Apple's Secret Upgrade to the iPhone 16 Pro Yields Incredible Results

Every year, I compare the new iPhone to my professional camera, the Canon R5. Last year's iPhone 15 Pro had lackluster results, but I can confidently say this year's iPhone 16 Pro has much more to talk about, including a "secret" update that completely blew me away.

When Apple added the ability to take 48-megapixel raw images with the iPhone 14 Pro, the jump from the previous year's iPhone 13 Pro was a huge leap. This year, they've added that same sensor to their ultra-wide camera, and we'll be putting it to the test in both landscape and macro scenarios where the results tell us quite a bit about the strengths of the new camera. We'll also be testing the main camera sensor in both sunset and blue hour light. Most importantly, we'll be putting their new JPEG XL compression to the test, which yields some absolutely incredible results.

Throughout these tests, I shot in raw on the Canon R5, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max. I only used the built-in camera app on the iPhones. This is also the most realistic in practice, with it being directly built into iOS. We'll be conducting two tests using the ultra-wide 13mm lenses on the iPhones with my Canon RF 14-35 f/4L set to 14mm to compare. All shots used a tripod but required different methods of handholding depending on the test. The ultra-wide being so wide means I couldn't use my previous methods and had to rest each phone on top of my Canon R5 with as minimal shake as possible.

All the images were edited using Lightroom Classic, except for using Photoshop to remove objects in the first ultra-wide angle test. The most genuine way to do this comparison was to edit my Canon R5 images first as if I were going to put them into my portfolio. Then, I edited the iPhone 16 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro images to match to the best of my ability. This is challenging because distortion between cameras is noticeably different, plus there were no color profiles for the iPhone 16 Pro at the time of comparison. The images you'll see at 100% zoom will be doubled for the iPhone 15 Pro images, considering it is only a 12 MP sensor. Throughout this article, I'll present images from "Camera A," "Camera B," and sometimes "Camera C." These will be mixed up throughout the test, but I challenge you to go through the images and see if you can guess which image is taken from each camera. The answers will be located at the end of the article.

Ultra-Wide Landscape Test

This was my first time doing an ultra-wide test, and conducting it was much harder than normal, specifically in getting all the images matched. With such large distortion, just composing a landscape image at this focal length without having to focus stack or use a foreground subject is difficult. The dynamic range in my scene was large enough that I clipped a few highlights in my Canon R5 image, but nothing these cameras can't handle. I purposely included a lot of elements within these images to test things such as distortion, edge sharpness, and detail recovery. An added test to this image is that in the original image, there are a few cars and people that I had to Photoshop out using generative (or content-aware) fill.

Before zooming in, the results are quite impressive. These images match quite well after my editing and do a great job of representing the scene. Distortion is well handled throughout all three images, and the trees look relatively straight (besides some that are not straight) without any need for non-profile correction.

After zooming in, the story really unfolds, and I suspect most of you will be able to tell which camera took each image. Keep in mind the phones always render better detail in the brightest parts of the image when using the quad Bayer 48 MP sensor, which is likely one reason why things change when we go to the edge of the frame.

Looking at the edges of the frame, the comparison becomes more nuanced. You'll likely be able to tell which camera is the Canon R5 but not necessarily which phone took which image. In my testing, I noticed one of the biggest impacts on image quality to the ultra-wide isn't necessarily the sensor capturing the image but the lens and its ability to render detail at the edges of the frame.

Main Camera Tests

I won't dwell too much on these tests because I don't think the main sensor or its technology has changed much (if at all) since the iPhone 14 Pro. However, those results were still incredible, and you'll get to see a bit of that here, at least in the sunset test.

These images, even after zooming into 100%, are really quite close, with the slight edge going to the Canon R5, but as I've tested in the past, you can print these iPhone images large without any issue.

The low light test is where the iPhones tend to fall apart, although this year's results are much worse than the test I have done in the past. I suspect either my focus wasn't sharp in this test, or more likely, there just wasn't nearly as much light within my scene as in years past, even though the settings match closely. This one should be easy for you to get!

JPEG XL Compression Test

Likely the biggest change for photographers this year was silently released by Apple. I can't find anything about their implementation of JPEG XL on the iPhone 16 Pro product page, nor was it talked about in their keynote. This is surprising to me because it's a very significant change for anyone shooting photography on their phone, as long as the new compression methods can retain detail.

