Apple's 'iPhone 13 Pro' to gain new ultra wide camera with autofocus, says Kuo

Comments

• Reply 1 of 10

  JaiOh81 Posts: 60member

  June 28, 2021 11:41AM

  I hope he’s right but regardless I’ll be swapping my 12 Pro Max for the 13 Pro Max

  edited June 2021
• Reply 2 of 10

  mike1 Posts: 3,283member

  June 28, 2021 1:12PM

  Apple seems to spend a lot more time working with the wide and ultra-wide lenses.

  Might just be me, but I rarely, if ever, wished I was further away from a subject I was photographing. I usually want to be closer.

  Wish they would focus (pun definitely intended) on zoom capabilities. That was a key reason I picked up a 12 Pro last year.
  

  
• Reply 3 of 10

  charlesn Posts: 833member

  June 28, 2021 2:42PM

  mike1 said:

  Apple seems to spend a lot more time working with the wide and ultra-wide lenses.

  Might just be me, but I rarely, if ever, wished I was further away from a subject I was photographing. I usually want to be closer.

  Wish they would focus (pun definitely intended) on zoom capabilities. That was a key reason I picked up a 12 Pro last year.
  

  The wide lens (essentially the "normal" lens on iPhone) and ultra wide are the lenses people use most often, so Apple expends most of its efforts on those lenses. As for optical zoom, I don't understand why Apply lags so far behind Samsung here, maxing out at 2.5x in the 12 Pro Max vs 10x for Galaxy 21S Ultra. The main reason I don't use zoom more often on my 12 Pro Max is because it offers so little additional "reach," at least in terms of purely optical zoom. 

  
• Reply 4 of 10

  tmay Posts: 6,328member

  June 28, 2021 2:43PM

  mike1 said:

  Apple seems to spend a lot more time working with the wide and ultra-wide lenses.

  Might just be me, but I rarely, if ever, wished I was further away from a subject I was photographing. I usually want to be closer.

  Wish they would focus (pun definitely intended) on zoom capabilities. That was a key reason I picked up a 12 Pro last year.
  

  Apple is definitely rumored to have folded optic imaging on their roadmap, but you might be best waiting for the rumored 48 Mp imager in the iPhone 14. 
  
  I'm on an iPhone 7 Plus, and passed on upgrading to the 12, when I read rumors at that time of variable screen refresh that coming to the iPhone 13, so that's what I'm waiting for.
  
• Reply 5 of 10

  retrogusto Posts: 1,110member

  June 28, 2021 3:05PM

  mike1 said:

  Apple seems to spend a lot more time working with the wide and ultra-wide lenses.

  Might just be me, but I rarely, if ever, wished I was further away from a subject I was photographing. I usually want to be closer.

  Wish they would focus (pun definitely intended) on zoom capabilities. That was a key reason I picked up a 12 Pro last year.
  

  Agreed. The ultrawide seems like more of a gimmick, whereas the “telephoto” is only a 52mm equivalent in full-frame measurement, which means it’s not particularly tele except when compared to the other options—it shows things almost exactly as they appear in real life. I know I often see people pinching to zoom in when photographing, and most of the time I want to see things as they appear, or closer, and the tele is best for landscapes and portraits because it distorts the least. If the Mini came with a tele instead of an ultrawide, I would have bought it, but no tele was a dealbreaker for me. I figured they save the tele for the most expensive cameras because they want strong features to distinguish the top-tier models, but they can easily throw in an ultrawide as a nice-to-have feature that almost nobody is going to pay a few hundred extra for. 

  
• Reply 6 of 10

  tmay Posts: 6,328member

  June 28, 2021 3:21PM

  retrogusto said:

  mike1 said:

  Apple seems to spend a lot more time working with the wide and ultra-wide lenses.

  Might just be me, but I rarely, if ever, wished I was further away from a subject I was photographing. I usually want to be closer.

  Wish they would focus (pun definitely intended) on zoom capabilities. That was a key reason I picked up a 12 Pro last year.
  

  Agreed. The ultrawide seems like more of a gimmick, whereas the “telephoto” is only a 52mm equivalent in full-frame measurement, which means it’s not particularly tele except when compared to the other options—it shows things almost exactly as they appear in real life. I know I often see people pinching to zoom in when photographing, and most of the time I want to see things as they appear, or closer, and the tele is best for landscapes and portraits because it distorts the least. If the Mini came with a tele instead of an ultrawide, I would have bought it, but no tele was a dealbreaker for me. I figured they save the tele for the most expensive cameras because they want strong features to distinguish the top-tier models, but they can easily throw in an ultrawide as a nice-to-have feature that almost nobody is going to pay a few hundred extra for. 

