iPhone 13 Pro – impressions of a photographer during a car shoot

When introducing the new iPhone, Apple praised the changes in the camera system and emphasized that there has never been as many innovations in any iPhone as in the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max. Let’s take a look at the technical details of the Camera system in the new iPhone 13 Pro and find out, above all, how the camera can hold its own in practice.

I myself (as a photographer) asked myself the question when introducing the new iPhone: “What can the iPhone camera do and, above all, how good is it compared to a real DSLR?” but in case of doubt the following applies:

“The best camera is the one you have with you”

And I don’t know about you guys, but I always have my smartphone with me wherever I go. First, let’s get down to the hard technical facts. The Pro models come with three cameras, with the lenses and the LED flash taking up more than the upper half of the space from the back. The lenses are an ultra wide angle lens (13mm) f / 1.8, a wide angle with 26mm and an open aperture of f / 1.5 and, last but not least, a telephoto lens with 77mm focal length and an f / 2.8 aperture.

The camera sensor seems to be a bit puny compared to other smartphones in this price range with 12 megapixels on the data sheet. From a photographic point of view, it makes perfect sense, since the individual pixels have more space on the sensor and are not so tightly “squeezed”. Especially in low light situations, when you are intoxicated you will notice a positive effect. Thus, in my opinion, the 12 megapixels are completely sufficient and also well chosen by Apple. To be honest, an iPhone picture is rarely printed out in large format. Another highlight of the camera system is the stabilized sensor.

This means that the sensor can compensate for a restless hand and ensures that the images are still sharp and not blurred even in poor light situations. This feature is also known from modern DSLM cameras. Thanks to this feature and the software-based image stabilization, you can even take long-term exposures by hand.

Area of ​​application camera iPhone 13 Pro

As I said, you always have your iPhone with you. So for me as a photographer, the camera claims to be the perfect all-rounder. As far as this point is concerned, the technical data sounds very promising. The data sheet always seems to have the right tool with you for most cases. But what does it look like in practice and, above all, how convincing are the photos that you can take with the iPhone in the end?

In order to investigate this, I decided to try a car photo shoot with only the iPhone. Fittingly, shortly after the iPhones were presented, Mark received a Porsche GT3 Touring for testing. You can find the article here.

Porsche PCM 6.0 test in the 911 GT3 Touring (mobilegeeks.de)

On the day that Mark got the car, we drove straight to Düsseldorf in the evening to test the car and the camera of the new iPhone Pro. Our actual plan was to go to a spot where we had already photographed a lot of cars. Unfortunately, the location was well attended that evening, so we decided to look for a new spot in the city center. When we arrived at Königsallee, we were disappointed to find that the whole city was apparently very busy that evening. We almost wanted to give up until I saw a chance for a mini-shoot on a side street. So I got out, took 10 photos and then the next car turned into the street. For a shoot that took a minute and was so spontaneous, I think the result is quite impressive.

If I had tried to take photos with my SLR in the same situation, I would probably not have even touched the shutter release button. Simply for the reason that I had to get the camera out of the trunk and the camera bag and possibly have to change a lens. During this period, the car would have been there a long time in the background.

Main photo shoot with the iPhone 13 Pro

After this mini night shoot, we set off for another shoot early in the morning the next day.

We chose a spot that we already knew well from other car photo shoots in order to avoid possible sources of interference and to have a reasonable comparison between a normal shoot, as we usually do with our cars. To do this, we drove to the media harbor in Düsseldorf. This location offers a lot of space, a calm background and also good lighting conditions. So ideal conditions for a photo shoot. The weather was rather cloudy and covered that morning. Personally, I like these weather conditions for photographing cars, because these conditions give you a soft and even light for taking photos. The problem of too much backlight, which the iPhone camera still cannot cope with so well, is also eliminated. In many situations, however, I noticed that the iPhone 13 pro has already gotten a lot better than the older models.

The biggest advantage of taking photos with the iPhone 13 pro is that you are extremely flexible with regard to the choice of optics and, above all, the ability to easily change the camera perspective. It is possible to take photos very close to the ground, even deeper than with my reflex camera, as it weighs much more and in my case still has a bulky battery grip. I also noticed very positively that you can work very flexibly. In one moment you can take solid pictures with the standard lens and in the other, thanks to the ultra wide-angle lens, you can take impressive detailed photos with the macro mode. At this point it should be said that the macro mode still has room for improvement. Occasionally the macro mode turned on even though I didn’t want to use it. I hope that an update will fix this problem in the future. For example, I could imagine that there is an extra button for macro mode to activate or deactivate it. What I particularly like about the three lenses is the macro lens (ultra wide angle) and the standard lens.

