iPhone eleven and 11 Pro Camera Review

Last Updated: April 13, 2021

We spent ii weeks reviewing the iPhone 11 and iPhone eleven pro camera in every possible setting. Here's what nosotros found in a comprehensive iPhone eleven camera review.

Photo Oct 02 3 37 12 PM

iPhone 11 and 11 Pro Camera Review

Putting the new iPhone 11 photographic camera through its paces in everyday life.

When the iPhone 11 launched, we all waited to see the updates to the cameras. While the hardware specs looked like subtle upgrades with promising capabilities, you never know what results the telephone will generate until you get your hands on it in the real world. When it comes to smartphone photography, software frequently makes a bigger departure than hardware, which ways prototype output is the upshot of much more than simply the lenses and sensors.

Now that we've had our hands on the iPhone xi Pro for a total calendar week, we can present our findings on the iPhone eleven Pro photographic camera. Spoiler alarm: information technology's better than the specs would suggest.

Shot on the main lens of the iPhone 11.

Tele Lens.

Ultra Wide Lens.

Software

As nosotros found in comparison with the iPhone XS Max, much of the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro'southward photographic camera magic seems to come from the updated software Apple put in the phones. The technical specs of the cameras are marginally better, but there's no massive boost in ISO (and no increase in megapixels) that would business relationship for the ameliorate results in nearly every status.

The iPhone 11 brings multiple intelligent shooting modes to the native camera app, and at that place's a real emphasis on seamless simplicity. Smart HDR and Night Fashion buttons are conspicuously absent from the master photographic camera interface, instead popping up only when the telephone determines weather are correct for these image-boosting computational photography modes. Night Manner fuses multiple second-long exposures to create incredible long exposure results including the offset convincing astrophotography coming out of smartphones. Smart HDR brings more dissimilarity and natural saturation to photos shot in annihilation less than bright daylight. And no thing the situation, the latest software brings a more pleasing and realistic rendering to most all images, regardless of the megapixel count or stated aperture of the photographic camera. Apple made a large bargain out of small changes similar font and "improved Smart HDR," but in this instance, it truly adds up to an improved user experience.

ISO, Low Light Sensitivity, and Shutter Speed

Fifty-fifty though the main cameras retain their 12 megapixel count, the sensors behind the cameras are all-new. The standard wide photographic camera's ISO sensitivity increased past 33% and the tele photographic camera'south discontinuity and ISO gains bring its light sensitivity up by a remarkable 42%. That means less blurry, less grainy photos with quicker shutter speeds that allow you to go abrupt photos indoors and other darker lighting atmospheric condition. As with the software improvements, it's non only that the sensors boast more on-paper light sensitivity, it'south how they use their capabilities to produce amend images than always. The new sensors and software mean there'southward less dissonance in images across the lighting and ISO range, which is an important distinction. Often more sensitive sensors lead to more grain even in bright atmospheric condition; in this case, images are precipitous in depression lite and bright daylight, with less noise than before. Put to the exam shooting RAW in the Moment Pro Camera App, the sensors prove that they're more than only fancy broiled-in editing software in the native camera app.

The tele lens in item demonstrates large advancements. The faster f/ii.0 aperture and massively improved light sensitivity mean it'due south a more useful lens in more situations than ever. Combined with a Moment Tele lens, the ultra-long optical zoom takes legitimately useable shots in low-light settings like concerts and sunset scenery photos.

All the sensor changes don't only bear on low-light and deadening-shutter situations. The principal wide angle photographic camera can now capture images at upwards to 1/125000th of a 2nd, which is faster than most every DSLR and mirrorless photographic camera on the market. It's also over 6 times faster than the iPhone XS. It's hard to say for sure what the possibilities are with such a blazing shutter speed, but we are interested in finding out just what sort of results tin exist generated past stopping time so aggressively.

With a diverseness of challenging lighting situations, the iPhone 11 Pro exposed this photo flawlessly--and automatically.

