iPhone 17 Pro Unimpressed with 17 series camera quality

[super chimp]

Thanks for the responses. I suppose my long term dream, and perhaps a foolish one for a phone camera, is to have an iPhone that I could at least try and do some basic Astro-photography with. Not helped by the fact I live in London and obviously suffer from huge amounts of light pollution at night.

 

[juanmaasecas]

Got the 17 pro max.
In the edges and corners, my 13 pro max shows better resolution, which is frustrating.
In the middle the new phone is better but the real detail is not as much as I thought...
Comparing pro raw pictures in both. Of course the new 17 has very soft processing but still...

Corner crop pro raw. Iphone 17 pro max at 100% on the left, iphone 13 pro max at 200% on the right

Mid frame crop. Same as above.

I guess the bigger sensor and the wider lens makes it more prone to edge and corner softness. Also 48 quad bayer mpx are not that real resolution after all...

I would like to test another sample but I have seen similar soft corners in other samples online.

 

[ToddH]

Got the 17 pro max.
In the edges and corners, my 13 pro max shows better resolution, which is frustrating.
In the middle the new phone is better but the real detail is not as much as I thought...
Comparing pro raw pictures in both. Of course the new 17 has very soft processing but still...

I agree. That's frustrating because the 13 pro max probably had better optics, f/1.6 VS f/1.8 on the 17 pro. I was very disappointed that apple didn't upgrade the wide and ultra wide camera optics, So I did an upgrade. it almost seems that all of the cell phone manufacturers these days are sticking with the same cameras for at least 3 years minimum.. I still have a 16 Pro Max, and if I upgraded to the 17 pro Max, I would basically be getting the same cameras, except for the telephoto, in a different body. The 17 pro Max is 80% of the 16 Pro Max, so why bother? For this reason, i will keep my 16 Pro Max, but currently I'm using the Samsung Galaxy S25 ultra, which has far superior cameras.

however, I think your resolution issue with the corners on the 17 pro max camera usually is visible when you're shooting something up close, like a document or a page with words on it. Coma is visible in the corners. Apple has yet to correct the reflective flare seen within the camera optics when shooting video at night with bright lights, the reflective lights can be seen floating around in the image which is annoying. Thankfully, the S25 ultra doesn't have that. Anyway, I hope your experience with the new phone improves. It's still a good phone.

 

[miemo]

Got the 17 pro max.
In the edges and corners, my 13 pro max shows better resolution, which is frustrating.
In the middle the new phone is better but the real detail is not as much as I thought...
Comparing pro raw pictures in both. Of course the new 17 has very soft processing but still...

Your samples look very similar to what I’ve seen comparing my old 14 Pro to 17 Pro - a comparison which I’ve shared quite extensively here. Especially your rooftop photo is a very good example of the issue: it really cannot be explained away by the scaled down sharpening on the 17 Pro, there’s just an overall layer of haziness over the image on the 17 Pro corners. Very annoying to see worse results on a device that’s multiple generations newer.