On the other hand, I hardly used the telephoto lens because I believe that the images are too blurry and the quality suffers from the lens. I would recommend using the standard lens and taking a few steps closer to the object to be photographed, this will give better results in my opinion. After the shoot in the Medienhafen we drove to a parking garage. The lighting conditions in this parking garage were again very good, which made it very easy for the iPhone and me to achieve very good results. During the shoot, I was impressed by how easy it was to change the basic settings on the iPhone and how natural the colors looked in the pictures.

Another thing that really impressed me was the ability to capture completely new perspectives with the iPhone. For example, I was able to take a photo of the rear diffuser, which I probably wouldn’t have gotten with my DSLR.

Another photo that would have been absolutely impossible with the DSLR is this one:

It shows the double wishbone of the Porsche GT3. Here I just held the iPhone in the wheel arch. This picture shows perfectly that the IPhone opens up completely new perspectives compared to the DSLR.

Here is a gallery with more pictures of the shoot:

Post processing pictures iPhone 13

I took all of my photos in RAW, which has the great advantage that you have a wider range of post-processing options later. Especially when it comes to the color spectrum, you notice a big difference to the JPEG format in post-processing. The only disadvantage of this format is that a photo is around 30MB in size. So if you plan to film and take photos with your iPhone a lot, I would recommend buying at least the 512GB version.

But I also recommend only using RAW if you are really serious about taking photos. In other words, you take the time to edit your best pictures afterwards.

For me personally there are two ways to edit pictures on the iPhone.

If it has to go quickly, there are only individual pictures and I do not have any demands for perfection on the picture to be processed, I use the editing program integrated in the photo app. This is solid and offers the fundamentally important editing functions, such as lights, brightness, contrasts, etc. With it, very good pictures can be achieved in some cases.

Below is a before and after picture. I think the result is solid and can be seen.

Post-processing in Adobe Lightroom iPhone 13

Like many photographers, I use Adobe Lightroom for post-processing in my professional photography and there has been a mobile app for several years now that can be used on the iPhone and iPad. I also used Lightroom to edit all the photos I took of the Porsche GT3 Touring. But why exactly and what is the advantage of Lightroom over the internal photo app?

The IPhone photo app offers quite similar features as Lightroom and is also structured similarly, but Lightroom goes much more in depth with the individual editing options and it is possible to dose the individual controls more finely.

Another advantage that defines a professional photo editing program is the possibility of making local “repairs” and adjustments in the image. So you can easily mark certain areas (for example the sky) in the picture with the help of your finger and adjust them separately in a new processing level.

Another feature that I miss in the photo app and which is a great advantage of Lightroom is the ability to copy settings and paste them into other images.

In other words, if you have similar images, i.e. with similar lighting conditions, you can edit an image perfectly, copy the settings from this image and paste them into the other images that are similar to the base. Minimal adjustments may have to be made to the images on which the settings have been inserted. So it is possible to edit many pictures in a short time.

If you enjoy taking photos and want to get even more out of your pictures, I recommend you just give Lightroom a try and find your own editing style in a playful way.

Here is a before and after image from Adobe Lightroom.

Images 01/02/03 Insert Lightroom presets

Conclusion iPhone 13 Pro

After a little more than a month of extensive camera testing of the I Phone 13 Pro, I can say that there were often moments when I was very impressed and amazed by the camera. In fact, so amazed that I didn’t just think once that the camera is actually too good for a smartphone camera.

The iPhone 13 Pro and the camera system offer such a wide range of applications in such a compact size and low weight that I have sometimes already asked myself whether I still need to carry my camera backpack with me on the next city trip and I have made the decision come, no I don’t need it! The pictures I took with the iPhone are just too convincing for that to be worthwhile to have the DSLR camera with me all day. In connection with Adobe Lightroom it is even possible to edit the pictures that you have taken directly on the iPhone and from anywhere in the world.

So I can safely say that this combination will often accompany me on trips, in everyday life and on photo shoots in the future.