Apple released the iPhone 15 series on September 12, 2023. The iPhone 15 Pro Max press release began, “Featuring a strong and lightweight titanium design with new contoured edges, a new Action button, powerful camera upgrades, and A17 Pro for next-level performance and mobile gaming.”
The iPhone 15 Pro Max was made with aerospace-grade titanium. Apple described the finish as “a strong and lightweight titanium design—a first for iPhone. This premium alloy—the same used in spacecraft—has one of the highest strength-to-weight ratios of any metal, making this Apple’s lightest Pro lineup ever.”
Apple described this iPhone’s camera capabilities:
“Powerful camera upgrades enable the equivalent of seven pro lenses with incredible image quality, including a more advanced 48MP Main camera system that now supports the new super-high-resolution 24MP default, the next generation of portraits with Focus and Depth Control, improvements to Night mode and Smart HDR, and an all-new 5x Telephoto camera exclusively on iPhone 15 Pro Max.”
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max were the first iPhones to include an Action button, an idea borrowed from the Apple Watch Ultra. According to the press release, the:
“Action button replaces the single-function switch used to toggle between ring and silent, offering additional options so users can choose between quickly accessing the camera or flashlight; activating Voice Memos, Focus, Translate, and accessibility features like Magnifier; or using Shortcuts for more options. A press-and-hold gesture with fine-tuned haptic feedback and visual cues in the Dynamic Island ensure the new button launches the intended action.”
The iPhone 15 Pro cameras were the first to be able to record spatial video for the Apple Vision Pro. The feature was added in an iOS 17.2 software update on December 11, 2023. In a press release, Apple announced:
“iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max users can now record spatial videos—a groundbreaking new capability that helps users capture life’s precious moments—and relive those memories on Apple Vision Pro, starting early next year.”
Because spatial video can only be viewed on Apple Vision Pro, spatial videos appear as 2D videos on all other devices. Apple explained:
“Spatial video capture on iPhone arrives ahead of the debut of Apple Vision Pro, so iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max users can begin capturing moments with family and friends to enjoy on Apple Vision Pro from day one.”
The iPhone 15 Pro Max was available in capacities of 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. This model has 256GB of storage. Its 6.7-inch (diagonal) Super Retina XDR OLED display had 2796×1290-pixel resolution at 460 ppi. The A17 Pro chip used a new 6‑core CPU, a new 6‑core GPU, and a new 16‑core Neural Engine.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max camera system was similar to the iPhone 15 Pro, but had a few enhanced features. Both cameras had:
48MP Main camera with ƒ/1.78 aperture
12MP Ultra Wide camera with ƒ/2.2 aperture
12MP 2x Telephoto camera with ƒ/1.78 aperture
The Pro Max model was enhanced with:
12MP 5x Telephoto camera with ƒ/2.8 aperture with tetraprism design (the Pro model had 3x Telephoto)
5x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 10x optical zoom range (the Pro model had a 3x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out; 6x optical zoom range)
Digital zoom up to 25x (the Pro model had up to 15x digital zoom)
The iPhone 15 Pro Max measured 3.02 inches wide, 6.29 inches high, and 0.32 inches thick. It weighed 7.81 ounces.
The iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max were available in “four stunning new finishes, including black titanium, white titanium, blue titanium, and natural titanium.” This example is an iPhone 15 Pro Max in blue titanium.
All iPhone 7 Plus models used a 5.5-inch widescreen multitouch Retina HD display at 1920×1080 (401 ppi). It used a taptic-engine that provided a clickless Home button. The iPhone 7 Plus used three cameras: two rear 12-megapixel cameras (one with a wide-angle and one with a 2x telephoto lens) and a front FaceTime HD camera (7 megapixels and 1080p).
The iPhone 7 Plus was originally available in five color options: silver (white glass front and a silver back), gold (white glass front and a gold back), rose gold (white glass front and a pink-tinted gold back), black (black glass front and a matte black back), and jet black (black glass front and a high-gloss anodized and polished black aluminum back). On March 21, 2017, Apple added a (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition with a white glass front and a red aluminum back.
The iPhone 7 Plus was splash, water, and dust-resistant (but not waterproof). It had a Lightning port, but lacked a headphone jack.
Internally, the iPhone 7 Plus used a 64-bit Apple A10 Fusion processor with four cores; 3 GB of RAM; and 32, 128, or 256 GB of storage. It supported 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, LTE (4G), and NFC for Apple Pay.