  The limiting factor for a telephoto zoom lens is the stack height, and while it is probable that Apple can improve that 62 mm 2.5 x lens in the Pro Max to a somewhat longer focal length, the ideal solution will be folded optics. 
  
  I will certainly use the ultra wide angle lens, but you are correct that there will be post processing required to mitigate distortion.
• Reply 7 of 10

  OutdoorAppDeveloper Posts: 1,293member

  June 28, 2021 4:52PM

  An ultra zoom would be a far more exciting feature. The photos of the moon taken by Samsung's 100x zoom are impressive to say the least. The moon photos on the iPhone are just blurry little dots. Ultra zoom is useful for all kinds of things, not just the moon but it is the clearest example of why it's a great feature.

  
• Reply 8 of 10

  eriamjh Posts: 1,642member

  June 29, 2021 9:18AM

  OutdoorAppDeveloper said:

  An ultra zoom would be a far more exciting feature. The photos of the moon taken by Samsung's 100x zoom are impressive to say the least. The moon photos on the iPhone are just blurry little dots. Ultra zoom is useful for all kinds of things, not just the moon but it is the clearest example of why it's a great feature.

  I agree. I never say "I wish I could be further away for this picture".  
  
  It's always "I wish I could have gotten closer and captured more detail."

  
• Reply 9 of 10

  fastasleep Posts: 6,417member

  June 30, 2021 2:19AM

  retrogusto said:

  mike1 said:

  Apple seems to spend a lot more time working with the wide and ultra-wide lenses.

  Might just be me, but I rarely, if ever, wished I was further away from a subject I was photographing. I usually want to be closer.

  Wish they would focus (pun definitely intended) on zoom capabilities. That was a key reason I picked up a 12 Pro last year.
  

  Agreed. The ultrawide seems like more of a gimmick, whereas the “telephoto” is only a 52mm equivalent in full-frame measurement, which means it’s not particularly tele except when compared to the other options—it shows things almost exactly as they appear in real life. I know I often see people pinching to zoom in when photographing, and most of the time I want to see things as they appear, or closer, and the tele is best for landscapes and portraits because it distorts the least. If the Mini came with a tele instead of an ultrawide, I would have bought it, but no tele was a dealbreaker for me. I figured they save the tele for the most expensive cameras because they want strong features to distinguish the top-tier models, but they can easily throw in an ultrawide as a nice-to-have feature that almost nobody is going to pay a few hundred extra for. 

  I'm going to venture a guess that Apple knows fairly well how the vast majority of users (who are not "photographers" in any professional sense) use their iPhone cameras, and that far more people are taking pictures of people or groups of people or other "street photography" type scenarios in relatively close proximity where the ultrawide shines over using telephoto for landscapes and portraits, hence the choice of lenses for the lower end models. 
• Reply 10 of 10

  elijahg Posts: 2,759member

  July 1, 2021 12:07AM

  fastasleep said:

  retrogusto said:

  mike1 said:

  Apple seems to spend a lot more time working with the wide and ultra-wide lenses.

  Might just be me, but I rarely, if ever, wished I was further away from a subject I was photographing. I usually want to be closer.

  Wish they would focus (pun definitely intended) on zoom capabilities. That was a key reason I picked up a 12 Pro last year.
  

  Agreed. The ultrawide seems like more of a gimmick, whereas the “telephoto” is only a 52mm equivalent in full-frame measurement, which means it’s not particularly tele except when compared to the other options—it shows things almost exactly as they appear in real life. I know I often see people pinching to zoom in when photographing, and most of the time I want to see things as they appear, or closer, and the tele is best for landscapes and portraits because it distorts the least. If the Mini came with a tele instead of an ultrawide, I would have bought it, but no tele was a dealbreaker for me. I figured they save the tele for the most expensive cameras because they want strong features to distinguish the top-tier models, but they can easily throw in an ultrawide as a nice-to-have feature that almost nobody is going to pay a few hundred extra for. 

  I'm going to venture a guess that Apple knows fairly well how the vast majority of users (who are not "photographers" in any professional sense) use their iPhone cameras, and that far more people are taking pictures of people or groups of people or other "street photography" type scenarios in relatively close proximity where the ultrawide shines over using telephoto for landscapes and portraits, hence the choice of lenses for the lower end models. 

  If ultrawide is so popular, why is it Apple is one of the only vendors with an ultrawide lens; whilst many Android phones have way better than 2.5x zoom but lack ultrawide? iPhones have been stuck at 2x since 2017. As an enthusiast photographer myself, it must be 1000 to 1 the times I have wanted more zoom vs a wider lens.