Apple has touted the addition of a variable aperture main camera on the new iPhone 18 Pro, claiming it delivers an improvement in low-light photos and video, and more control over depth of field when composing shots.
But with an almost identical design and spec sheet to the excellent iPhone 17 Pro, the iPhone 18 Pro begs the question: are these camera upgrades incremental, or worth the extra investment?
I received my iPhone 18 Pro review sample on September 21, two days before flying to New Zealand for a month-long trip to see family and friends. The country's dramatic scenery proved the perfect place to put the iPhone 18 Pro through its paces, and I ended up shooting more than 750 still images to see if Apple's much-hyped photography upgrades cut the mustard.
In addition to that variable aperture feature, Apple also added ‘pro’ manual controls to the iPhone 18 Pro's camera app for the first time, as well as more customization options for Photographic Styles, including a film effect and film grain effect.
Cumulatively, these granular control options are quite un-Apple, putting much more control in the hands of an iPhone photographer who might be used to a simpler point-and-shoot experience.
In doing so, Apple is asking for its latest iPhone to be held to a higher standard. And the bottom line is that, while the iPhone 18 Pro has the best and most versatile camera setup of any iPhone to date, there are more capable alternatives available just a short hop over the tech fence in Android land for platform-agnostic mobile photographers who want the very best available.
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