This iPhone 7 Plus is black with a black glass front and a matte black back. The model number is A1661, indicating that it functioned on the Verizon/Sprint network in the United States (and on cellular networks in Hong Kong and China).
The iPhone 7 had a 4.7-inch screen at 1334×750, also known by Apple as a Retina HD display. It had a front and back camera—the rear camera was 12-megapixel and the front camera was a 7-megapixel FaceTime HD camera with 1080p video.
The iPhone 7 was the first iPhone (along with the iPhone 7 Plus) to remove the 3.5mm headphone jack and only include a Lightning port for audio. Like the iPhone 6 and 6s before it, the iPhone 7 used a “clickless” Home button that clicks using an internal Taptic-engine-powered solid state component. Although the iPhone 7 was not water-proof, it was splash, water, and dust-resistant.
The iPhone 7 models came in several colors: silver (white glass front, silver back); gold (white glass front, gold back); rose gold (white glass front, pink-tinted gold back); black (black glass front, matte black back); jet black (black glass front, a high-gloss black anodized and polished black aluminum back); and later added a (PRODUCT)RED Special Edition (white glass front, red aluminum back).
The iPhone 7 used the Apple A10 Fusion processor, 2 GB of RAM, and was available with 32 GB, 128 GB, or 256 GB of flash storage.
The iPhone 5c was released along with the iPhone 5s as a lower-cost addition to the iPhone 5 family. Instead of using a an aluminum back, it used a polycarbonate shell in one of five colors: white, blue, green, yellow, and pink. All colors used a black glass front. This example is yellow.
The iPhone 5c used the same screen and cameras as the iPhone 5s released at the same time. Its touch screen was a Retina display (1136 x 640). The back camera was an 8-megapixel iSight camera (1080p), and the front camera was a 1.2-megapixel FaceTime camera (720p).
Internally, the iPhone 5c used an A6 processor at 1.3 GHz. Its internal storage included 8, 16, or 32 GB. Also like the iPhone 5s, wireless connections included 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, and 4G/LTE. Wired connections included the Lightning connector and a standard 3.5 mm headphone jack.
The similarities in features between the iPhone 5c and other iPhone 5 models—along with the iPhone 5c’s color choices and lower price—made this iPhone a popular choice.
This version of the Apple Studio Display was announced on March 8, 2022, along with the Mac Studio. Apple described the display: “A big, beautiful window into new worlds, Studio Display draws you in from the moment you turn it on. It has a slim, all-screen design. And it’s packed with a phenomenal set of features so everything you do springs to life with gorgeous color and spectacular detail.”
The 27-inch display featured a 5K Retina display at 5120×2880 resolution (218 pixels per inch), a built-in 12MP Ultra Wide camera, a high-fidelity six-speaker system, and was powered by the A13 Bionic chip.
This packaging was included inside the Apple Studio Display and housed an included all-black Thunderbolt cable and a selection of paperwork, including:
Regulatory notes and safety information (two 2-sided sheets)
A color booklet explaining the display’s basic features
Apple stickers (2 black stickers on one page)
Please note that the all-black Apple logo stickers were considered somewhat rare in 2022 and were general only included with “Pro” Apple hardware.
This cardboard package measures 95 x 165 x 37 mm. Inside, it includes a pocket for the paperwork and a unique, all-cardboard structure to neatly pack the 1-meter Thunderbolt braided black cable.
Shortly after I received my iPhone 13 Pro that included several new impressive camera upgrades, I wondered if the iPhone camera system had yet improved to the point that it could meet or exceed my Nikon D3500 for my Apple collection photography. While I am by no means a professional-level photographer, I have captured tens of thousands photos of my Apple hardware and collectibles over the past few years, and then edited and posted the results here on my Apple Collection website and blog.
Nearly all the photos on this website were captured with a Nikon D3500 with a basic lens. In fact, it took me about a year to learn how to use this camera—my first Digital SLR. I consulted several websites, a book, and YouTube videos to learn the many methods I now use regularly. I shoot the photos in my relatively low-cost home photography studio. While I originally set out to spend less than $100 on the lighting, backdrop, and table, I upgraded my lighting after two years to bring the total investment to about $150.
