Apple has announced its annual iPhone update, introducing the iPhone 13 range consisting of two new smartphones, the iPhone 13 and 13 Pro, both with two different screen sizes, and updated camera system.
- iPhone 13 Pro – 6.1inch (Pro) or 6.7inch (Pro Max), from $999 / £949
- iPhone 13 – 5.4inch or 6.1inch, from $699 / £679
The iPhone 13 Pro comes with a “Pro camera system” consisting of an ultra-wide angle camera, wide-angle camera, and a telephoto camera, giving the camera a 6x optical zoom range from ultra-wide to telephoto.
Left to right: iPhone 13 Pro Max, 13 Pro, and iPhone 13
The iPhone 13 Pro triple camera system in more detail:
- Ultra-wide, f/1.8 – 12MP camera (2x out), 13mm equivalent
- Wide, f/1.5 – 12MP camera, 26mm equivalent, sensor-shift OIS
- Telephoto, f/2.8 – 12MP camera (3x), 77mm equivalent, OIS
- 12MP f/2.2 selfie camera
- LiDAR scanner
There’s a night mode that includes night mode portraits, “Deep Fusion”, Apple ProRAW, portrait mode with advanced bokeh and depth control, plus portrait lighting, and sensor-shift optical image stabilisation for the main camera. The camera also features a new 2cm macro mode using the ultra-wide camera.
Apple iPhone 13 Pro Cameras
Video recording is at a maximum resolution of 4K and 60fps, and the video mode also offers a cinematic mode for recording Full HD video at 30fps with a shallow depth of field, that can be changed after recording thanks to the camera’s depth mapping. There’s also slow-motion video recording with Full HD video at up to 240fps. The front camera also offers 4K video recording.
Whilst depth mapping is very impressive, the video specs don’t match other flagship smartphones in resolution, with Samsung and others offering 8K video recording, on the Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. Similarly the (single) telephoto camera does not match the dual telephoto cameras on offer from Samsung and others.
Despite this, we expect the iPhone 13 range to give excellent results, as previous iPhones have always impressed, giving both great results, as well as being user-friendly and easy to use.
The iPhone 13 comes with a dual-camera system with an ultra-wide 12MP f/2.4 camera and a wide-angle 12MP f/1.6 camera, but does not come with ProRAW support. It also misses out on the LiDAR scanner, and does not feature the night portrait mode, nor the depth mapping / cinematic video features.
The new Apple iPhone 13 range will be available from the 24th September, with pre-orders starting on the 17th September.
