The new iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro are hardly distinguishable from their predecessors. Nevertheless, significant strides have been made in the field of camera. In this article you can read more about the iPhone 13 cameras.
In this article we explain what the iPhone 13 cameras have to offer. The sample photos in this article were taken with both the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro Max. With the exception of the photos of the iPhones themselves, of course.
Perhaps we expected a bit more from the iPhone 13 series. Compared to the iPhone 12 series, hardly anything has changed. Although the longer battery life is certainly welcome. On paper, the camera doesn’t seem that exciting either, until you use it in practice. Apple is once again raising the bar for competitors like Samsung and Google to keep up. Not with gimmicks, such as the movie mode with automatic camera focus when making videos, but simply when it comes to good quality photos and videos. Regardless of the lighting conditions.
The iPhone 13 series consists of the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 Mini, both of which have the same dualcam. The iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max also have the same cameras: three on the back, supplemented by a depth sensor. That is different from the Pro models from the iPhone 12 series. They were different, which was unnecessarily confusing.
Specs
What is new is that the lenses are equipped with image stabilization, which allows the camera to move in the housing. In the video area, you have the option to record in HDR 10 and with Dolby Atmos sound. You can record at up to 60 fps, also in 4K resolution.
The Pro versions also have a fourth lens, which can estimate the depth. In practice you don’t notice it very much. This lens is especially useful for AR apps.
Megapixel race
There is currently a megapixel race going on in the smartphone field. There are currently even smartphones on the market with 108 megapixel cameras. However, the number of megapixels says nothing about the quality of how the lens captures the image. Only the resolution of the captured image. Many of the smartphones with that many megapixels use techniques in which the resolution is, as it were, divided by four, in order to prevent the storage memory of the smartphone from filling up unnecessarily. A 12 megapixel lens still provides photos in 4,000 by 3,000, so it was sharp.
It is other specifications that count. Such as the lens opening (aperture), which determines how much light can be collected, and the pixel size, which determines how much detail is placed with each pixel.
However, the biggest difference is made in the computing power of the smartphone. Especially the difference compared to ordinary compact cameras. Although these have much more space for, for example, larger lenses and zoom lenses, these cameras are increasingly cornered on the market. These ‘old-fashioned’ cameras make a one-time image recording. Your smartphone has already started recording before you press the shutter button. To recognize what you are capturing and to put the right focus on it, the environment, the amount of light, and so on. In addition, many photos are merged, so that, for example, with different light values ​​you can capture both dark and illuminated parts as detailed as possible without black spots or overexposure. This is also known as dynamic range. With ordinary cameras, post-processing is often added to the RAW files to make sure both light and dark areas come into their own. With the iPhone 13 this happens automatically, now that’s not surprising, but the algorithms that determine this make the end result better than ever.
iPhone 13 camera in practice
This can be seen, for example, in the following photos: there is a lot of difference in light in the restaurant. In many cases, the window would be overexposed because the sunlight is brighter than the artificial light. In the sunset photo, the color details of both the grass and path have remained intact – and the orange colors of the sun against which it is photographed. Finally, the third photo shows many details of the building in a dim outdoor environment, while the bright artificial light inside does not result in overexposed windows. In fact, the interior and the people are recognizable.
Still, there are certainly challenges that the iPhone 13 camera can handle less well. When you shoot against the sun, orbs and overexposed rays regularly pass by.
When you are outside and have enough light, the iPhone 13 camera always manages to capture good photos with lots of color and detail. Even when you turn on portrait mode. You can use this function to capture people, but other objects are also highlighted with this mode as the subject on a blurred foreground or background.
Even inside, a lot of detail remains available and shadows are not black areas.
Different lenses
Whenever possible, it is always best to use the primary camera. It is always capable of capturing better photos. Only when the composition does not allow otherwise, the wide-angle lenses and zoom lens of the iPhone 13 Pro come in handy. Although you only see a difference with the primary camera of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro when there is little light available, which you can read more about later, the differences between the two wide-angle lenses are somewhat greater. The wide-angle lens of the iPhone 13 Pro works a lot better in difficult lighting conditions, and therefore does not evade the regular camera of the device so much. It is better not to use the wide-angle lens of the iPhone 13 when it is a bit darker.
The three zoom levels of the iPhone 13 Pro.
The iPhone 13 Pro’s zoom doesn’t handle difficult lighting conditions very well either. As a result, the differences between the regular camera and additional cameras are greater than with the iPhone 12. Not because the zoom and wide-angle cameras are so bad, but because the regular ones are so good.
However, the zoom lens is a valuable addition. The quality of the photos is still excellent: when you have enough light available, the colors and the detail are very good. The camera also automatically recognizes close-ups, which kick in the macro photo mode. You recognize this, because the image suddenly jumps and the foreground and background blur, just like with a portrait photo. After taking the photo you notice that even more emphasis has been placed on the smallest details. It is equally annoying that macro photography switches on and off automatically, you would prefer to activate this yourself.
Can the lights be turned off?
However, when it is dark, the regular camera rises above the other smartphone cameras. Only Huawei had developed a technology that produces comparable results. What is clever is that a lot of detail and even color is captured and that noise hardly occurs. When you open the camera and notice that there is little light available, it automatically switches to night mode. It uses a shutter speed of a few seconds and image stabilization to get the sharpest possible photo, without the need for a tripod. When you take a photo of movement, however, you notice that there is a lot of motion blur due to the slow shutter speed. In that case, it might be better to switch off the night mode.
The night mode does struggle with light, however, as in the two examples below, where in one photo the background is lit by streetlights, leaving the boat in the foreground a dark area. In the other photo, the foreground is illuminated by street lighting, so that nothing can be captured of the meadow behind the fence. It is also noticeable that the trees in the photos have moved.
When you use the night mode with one of the other lenses, you quickly notice more noise and details disappear. As can be seen in the photo of the black cat, its fur looks like plastic because all the details have been lost. Motion blur is noticeable, but also that color can still be seen despite the darkness.
How good the regular camera is, is especially noticeable in the night mode. The photos below, taken with the wide-angle (left) and regular camera of the iPhone 13, show that color and detail are captured much better.
Which iPhone camera is right for you?
The cameras of the iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 Pro are impressive. The latter in particular offers the best camera that you will find in a smartphone at the moment. That said, the differences with the iPhone 13 camera aren’t big enough to justify the huge price difference. If you have an iPhone 12 (Pro) or a Samsung Galaxy S21, then the differences in terms of phone and camera are already too small to justify the purchase of an iPhone 13 (Pro).
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