Hardware: The Cameras

We've already covered the many cameras on the new iPhone 11 lineup, simply it's worth reiterating the specs for those who are interested in the iPhone 11 and iPhone 11 Pro for its cameras. The phones feature iii or iv cameras, all of which deliver 12 megapixels:

  • 12-megapixel wide camera (26-mm, f1.viii, 6-element)
  • 12-megapixel ultra-wide camera (13-mm, f2.4, v-chemical element, 120-degree view)
  • 12-megapixel telephoto (52-mm, f2.0, 6-element) (Pro and Pro Max but)
  • 12-megapixel front-facing TrueDepth photographic camera with 4K video support and slo-mo selfies

Below, we will review our shooting experience with each camera and how it fits into the smartphone lensman'due south workflow.

Everyday snapshots are ridiculously good.

Standard (Wide) Photographic camera

This is the bread-and-butter of the iPhone xi lineup. The standard camera is what near of united states utilise in the near settings. As with all flagship smartphones, the iPhone 11 lineup still features the highest specs on its main camera, from shutter speed to aperture to ISO. The 26mm field-of-view is what we are accepted to seeing from today's smartphones, an incremental increment from the first-moving ridge smartphone focal length of 28mm.


This camera is remarkably sharp and responsive across shooting conditions, colors in the scene, and complex photo subjects like a dog running one way while people plow their heads a different direction. The native camera app in the 1x standard camera is remarkably fast at identifying faces and other major photograph subjects, wrapping them in unlike sized squares or rectangles that demonstrate they are in-focus and have been identified as subjects. The camera is also smarter than ever at exposing for the widest variety of the scene. A coffee in front of a brightly backlit window or a person in front of a sunset that volition become blown out without proper exposure are more immediately and appropriately exposed than ever before.

Apple spent a lot of fourth dimension telling usa that the latest updates to the iPhone were designed to make the photographic camera Pro-level without requiring pro-level inputs. In testing, nosotros constitute this to be truthful--with one major caveat: you don't have to buy the iPhone 11 Pro to get the best photographic camera. The chief photographic camera is still the one to employ whenever weather condition permit, and it's the same photographic camera across the iPhone 11 range.

Standard camera with Moment Tele.

Ultra Broad

The ultra wide is the new lens in the iPhone lineup, and it's nowadays on the iPhone eleven and iPhone 11 Pro. With a 13mm field-of-view, it is effectively half the zoom of the main camera, which is why Apple gave the camera interface a ".5x" button to instantly zoom out with. It'due south actually stunning to see simply how much more appears in the frame when you zoom out using the ultra-wide. For quick ecology captures and other situations that dictate capturing more than in the frame without bankroll up, the ultra wide is a neat pick.

However, making such a wide lens in such a compact course factor comes with its ain drawbacks. For one, the minimum focus distance is about iii-and-a-half anxiety, which means you can't actually use the wide for bringing lots into the frame when you lot're upwards close. The ultra wide also distorts images to almost superfish levels, which makes information technology less useful equally a serious photographic camera. Similarly, the f/2.4 aperture and simpler sensor lead to softness and depression-light struggles that make the camera'southward operation feel dated fifty-fifty though congenital in ultra broad lenses are a contempo trend.

Tele

The Tele is unique to the iPhone eleven Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max, and information technology's part of what led Apple to refer to this model as "Pro" for photographers. While this nomenclature is a flake misleading, we can confidently say that the tele lens on the iPhone 11 Pro is much ameliorate than the previous tele on the iPhone XS. The wider f/two.0 aperture and other improved sensor specs make for a dramatically upgraded camera experience and allow y'all to take "2x" zoom photos in a much wider diversity of conditions without the dramatic deposition in epitome quality that ofttimes accompanied zoomed-in photos on earlier iPhone models.

Standard wide lens.

Tele lens.

Ultra wide.

Shooting With the iPhone 11 Pro

Technical specs and software changes all promise big improvements in photo output and device performance, but neither tells the whole story. Apple is notorious for its "subtle" updates, some of which wow and some of which don't seem to brand much difference at all. In the case of the camera output and interface on the iPhone eleven and 11 Pro, the subtle changes conspire to make for a camera that performs dramatically meliorate in a far wider diversity of conditions. Even though there are very few manual controls in the native camera app, the iPhone eleven does a remarkable chore of "reading" the situation and yielding a photo output that is the nearly pleasing for the widest multifariousness of people. Increasingly, you don't even take to tap a subject to focus or betrayal the earlier shooting. Those magic squares and rectangles identify the subject field(s), lock on, focus, and expose while you lot tap away on the shutter button. It'due south almost too easy.