As an Apple Collector, I find the idea attractive to use an Apple camera to capture my Apple collection, but this has never been a goal. I decided to shoot photos of one collection item with both the iPhone 13 Pro and the Nikon D3500. The item selected was my recently purchased iPad Pro 11-inch with the M1 chip. The photo session includes the unboxing and the device.
Here’s what I learned.
Device Flexibility
At first, using the iPhone 13 Pro seemed more liberating than the Nikon D3500 because shooting with a phone seemed a bit more nimble than the larger camera. The iPhone screen is considerably larger than the Nikon’s viewfinder and display—and the iPhone shows a better representation of the subject in real time, especially when viewing the depth of field effects rendered with the iPhone 13 Pro.
I changed my mind when I started using the iPhone 13 Pro’s touted Macro features. As it turns out, when you get close to an object with the iPhone 13 Pro, the phone casts a shadow from the studio lights, making the photos nearly unusable without readjusting all my lighting. On the Nikon, I just twist to zoom the lens. While I generally don’t capture many Macro shots, I’d definitely consider adding more if it was easy to do so.
That being said, a few of the Macro shots I captured from the iPhone 13 Pro were impressive after a bit of light fussing.
Macro Lens Issue
When the initial reviews for the iPhone 13 Pro started getting posted, I read about one particular problem with incredulity—the issue of the iPhone camera switching frames when moving between the “regular” camera lens and the Macro lens. Very often, reviewers over-state issues as major problems that turn out to be very minor annoyances. Unfortunately, this is not one of those times.
Reviewer Raymond Wong for inputmag.com states the issue well: “…if you have your iPhone 13 Pro camera set to the 1x wide camera and place an object or a subject within 14 centimeters (5.5 inches) of it, the viewfinder will maintain the 1x framing/composition but use the ultrawide’s close-range autofocusing in tandem. You can literally see the viewfinder flicker/pop and ‘switch’ to this hybrid viewfinder.”
In my experience, Mr. Wong may have understated this problem. When I attempted to frame my Macro shots, I moved the lens to the 2cm zone where I expected the Macro feature to engage, and the iPhone not only reframed my shot, but when the lens changed, I was unable to re-locate the part of the subject I wanted to capture.
How does this happen, you might ask?
If you are shooting, for instance, the overall texture of a surface, getting 2cm from the surface and having the camera system switch to a different lens is not much an issue since the surface you are shooting covers the area still viewable by all the camera lenses. However, if you are attempting to photograph a detail that’s just a few millimeters wide, getting the lens within 2cm and then having then lens switch to a different lens that’s about 2cm away, you have now lost your subject! Most of the time, I couldn’t find the subject again—AND the lenses kept switching as I was attempting to re-locate the subject.
IT WAS INFURIATING, but Apple claims to have a fix for this coming.
Lighting
For both photo shoots, I used the exact same lighting comprised of my three lighting sources: two bright daylight CFL studio lighting bulbs behind a filter (the primary lighting source), two non-filtered daylight CFL studio lighting bulbs providing mostly indirect lighting on the white backdrop, and two LED bulbs providing a “wash” from below my white backdrop. I occasionally use these old LED Philips Hue bulbs to provide a color wash on the backdrop, but they mostly are set to a pure white to match the studio lighting bulbs.
Despite the fact that the lighting was exactly the same for both cameras, the iPhone 12 Pro photos delivered very inconsistent backgrounds compared to the Nikon D3500.
Far more concerning to me, the iPhone 13 Pro captured the light from the Hue bulbs differently in every shot. Although the bulbs are set to pure white, the iPhone somehow captured the cycling individual colors of the LED bulbs. One shot shows this in detail where the background shows color bands of yellow, pink, and blue in distinct stripes of color. At the same time, all lighting looked far darker on the iPhone 13 Pro.
When editing, the only way to remove these odd colorations was to either greatly desaturate the iPhone photos or switch them to black-and-white. To be fair, the Nikon is not blameless in casting odd colors. However, when the D3500 casts color, it is usually yellow—it has never delivered color bands or multiple color casts in the same photo.
Surprise and Delight
When I set out to try the iPhone 13 Pro camera, I was thinking about capturing photos, not using the other features offered by the iPhone 13 Pro and iOS 15. One particular feature truly surprised and delighted me: Live Text.
