Halide Maker Does Deep Dive Into iPhone 16 Pro Camera

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Each year, the developers behind well-known iPhone camera app Halide take an in-depth look at the new camera technology that Apple has introduced. This year, Sebastiaan de With took more than 1,000 photos with the iPhone 16 Pro to examine changes to the camera setup, Apple's image processing, and more.

halide iphone 16 pro review
Apple added an upgraded 48-megapixel Ultra Wide camera to the ‌iPhone 16‌ Pro models this year. De With found it to take photos that have "impressive sharpness," but Apple did not add a larger sensor, so you're still not going to get the level of detail that you get with the Wide camera, which has a much bigger sensor.

For macro photos, the 48-megapixel lens "does wonders" for up-close shots. In prior iPhones, the Ultra Wide was cropping in from a 12-megapixel photo, which meant you ended up with an image that was approximately three megapixels. With the 48-megapixel lens, cropping in provides a true 12-megapixel image with more detail.

As for the Main camera, which Apple now calls the "Fusion" camera, it is using a sensor that is the same physical size as the ‌iPhone‌ 15 Pro sensor. While both the ‌iPhone 16‌ and ‌iPhone 16‌ Pro have a "Fusion" camera, the ‌iPhone 16‌ Pro has a larger and higher quality sensor. As with the ‌iPhone‌ 15 Pro, the ‌iPhone 16‌ Pro combines pixels and can produce better 24-megapixel and 12-megapixel images using that data, in addition to full 48-megapixel photos. Processing is about the same as last year, and there is little difference between images captured with the ‌iPhone‌ 15 Pro and the ‌iPhone 16‌ Pro with the standard Wide camera.

There are some notable internal changes that speed up image capture. The Apple Camera Interface provides faster sensor readout times for improvements to QuickTake. QuickTake also supports 4K Dolby Vision HDR, which is a noticeable improvement, according to de With. Capturing 48-megapixel ProRAW images is also a lot faster with quicker shutter speeds, and there's little delay.

For those interested in more info on everything new with the ‌iPhone 16‌ Pro related to photography, including Camera Control, the Telephoto lens, Night mode, and more, the full Halide review is well worth a read.

Tag: Halide

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Top Rated Comments

840quadra Avatar
840quadra
15 months ago

This year, the ultra-wide is the same physical size, but they crammed in more photo-sites. In ideal lighting, you can tell the difference. In low-light, the expected noise reduction will result in the some smudgier images you'd also get from the 15 Pro.
Actually the 15 pro does far better in low light with the ultra wide than does the 16 pro. I have noticed on many shots in various lower light situations. The 16 pro produces poor quality / muddy low light photos with the ultra wide camera.

I noticed it myself when taking some lower light photos for a "before remodel" documentation of my townhome. Having access to a 16 pro, figured I would use the ultra wide camera when I noticed blotchy photos with poor detail and sharpness. I searched the web and confirmed that Tony Northrup himself commented on it in his 16 pro video review.

Hopefully it is just a software thing that will be adjusted / fixed later!

These are crop images from 3 different phones taken handheld at as near as possible the same location with identical artifical lighting.

Full 15 pro Image JPG version for web.



15 Pro

Note the detail on the Microwave clock, The red growler you can see reasonable detail in the patterns around the logo. Same with the white growler to the far left.

Overall noise is acceptable in the image.


16 Pro

Note the lack of detail in the clock, lack of detail in the red & white growlers. Overall there is more noise and less detail. There is also a strange green tint to the overall image.


13 Pro

Image is darker than the newer phones, but decent detail if not slightly over-sharpened. This shot lacks any detail on the red and white growler on the left.

And before anyone asks, yes this is prior to remodel, and yes I can't wait to get rid of the popcorn ceiling ;) .

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Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
MGrayson3 Avatar
MGrayson3
15 months ago
A "48 MP" Bayer sensor isn't 48 MP, either. It has 24 million green pixels and 12 million each of blue and red. The data is interpolated into a 48 MP image, but it's just software.

As someone famously said "now we're just haggling over the price."

Sensor size is much more important than pixel count.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Jumpthesnark Avatar
Jumpthesnark
15 months ago
Thanks for the link. They did a great job in breaking it all down so photographers can understand what's under the hood. There's a lot more to the imaging system, lenses and camera control than I realized from reading here and elsewhere. And the photos are from places I am deeply familiar with and that I recognize instantly - they were even lucky enough to get a rainbow out at Joshua Tree! They did a real solid review, and (some here will be completely shocked to see) they discuss camera control with nuance and appreciation for how it actually works.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
gphome Avatar
gphome
15 months ago
It still irks me a bit that they are calling the main camera on the 16 pro a "fusion camera" as if its a new thing when it was on the 15 pro. I mean all corporations over market their stuff I get that, but its something else to take a feature from last years models and re-market it as something new! Not a fan of that Apple, and a bit misleading
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
tweaknmod Avatar
tweaknmod
15 months ago
As someone who goes out of their way to keep their tech clean: I hate that photo.

I can feel the grind of someone putting a cable in that charging port… &)@€>*#!!!
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)
frost_horizon Avatar
frost_horizon
15 months ago

From what I understand from a pro photographer who made this youtube video on this misleading topic, The 48MP is a lie, It's really still just 12 Megapixel.

Watch the video when you can.

That is correct. This is not real 48MP sensor. It is 12 MP sensor where each pixel is divided by 4 subpixels and those subpixels being upscaled to real pixels in the resulting image. This process is very doubtfully leads to any quality improvements, maybe in some rare cases, but definitely leads to more space taken by photos.

Even the newest mirrorless cameras typically have sensor about 24MP. It is meaningless to have 48MP in camera sensor smaller than the finger nail.

But the most stupid thing that is the iPhone saves even cropped photos as 48MP ones, wasting more space.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
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