Pro Max camera? Sounds like it's a legit 4x and 8x optical, with Fusion capabilities at the 4x level? So instead of having 1x, 2x, 5x, it's 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x... if I'm reading everything correctly. Still not sure if it's worth upgrading just for that, unless that zoom is a life changing feature for someone. But if that 8x is legit... 🤷‍♂️

 

[arbitrage]

Some great information in here - any additional thoughts now that we know what we're getting with the 17 Pro/Pro Max camera? Sounds like it's a legit 4x and 8x optical, with Fusion capabilities at the 4x level? So instead of having 1x, 2x, 5x, it's 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x... if I'm reading everything correctly. Still not sure if it's worth upgrading just for that, unless that zoom is a life changing feature for someone. But if that 8x is legit... 🤷‍♂️

The 8x is not a true optical zoom. It is a crop into the 48MP sensor resulting in a 12MP image at a full frame 200mm FOV equivalent.
However, the 5x on the previous cameras was only a 12MP sensor to begin with. So looking at it that way it is an improvement at 12MPs going from 5x to 8x. And now you have 4x (100mm equivalent at 48MPs) which is an improvement over the previous 2x at 48MPs off the main camera.
The new 48MP sensor is 56% larger in area than the 12MP sensor but the MPs have gone 4x so probably low light performance when cropped from 48 to 12MPs is going to have worse low light performance than the previous 5x. But AI/computational post processing may make that a moot point for the most part.

 

[kat.hayes]

By "crop" isn't this essentially the same thing as brining an image into photoshop and just cropping a photo to emphasize a specific part of the image? If so, is there some other benefit?

 

[Moreplease]

Some great information in here - any additional thoughts now that we know what we're getting with the 17 Pro/Pro Max camera? Sounds like it's a legit 4x and 8x optical, with Fusion capabilities at the 4x level? So instead of having 1x, 2x, 5x, it's 1x, 2x, 4x, 8x... if I'm reading everything correctly. Still not sure if it's worth upgrading just for that, unless that zoom is a life changing feature for someone. But if that 8x is legit... 🤷‍♂️

The situation is what I suggested might happen in my first post: Apple reduced the ‘zoom’ factor (but to 4× rather than my 3.5× guess), while at the same time increasing the sensor size (by 56% in area, going from a 1/3.2″-type sensor to a 1/2.55″-type sensor).

They also increased the pixel count from 12 to 48 million but now with a Quad Bayer layout, which makes comparison non-trivial. There are the same number of RGB colour cells on the new sensor as the old one, not four times more like you might naively expect – and even if it were four times more, that would only double the linear colour resolution. Regardless, the pixel count is much less important – almost irrelevant – compared to the significant changes in the lens and sensor area.

What this means is very predictable:

• there is less of a gap from the main lens to the tele lens
• the tele at 4× has better image quality than the previous tele at 5× (but of course not as ‘zoomed in’)
• because the sensor has increased in linear dimensions by exactly the same as the lens has decreased in ‘zoom’ – in other words, because the true focal length is the same (or very close) – the new lens projects an image of a distant subject onto the sensor at the same size. Therefore, image quality will be very similar for distant subjects, whether at a simulated 5× to match the old tele, the labelled 8×, 20× or whatever you want. So for taking pictures of distant things you wish were closer, there will be no significant change in image quality.

By "crop" isn't this essentially the same thing as brining an image into photoshop and just cropping a photo to emphasize a specific part of the image? If so, is there some other benefit?

There is the minor benefit of fewer compression artefacts in an image that is cropped in the camera before it is saved, plus whatever AI interpolation Apple is throwing at things now. Otherwise, no, it’s the same thing. But composition is easier when you do the cropping at the moment of taking the photo.