JPEG XL is a new format standard that is both open-source and an update to the long overdue "JPEG" that we've been using for decades. JPEG XL supports 10-bit images, better compression sizes, and HDR tone mapping. There's a lot more than just that you can read about, but for this test, just know it's essentially an updated compression to take detailed images at smaller sizes. Apple has implemented it into their DNG RAW containers on the iPhone 16 Pro. These are the results.

These are all taken by the iPhone 16 Pro using the main camera sensor, and as much as I'd love to trick everyone into guessing which image is which compression level, I won't be doing that because I doubt you will ever be able to tell. Here are the images zoomed in to 600%.

These results are incredibly impressive to me. On my screen, even the JPEG XL lossy version of the file, which is a fourth of the file size, renders better results than the less compressed JPEG version. These results mean you can confidently take high-quality RAW images at a fraction of the size and worry less about filling up your phone's storage and more about capturing the images you want to. Why isn't this talked about more by Apple? I really don't understand. If you want to download these images for yourself, be sure to check out the video in the article!

Ultra-Wide Macro Test

The last test I wanted to do was a macro test, but couldn't quite put it together in a comparable way. The problem is that "macro mode" for the iPhones doesn't turn on until you get extremely close to an object. The minimum focusing distance of my Canon RF 14-35 f/4L is roughly 200 mm, regardless of the focal length set on the lens. Macro is typically done using telephoto lenses at 100 mm or more in most cases.

iPhone's implementation of this is to allow you to get extremely close, basically touching the subject. Because of these limitations, I created a more intimate comparison by comparing the ultra-wide camera using some leaves on a log. Not exactly a macro image, but a test worthwhile because the results tell a different story than our first ultra-wide test.

Before zooming in, you'll see the results are close. I was able to get these images to match really well, and while the shot isn't portfolio-worthy by any means, it's a great shot to test how much detail is rendered within the scene for each camera. Something to note about this specific test is that each camera was handheld, no tripod. Because the scene was so small, there was no way to mount my phones to my camera and take similar shots. Thus, I did my best to take the shots back to back, producing similar lighting results and matching them framing-wise.

Zooming in to the center of the image, you'll likely be able to tell which image is the iPhone 15 Pro, with its very sharpened look, but trying to determine which one is the Canon and which is the iPhone 16 Pro is not nearly as easy as it was for the first test.

Where the story gets more interesting is that the edges of the frame are rendered much differently than they were in our first test. I suspect this is because all the subject matter is much closer this time around, and the lighting within the image is far more flat rather than dynamic.

Results and Conclusion

The new ultra-wide sensor improves results in some cases but wasn't nearly as impressive as the results I got two years ago when they released the 48 MP sensor for the main camera. Plus, understanding how it renders images depending on the light is really important. From my brief testing, the biggest limitation is from the lens, rather than the sensor.

The biggest update for me personally this year is the new JPEG XL compression for RAW images. This means I can take far more RAW images than before without worrying about instantly filling up my phone or cloud storage. Even when increasing or decreasing the images by multiple stops of light, the data in the JPEG XL images is all there, even at 25% of the file size. Wildly impressive.

There's a lot more than just these image results this year as well, including the camera control button. My overall thoughts regarding the button are that I am reserving judgment. My style of shooting for these tests did not really utilize the new button, so I haven't had much time to daily-drive the iPhone 16 Pro. My brief thoughts are that its current implementation doesn't have a lot of use cases for me, but I could see it being useful over time, especially if they allow us to create more film recipes or something similar with different picture profiles.

Overall, this year definitely has much more to talk about than last year, but that isn't saying much. My thoughts on ultra-wide photography, honestly, are that the focal length is so niche that I'm rarely using it for anything professional. I'd love to test if I can focus stack some iPhone images for more ultra-wide scenes. The biggest update for me is the new RAW file formats, which I suspect will have a genuine impact on most people who use their phone as their main camera.

Answers:

• Ultra-Wide Landscape Test: A - iPhone 16 Pro, B - iPhone 15 Pro, C - Canon R5
• Sunset Test: A - Canon R5, B - iPhone 16 Pro
• Blue Hour Test: A - Canon R5, B - iPhone 16 Pro
• Ultra-Wide "Macro" Test: A - iPhone 15 Pro, B - Canon R5, C - iPhone 16 Pro