Yes, that is the justification Apple seems to be using.
Typically yes, but I guess it depends upon how you define it.
Yes, but those pixels were much, much larger. Last year's 16 Pro Max 5X sensor was 12 MP but those 12 MP covered the whole 1/3.06" sensor.
While I think there is plenty to critique Apple about or wish it did (like a 1" sensor) would be amazing - I find it odd how people with camera rigs are trying to prove that their camera is better than the the three tiny lenses and sensors on a multipurpose phone/computer. Obviously - your dedicated - quite large camera - is going to be superior in photographic quality. It's a completely different use scenario. Stick to talking about phone cameras please.
I'm looking forward to the reviews, but my guess is that:
The key here is Apple is advertising the camera output as a default of 12 megapixels for 8x zoom. A digital zoom both crops the sensor but then upscales the cropped area to reach the advertised output (losing detail the more it goes). Apple here simply crops the 48mp sensor down to 12mp instead of binning the pixels, but they can get away with calling it an optical zoom because there was no upscaling taking place, each pixel in the 12mp frame is still optically rendered.
? This is not the way it works.
This would be really interesting to see if a brand would try to create such a device today. But you need to achieve a good performance with modern smartphone OS, keep it future proof, you need a reasonable battery and most likely not a top notch camera but the lense still needs to be much bigger than the one back then on these old iPhones. Otherwise most people won’t buy it if you aren’t able to achieve this.
Sure, with the right lens(es) a DSLR or mirror less has way more capabilities, but, I don't carry my DSLR with me at all times whereas I always have my phone with me.
We have a functional iPhone 5. It's basically unusable today, not just because of the performance, but also because everything is optimized for much larger screens. It's clear mobile web designers just assume we don't use such small screens anymore.
Good catch, I had to go back and re-read the specs. But the original point remains, the technical specifications specifically advertise the 8x zoom as 12 megapixels (it also uses the term "Optical-quality"). Apple gets away with this because there is no upscaling.
I'm underwhelmed, too, but Apple's video actually said "optical-quality 8x zoom" but the media outlets I've seen all missed that clear distinction.
Apple, please give us a "camera desert" next!
I thought at 8x it crops to 12MP? But OK, it's fewer MP at 8x, but if there's no binning or upscaling then surely it is an 'optical' zoom (just not that zoom on the full or even default sensor size)? I'm not defending Apple btw, just trying to get my head around all this. Is it like putting a Nikon DX lens on a Nikon FX full-frame body and using the smaller area?
Not screen size, this is a software issue. I had an early model iPhone and it could happily browse full size desktop content. Double tap to zoom to a column of text, it worked like a dream.
While mobile sites are specifically designed with certain mobile screen sizes in mind, those sizes are not necessarily current sizes. They are designed to work with screen sizes many years old, but the problem is the 4" low resolution screen of the iPhone 5 is just far too old and far too small. Remember, the iPhone X is 5.8" yet is already 8 years old, but websites are still fine on it, whereas they aren't fine on the 13 year old iPhone 5 with 4" screen.
These small sensors are known to be of poor quality in low light. The telephoto sensor in the 17 Pro is 56% larger than the one in the 16 Pro Max so there should be a nice improvement, but it will still suck compared against the sensor in the main 1X camera, which is much, much larger again.
Suffice to say we strongly disagree with anyone that says an iPhone Pro "still can't do the job properly." And as regards "use the phone when it is laying on a flat surface without it wobbling from side to side," that has never been anything I even remotely have found to be an issue. YMMV I guess.
Because it is 8x optical, just not simplistic optical as defined on our single-lens Nikons. These superb iPhone cameras with their extensive computational photography and multiple lenses involved are different devices. Some folks just need to whine apparently.
