The iPhone 12 Pro Camera Review | Still Impressive 3 Years Later...

More shine, more smarts, and less grain.

While the 5G may not seem directly correlated to the stunning iPhone 12 camera, think again. Its accelerated wireless speeds and better performance on congested networks work hand-in-hand with the apps you’ll use to edit photos and piece together short films. Not to mention the huge downloadable files you’ll use on the go or for steaming your favorite Youtube video with high-quality HDR. Kick out the lag, invite in the swift. iPhone 12 Pro also has the most 5G bands of any smartphone on the market so that you can receive more 5G in harder-to-reach places.

The A14 Bionic chip, the first of its kind, boasts a 5-nanometer chip with advanced features that are literally only atoms-wide. Forty percent of more transistors drive the speeds up dramatically, increasing efficiency for better battery life. The chip encourages Smart HDR3, as well, which optimizes the dynamic range of photos to identify skies and proper skin tones. A new ISP powers the Dolby Vision recording, something we’re pretty stoked about, which no other pro movie camera on any other phone can do.

Night mode is better than ever. It comes on both the Wide and Ultra Wide rear cameras, making low light shots and landscapes incredibly bright with crisp detail retention. LiDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, will help AR applications accurately detect objects, spaces, and depth range. The camera(s) will also use LiDAR to improve its autofocus with photos and video under such low-light conditions. This will even allow Portrait Mode within Night Mode, letting in 27 percent more light for great detail and sharper focus. However, if you’re not constantly taking portraits in the dark, or are particularly fond of low-light capture scenes, then the LiDAR sensor might not reign superior upon preference.

Deep Fusion, which will optimate the noise level reduction on pictures, will now be on every camera — including the telephoto ones on the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max. All 12 models can record in Dolby Vision HDR, automatically color grading your videos in the Dolby Vision standard. After testing this feature under multiple scenarios, we found that it was a fantastic addition to Apple’s updates, as we feared it would be a gimmicky feature. The Pro models support Dolby Vision HDR at all settings up to 4K 6-fps, all happening within the Photos app, which is pretty amazing.

Though, don’t get me wrong. I’m not surprised that Apple implemented an HDR feature into video, as most home TVs and streaming services offer HDR vision for our viewing pleasure. One important note to make, as well, is that the Dolby Vision HDR video feature is more or less automatic (and NOT buried in your video settings) is a big deal. It’s the way of the future and we’re stoked to get a glimpse of what that looks like from here forward. It can only get better and better every year; we’re already dreaming of what it’ll look like down the line.

These phones will also be able to record a special raw photo file Apple coins, “ProRaw”; honing in on the idea of an image with raw flexibility but with the smarts of computational imagery.

We genuinely believed the iPhone 11 cameras were a gorgeous testament to what could be made on the fly, and the 12 Pro is a solid step forward. Although some critics of the tech universe say these changes are minor, pixel peepers might beg to differ. The cameras are faster, which give them the reputation of being better under low light, computational photographer for better-looking photos. Apple, every year, seems to gravitate towards their desire for contrast, which allows the highlights to be highlights and shadows to be shadowed (a look most people on the team are personally fond of).

That said, the main Wide camera is by far the best on the phone. While the Ultra-Wide distorts a little less of the edges when compared to the iPhone 11 generation, I’d still personally stick to the main Wide (or throw on a Moment Lens to make that bad boy a juicer!).

This camera is by far the most versatile and intuitive camera you can get on the market today.

For Video…

Across the iPhone 12’s and iPhone 12 Pro, Apple heavily focused on the video quality improvements from the previous models. The iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 mini offer a standard focal length (26mm) and an ultra-wide focal length (13mm). The iPhone 12 Pro offers a standard focal length (26mm), an ultra-wide focal length (13mm), and a telephoto focal length (58mm). While the iPhone 12 pro-Max offers the same wide and ultra-wide cameras, the telephoto lens is slightly longer at 65mm. Faster apertures in all cameras at a welcome change and improved Optical image stabilization. In the iPhone 12 Pro max, Apple has introduced sensor-shift stabilization in the wide lens. The difference is noticeable when capturing video.

But the biggest news is the introduction of HDR video recording with Dolby Vision up to 30 fps in the iPhone 12’s and HDR video recording with Dolby Vision up to 60 fps in the iPhone 12 pros. This allows 4k 10bit recording at 4:2:0, capturing an incredible range of color and depth. The best way to view this new HDR video is on an HDR display - which all iPhone 12’s and iPhone 12 pros can do. Outside of HDR, the Standard dynamic range has improved with better colors and details. Overall the improvements for video are huge if you upgrade from an iPhone X or later.

In Detail:

The TrueDepth camera is nothing shy of extraordinary. With slo-mo video support for 1080p at 120fps, you can adequately capture your dog running through a pile of mud like a champ. Timelapse comes with stabilization, even in Night Mode, and an extended dynamic range for up to 30fps. It is revolutionary and equipped with wide color capture for photos and Live Photos, lens correction, retina flash, auto image stabilization, and burst mode.