Indoors and Upwardly Close

I've always found that smartphone cameras accept their situations where they perform amazingly well, and plenty of situations where they don't perform and so well at all. The iPhone eleven camera system has increased the amount of situations where smartphone cameras perform admirably by quite a lot. Natural focus falloff and bokeh is improved even without resorting to Portrait Mode. Equally ever with minor sensors and prime lenses, subject-groundwork separation is key. Coffee portraits and other closeups with environmental context wait bully. I pushed the limits of the phone past exposing for background highlights while shooting a cappuccino in the near foreground and managed to get tons of latitude out of the shot. Whether I tried to confuse the camera or settled for simple tap to focus/expose and shoot, the results are truly impressive. Even seemingly well-lit java shops are often quite night by camera standards, and I've nevertheless to find a situation that flummoxes the iPhone 11 camera. And more than with any previous smartphone, I feel that many of these simple daily life snapshots are truly non compromised in comparing to an everyday carry sized camera.

Outdoors and Varied Atmospheric condition

The photos I shoot are most often outdoors and in varying weather condition. Mountains and forests present a number of challenges for camera sensors, from dappled lighting to extreme contrast and foreground-groundwork separation. Mural photos are one of those things that tin can either piece of work so well for smartphones or go out so much to be desired. The resolving power of the iPhone 11 Pro means that things similar fall leafage is now less of an impressionistic swirl of color and more of a disarming replacement for many digital cameras in many situations.

Portrait Mode

Portrait Manner is one of those features that straddles the line between completely obliterating the average user's need for a DSLR and coming across as a bit of a glitchy gimmick. The latest iteration is better than e'er, combining the single-lens Portrait Mode magic of the iPhone XR with the multiple focal lengths of the iPhone 11 Pro to offering a 1x and 2x Portrait Manner on the three-lens cameras. Across the iPhone model range and focal lengths, the software behind portrait style is meliorate than e'er. It remains frustratingly fickle to actuate, often prompting you to "place the subject field within 8 feet" without advising whether it thinks the subject is too shut or also far away. Sometimes, simply irresolute the angle of the phone activates or deactivates the background mistiness. And I managed to fob information technology a few times photographing my dog against complicated backgrounds. Just overall, it'southward faster, more intelligent, and more useful than ever. I oft find that the additional computation that seems to go into Portrait Fashion photos yields better results even when you don't desire much background blur. I often get into the mail service-processing and "increase the aperture" to make the blur more subtle, just because I like the way the phone seems to stack images and provide a bit more richness and depth.

The iPhone 11 Pro Portrait Mode does a remarkable job of resolving complex subjects against rich backgrounds.

The 1x Portrait Manner makes for much more interesting atmospheric portraits, fifty-fifty of things like bikes.

Almost Those Flares

Nosotros mentioned the somewhat excessive propensity to flare with the new triple-lens protruding housing on the 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max, and it remains truthful in more extensive testing. Even so, as with artfully flaring lenses (similar our own Wide lens!), yous tin can apply this feature to your reward in the right conditions. Using your hand as a makeshift lens hood, you can get the flaring under control and accept portraits that are merely uncannily skilful. Fifty-fifty with furry Hank confronting a leafy groundwork, 1x Portrait Manner and a touch of lens flare makes for a ridiculously artistic paradigm coming out of a smartphone.

Conclusion

Technical specs tell half the story, but as with any photographic camera from professional-level DSLRs to entry-level smartphones, the paradigm output and user experience thing more than numbers on a piece of paper. The iPhone 11 offers tangible improvements to the photographic camera experience across situations and users, from the coincidental native camera app snapshot to RAW images with manual settings in Moment Pro Camera.

After spending a couple of weeks with the iPhone 11 and relying on it every bit our master camera across a variety of conditions, nosotros can confidently say that it's the best overall smartphone photographic camera nonetheless. What it lacks in megapixels, it makes up for in sophistication and image output. If y'all view your phone as a photographic tool, the camera, screen, battery life, and speed of processing are impossible to beat. Stay tuned for the review of Moment lenses on the iPhone 11.

Are you on the list? You don't want to miss our weekly email with fresh, inspiring content.