I am somewhat in this camp. Big time iOS user especially with 5 in my family and all of us on iOS. I also take a lot of photos and videos of the kids. The camera improvements over the years have been nice but I have an 11 Pro Max and I'm really questioning whether I will be getting the 12. I'd love some help with the major differences between the 11 Pro Max cameras and the 12 Pro Max. Not all the technical stuff (because I'd just be lost) . . . for example - how much better would the pictures be if I'm taking a shot of my son at his baseball game? Or I'm filing my kids running around with our dog in the back yard? Right now, I think the 11 PM takes pretty damn good pics and 4k video. I do think better zoom would be great, but how much better is it really? Anytime I zoom it just comes out grainy.
Cell phone cameras now take great pictures outdoors in good lighting. Probably the equivalent to low end SLRs. The limitations of cell phones now are low-light photography and photos outside of the standard focal lengths (telephoto and wide angle lenses).
The improvements on the Pro Cameras assist with these limitations.
1) Larger Sensor. All of the phones have larger sensors (basically the “film” of a digital camera that captures the image). A bigger sensor means more light can be captured, which means more detail in your pictures. This is much more pronounced in low light than in bright sunlight because in sunlight, there is already an excess of light hitting the sensor. The 12 Pro Max has a sensor that is I think 50 percent bigger still making it even better in this regard. I think this is the biggest improvement for the Pro Max and the biggest thing that sets it apart from its predecessor and from the other iPhone 12s.
2) image stabilization- another issue with photography in low light is camera shake. To get enough light to form an image the shutter has to stay open longer which means you have to hold steadier to avoid blur showing up in your pics. If it get long enough, there is no way the human hand can be steady enough to avoid blurry pics. The cameras all have optical (in lens) image stabilization. The 12 Pro Max has new additional software stabilization that accounts for movement, which allows handholding for twice as long an exposure time. Again, this will result in more light hitting the sensor, which means better pics in low light.
3) Zoom- the phones have a wide (standard) ultra wide and telephoto lens. The 12 Pro Max has a slightly longer telephoto lens (2.5x vs 2x optical zoom in the other cameras and in the 11 Pro Max). This theoretically should allow you to zoom in more without using digital zoom, which is when blurriness comes in because it’s software estimating the image instead of the lens actually seeing it. I won’t be able to tell the real word difference without seeing pictures, but numbers make me estimate you could make your pictures seem 20(?) percent closer before getting into blurry digital zoom.
4) Lenses- all the cameras now have a standard lens that has a bigger aperture. This means 1) yes, more light hitting sensor, so better low light pictures, and more ability for the blurry background that makes portraits look good. That being said, this lens was already pretty good, so I’m not sure how much practical improvement you’ll get.
5) LiDAR- this one is only on the Pro cameras. One of the tricky parts of low light photography is getting a autofocus. Especially if your target isn’t still (hello kids and pets). This is because the autofocus has a hard time locking on if there isn’t enough light. It’s harder to differentiate the subject from the background the darker it gets. LiDAR for photography uses lasers to help get the lock. Apple claims this allows autofocus to be 4 times faster. So for instance half a second vs 2 seconds. A second really makes the difference between getting and missing the shot, especially if it’s moving. LiDAR also will allow night mode to be used in the portrait setting.
I think those are the major things that are changing for the cameras that most people will care about. I’ll be interested to see pics comparing the 12 to the 11. I thought the 11 was a big leap in camera tech. I’m not sure if it will be worth it to go to the 12 for the camera stuff, but I do think that the 12 Pro Max brings enough improvements that I’ll give it a look.
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