As I shot the packaging for the iPad 11 Pro, the iPhone’s new Live Text feature immediately “read” and displayed the text on the box—and interpreted the printed text perfectly. Since my collection includes mostly old Apple items that may no longer be online (or difficult to find), my sources are sometimes limited to what’s printed on a box or included in a manual. The iOS 15 Live Text feature allows me to capture a photo of any text and instantly have the ability to select, copy, and paste the text from my photo and use it in my accompanying blog post. Live Text will save countless hours in the future when photographing new items when only printed information is available.
Incidentally, Live Text also perfectly interpreted a printed serial number. I capture serial numbers for every item in my collection, and I dread doing so since they are generally difficult to read and prone to transposition errors. This will make the activity far more palatable.
I was not expecting to consider using Live Text, and the feature is exceptionally useful.
Photo Quality
When comparing the photos from the two camera devices, the overall photo quality is the most important aspect of this exercise. I am surprised by the significant differences between the devices.
While the iPhone 13 Pro photos show an impressive sharpness, that sharpness appears unnatural to me. All the photos appear to use a mechanical-looking pixel pattern compared to the more natural look of the Nikon. The unnatural pixelation is especially obvious in the Macro shots.
Overall, my opinion is that the Nikon D3500 photos look better than the iPhone 13 Pro photos.
Verdict
I will continue to use the Nikon D3500 for my primary Apple Collection photography.
That being said, I will definitely reach for the iPhone 13 Pro when I want a Macro shot to add to my blog post. Similarly, when shooting older product packaging and/or manuals, I will use the iPhone’s Live Text features to grab the text so I don’t have to retype it.
Overall, this verdict is neither surprising nor disappointing to me. I have always had a “pick the right tool for the job” mindset, and this situation is no different.
To see the “official” photo shoot for the iPad Pro 11 (2021) in my collection, please see this post. The photos I captured with the iPhone 13 Pro are shown below in this post.
Thanks
Sincere thanks to my friend Sid for suggesting this comparison! I learned a lot here.
The iPod nano Generation 5 was notable because of its impressive color choices. This model was available in nine colors: (PRODUCT) RED Special Edition, pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, silver, and black. The finish for the generation 5 nano is glossy and the case is made of aluminum and glass. It was available with 8 GB or 16 GB of flash memory (2,000 or 4,000 songs).
This iPod nano also features a video camera with an integrated microphone and speaker that takes advantage of its high-quality 2.2″ TFT display (240×376, 204 ppi). The video quality is H.264 VGA 640×480 at 30 FPS with AAC audio, but it cannot take still photographs. This iPod also has a built-in FM Radio with “live pause,” allowing pause and rewind up to 15 minutes.
This example is black, although this shade of “black” is reminiscent of the “space gray” colors Apple would later introduce.
The iPod touch Generation 6 had a 4-inch Retina display at 1136 x 640 (326 ppi). It used a rear 8-megapixel iSight camera capable of recording 1080p video, and a front 1.2-megapixel FaceTime camera capable of recording 720p video. Wireless connectivity included Bluetooth 4.1 and 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi.
Externally, the iPod touch Generation 6 is very similar to the Generation 5 model, but it is quite different inside. The Generation 6 uses a dual-core A8 processor, 1 GB RAM, and was available with storage of 16, 32, 64, or 128 GB.
Six different colors were available, including space gray (black glass front with dark gray aluminum back), gold (white glass front with gold aluminum back), silver (white glass front with silver aluminum back), hot pink (white glass front with bright pink aluminum back), blue (white glass front with blue aluminum back), and red (white glass front with red aluminum back). The red version was a (PRODUCT)RED offering.
According to Apple, the Apple iPad Camera Connection Kit supports “standard photo formats, including JPEG and RAW, along with SD and HD video formats, including H.264 and MPEG-4.” This connection kit is compatible with iPad Generations 1 –3 (using the 30-pin connector).
The kit consists of two adapters, the Camera Connector USB interface (plug it into the dock connector port on your iPad, then attach your digital camera or iPhone using a USB cable); and the SD Card Reader (import photos and videos directly from your camera’s SD card, connect it to your iPad, then insert your digital camera’s SD card into the slot).
I have both adapters and the original packaging in my collection.
The QuickTake AC Adapter for QuickTake 200 was sold separately from the QuickTake 200. According to the product box, this adapter “Lets you run your QuickTake 200 digital camera using AC power.”
I remember using the QuickTake AC Adapter primarily for school projects that involved the QuickTake 200 on a tripod and taking photos of many students or student work examples in succession.
